I have been breaking in a new camera, testing it out on one of my favourite subjects before a fall trip. These little hummingbirds are endlessly fascinating to watch. Energetic and feisty, and packed with quite a bit of attitude inside such a tiny package. I watch and photograph these little birds most of the summer.  Photographing them at very close range I have come to able to identify most of them as they are all slightly different in size and markings.

The new camera is a Sony A7R2. This is Sony’s latest model and is 42.4 megapixel mirrorless camera. Lots of very positive reviews so I thought I would try one out. I have basically been an Olympus user all my life and use a pair of Olympus OMD EM1 cameras.

What impressed me most about this particular camera is the fact that is very similar in size and layout to my Olympus cameras and the fact that I can customize the buttons so it will work in almost the same way as the Olympus camera. Bonus is that I can use all of my older Olympus OM lenses on it with an adapter (manual focus though).

Initial impressions are that the Sony engineers have really done their homework on this one, very impressed so far. Will be putting it through its paces in Northern Ontario shortly.

Here is a few on the first results. For those that are interested these are the full resolution images just slightly cropped from 2:3 to 4:3 format (Takes a little off the sides to better fit paper sizes for printing)

The thing about a 42.4mp camera is the incredible amount of detail it is capable of capturing. These pictures are taken in my backyard where I can control the lighting and background better. It is hard to tell from images resized for the web but on the computer at 100% I can see the back of my house and count the floorboards on my deck – in the reflection of that tiny little eye! Awesome!

Juvenile male ruby throated hummingbird

Juvenile male ruby throated hummingbird, first red gorget (throat) feather showing

Juvenile male ruby throated hummingbird, stretching

Juvenile male ruby throated hummingbird, streching the other way

Juvenile male ruby throated hummingbird,
yoga position

Juvenile male ruby throated hummingbird, resting after all that stretching

I think the little guy stretching must have spent some time outside someones window watching yoga lessons (not mine though). Most of the hummingbirds I have seen do this stretching do it very quickly like everything else they do. This little fellow was working at a very slow and relaxed pace.

Gary