Rose Street multi-storey car park, Inverness, at dusk.

I confess to having taken this shot, or very similar, numerous times in the past. Some were much better than this too! I like using this scene at roughly this time of day night, for testing out different cameras and lenses. Tonight a camera was being tested with a known lens.

Results: Well it's a superb camera model, which gives great results, but there are a couple of issues that neither I or the shop were made aware of by the previous owner. We were aware of the obvious damage to a top LCD cover, and I wasn't too bothered by that (especially as it knocked a fair whack off the price!). Have discovered that there's a "hot pixel" that shows up as a red dot in many pictures, always at the same spot. I could work around that. But the other issue is more problematic, and may be related to the same impact that damaged that cover.

There's a distinct shutter lag (time between you pressing the shutter release button, and the picture being taken). No problem with the exposure time. But the slightly longer than expected lag would be obvious to anyone familiar with DSLR's. The time lag should be barely noticeable, and that isn't the case. Even the humble D40 was much better.

It does mean that shots would be missed. I took three quick shots of a work colleague today, and in all of them he blinked. Normally the camera would react faster than the subject would to the noise coming from the camera. I suspect he heard the noise of the mirror lifting, and in the extended pause between then and the shutter opening, he started to blink. There was a clock in the back ground, and you could see that there was only two seconds between the last shots. And as said, he blinked in both.

For any kind of action photography, you're not going to be able to catch that vital moment. So I'm afraid it's back to the shop.


[Edit: Blipped here [url=http://www.blipfoto.com/entry/1062398]once before[/url].]