The a1 Has Arrived! - 11 Apr 2021
I placed my order for the Sony Alpha a1 camera just minutes after B&H Photo opened up their order lines on Jan 27th. When the first shipment of cameras came in March 9th I was disappointed that I was still on backorder. Fast forward to April 9th when the second shipment of cameras came in; I got the biweekly message saying that my order was still on backorder. But, later in the day I received a note that the camera and accessories were shipped! It will be here Saturday, April 10th!
Saturday came, and at the end of the day I got a package, but it was only the spare battery. No camera. A check of FedEx tracking had the camera still in New Jersey. Of course, this gets the negative thoughts going; is the camera really on its way? Was it ever shipped? Is it stolen? I'd have to have faith that it was on its way. Sunday morning confirmed that it was on the truck and out for delivery by day's end. It showed up at noon.
I spent the afternoon charging batteries and setting up menus. The 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS lens and 1.4TC will live on it, along w/ the battery grip I kept from the Sony a7RIV that I sold. By 6 pm I was in pretty good shape w/ custom keys and menus set up and memory recall buttons set. It had been raining all afternoon so I'd have to wait for an opportunity to try it out.
Luckily, Yara was sitting in the sunroom just as the Sun broke through temporarily, and I was able to fire a burst at her. Animal Eye AF worked just fine, and I managed several sharp images at 1/80 sec even though I was shooting at 400mm.
I then tried Bird Eye AF out the back window. It worked great on the American Robins, Northern Cardinals and House Finches, and not so good on the Dark-eyed Juncos. But good enough for extremely sharp images!
Now to wait for the weather to clear...
Brownton Abbey, 26340 Higgins Way, Wayne, Michigan, US
Apr 11, 2021 6:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Protocol: Stationary
Checklist Comments: Yard
5 species
American Robin (Turdus migratorius) 1
House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) 4
House Finch (Haemorhous mexicanus) 6
Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis) 2
Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) 2
View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/checklist/S1
This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (https://ebird.org/home)
