I am going to assume you have taken a few minutes to look over an
α700 ... and if you have not ... and you are reading this, it may be time to do so ... because you are definitely thinking about it.
Everyone seems so worried about the "new" one coming down the pike, people tend to forget just how unique the
α700 truly has been. Even today, by most standards, it is an awesome tool for taking images.
Using
MR Mode (Memory Recall), you can instantly setup the camera for roughly everything you need for a specific type of shot, in MANUAL or whatever. While there are the "Creative Modes" (general scene specific variations of the AUTO feature), Memory Recall allows you to be completely in charge of how the camera "initially" sets up.
This is my high speed panel for "airshows" ... and does a pretty good job on a sunny day. You can tweak as you wish, but when you need a fast setup, this has proven to be a winner. 1/2000 may even be slow for some shots ... the beauty of the MR-settings is that it gets your rig close, with one click of the Mode knob.
The "Just try and get past me" settings
Try it out and see what it can do for you.
One of the other truly special capabilities of the
α700 is sculpting around the noise curse ... by reducing
this attribute and increasing
that attribute (sharpness, contrast, brightness, zone
<- see manual) ... you can take a lot of noise out of High-ISO shots. It's not prefect, but a heck of a lot better than the default. It tends to reduce the saturation, but you can easily add that back in post processing w/o the sensor noise.
Indoors, you should see significant results at
ISO-3200 ... try the default
AdobeRGB settings and then this modification in the custom. I added
DRO Lvl 5 to the shot to pull up all ambient light ... it makes a tremendous difference in the overall exposure, and again, an
α700/
α900 exclusive feature and always subject to your taste and lighting.. Also,
DMF is employed here, being a much slower shot and probably subject to some manual focus changes ... after autofocus is achieved, e.g., allowing management of a shallow Depth of Field.
The "Low-light Imaging Machine" settings
Again, if you shoot
RAW ... you can pretty much ignore all of this, because you could have just half-the-camera the
α700 is and RAW would yield the same result. In RAW, no serious processing is taking place in the
α700 camera, but ONLY in your RAW software. These settings make use of the tools already built into the
α700 camera's software processing for creating extraordinary JPEGs. JPEGs straight from the
α700 can be transferred immediately and, quite obviously, that can be a real time saver.
Let me tell you this ... you won't find this on an intro-DSLR.
And yes, you need to have access to these features to truly appreciate them. Although, using the intro-DSLR ... you should kind of get the feeling of what they cannot do, directly through your image results. That is where the
α700 camera steps up, excels and just fills in the gaps in your photography.
Now, go get one and learn the good stuff.