Dyxum Outing 2007-03-25

First group outing with Dyxum forum members, weather wasn't brilliant but it was a great day for me as an amateur photographer to meet the pros for their valuable sharing.

From left to right: Rob (Roby), Chris (dCap), Anthony (Arpictures), Ian (IanMiddy), me, Bob (BobJanesSE2), Mark (mtiller) and Craig (cjc181166)

We met at wobbly bridge and as usual I was the last to arrive, a bad habit that I must correct. I was shy to open my camera bag when I saw what they brought for the outing, especially Mark, look at the Lowe Pro trolley bag that he carried, that's thousands pounds of equipment in it.

Dyxum is the forum I feel more comfortable with. It's the home for the 'minority' Minolta/Sony group, as else where the C&N often ignore the minority. These guys are really great and are generous enough to open my eye sight, letting me touching and try out some precious lenses.

We walked by the north bank of River Thames, although it was a bloody cold day but I was really excited, didn't take a lot of pictures (I visit River Thames very often so I don't really care), all I did was talking to them and finding info on which is the next lens for me to add.

Photo courtesy from Craig, using dCap's 16mm fish eye, can't imagine how it performs on a full frame camera.

HMS Belfast & Tower Bridge on a cloudy day.

Knight at Southwark Cathedral.

Thanks to Anthony for lending me his Minolta 5600HS flash and be my model for this shot. That helps me to set my mind to go for Sony HVL-F56-AM flash, hopefully before end of the year. He also lend me his Sigma 28-70/2.8 to play for a while.

It wasn't a great idea to bring Mark out, poisoning us with his bag of goods. He has done some shooting for Sony UK and Sony gave him a 70-200/2.8 SSM and a 100/2.8D macro as reward! Damn the RRP for the SSM in KL was RM10,888. He lend it to me and it was amazingly sharp and smooth in focusing. I will not think about it until I start taking better pictures with my current lenses.

Incredibly sharp lens - if you think the picture taken was not nice, it wasn't the lens fault, it was mine.

My first encounter with the G lens - the dream for every KM/Sony users

It's a beauty attached to the Sony Alpha.

It was really a delightful day and hope there will be more outing in near future.