Marc, hopefully a few little comments that might help...
Damed battery door doesn't work. Have to put a toothpick in the top slot to make it release. I'll have figure out how to make it work properly. Hope the rest of the camera is made better.
-- That sounds like it needs to go back. One index finger flick with a nail towards the back of the camera should open the door then a blue latch in the opposite direction should release the battery.
I'm actually going to have to read the manual so I can shut off the video game airport landing graphic in the viewfinder.
-- Press 'disp' with your eye to the viewfinder to cycle through the standard options
Custom button can't be assigned for flash comp ... unless I missed it. That was one of the great features of the A900 ... no fiddling around with tiny buttons on the speed-light.
-- Not directly related but in the menu settings 3.5 (3 being 3rd tab) there's an option Exp Comp Set. By default it adjusts ambient and flash. I found this confusing and set it to ambient only.
-- Menu 3.4 change the Cutom Button to Flash Comp, now the button left and below the hot shoe allows flash comp adjustment. Not sure if other buttons can do it.
Still do NOT like the frozen image in the viewfinder after taking a shot. It's fine when on the LCD.
-- I think there's a bug here and perhaps some feature requests. I turn off auto-preview in some cases, but its clunky to keep doing that. One issue I have is the AF/MF button, I often grab manual when shooting portraits with shallow DoF and it all gets hung up, i think because that button is also zoom in preview mode. I find I have to release the shutter AND the AF/MF button to grab the next shot, whch immediately re-focuses. I think this aspect of the A99 is going to have the most discussion going forward whilst we figure out Sony's intention and hopefully get some improvements in firmware updates
Size is just small enough ... any smaller and I'd send it back ... the camera has to be comfortable in hand when shooting for 8 hours straight.
-- Yes, it's a comfy camera. I really like the way my fingers hook into the grip, with a flash and a heavy 24-70/2.8 it's bearable (i don't shoot anywhere near as long as you have to). I think for my needs I can live without the bulk of an extra batter grip.
Thanks for taking the time to share the knowledge.
I really do not want to send it back for the battery door ... I'll inspect it closely to see what's up. Maybe just a tiny burr on the little latch which emory board can fix in a jiffy.
Yeah, I already set the exposure comp to separate them just like with my other cameras. I'll look at that custom button, I must have missed the flash comp listing in the menu. However, I did try the 600 flash and it is really cool. The video lights will be useful for a touch of fill when shooting ambient. It has a really simple way to comp the flash also, and the setting graph is really large on the flash LCD.
The frozen viewfinder image is a real issue for decisive moment shooters like me. I just tried shooting some Deer bedding down in the snow with a 70-200 and it was not good. The image freezes in the viewfinder, and although you can release it, by then the subject has moved causing a startling jump frame effect. This was the same in the A55 and A77, and why I'm not a fan of this aspect of the EFV in the A99.
Maybe there already is a way to do this, but I think you should be able to leave the viewfinder on continuous viewing, while the LCD shows the captured image like other cameras. Seems possible.
I did experiment with the panoramic feature which is always fascinating ... but got inconsistent results with continuous auto focusing. I shot a few panos with manual focus and peaking ... and focus pulled as I sweep the camera across the scene ... I'll need to study that more. The Pano are pretty big.
I'm posting one Pano as a Christmas e-card to friends ... the first real shot I did with the A99.
-Marc
