The Quest for the Mythical Sony 500mm Mirror Lens

I'm a fan and user of the Sony Alpha line of DSLR cameras and over the years I have wanted the SAL-500F80 , Sony's 500mm Super Telephoto lens. Unfortunately, Sony discontinued the lens and I felt that I should get it before its gone so my quest began! At first I looked at Sony's site and it was a no go. Next up, Amazon, right? Nope! After searching the nooks and crannys of the internet, I found it on of all places, Dell!!! And so, I ordered it! End of story, right? Wrong! I received an email within days of placing the order telling me the ship date was being pushed back. Hmmmmm! The reason I ordered it through Dell was that it was orderable! I know that's not a word, (spell check told me so) but, it was! I figured that Dell, Mighty Dell, one of the lords of the industry, would save me from my total inability to decision this process and order the damn lens when it was available! The Dell website showed it as available and so I ordered it. Or so I thought! In the Dell parlance, my order status has been "in production". In the meantime, I found the same lens on another site for $8 more with 2 listed as being in stock. The tension grew as I continued to check for emails for shipped dates and nothing occurred. Finally, when I clicked on the "order number" for "order status" and got error messages, that was it! I canceled the order and went through the other guy.

The moral of this story is that Dell, the huge computer company doesn't seem to be able to use computers as well as the other company's to inform me or anyone else that the item in question is not in stock! The company that makes computers can't use them properly! What a hoot! Sony knew they didn't have the lens. Amazon knew! The little company did know they had 2 and then 1!

And then again, NO!  The little company, Simply Electronics, seems to have had a hiccup them selves. It's March 30th and they sent me an email stating that
"Upon packing your order, we had discovered that our shipment of Sony SAL-500 500mm F8 Reflex Super Telephoto Lens was damaged, and therefore had to be returned.
Unfortunately, the replacements are not expected to arrive within any short period of time."
 Well! I'm screwed again! What galls me is the stupid excuses and the inaccurate databases showing they have an item they clearly do not have! I know the lens is discontinued. I'm not trying to pull some stunt on these guys!
I remember some years back(okay, a lot of years back) when I called and went from store to store searching for the missing original Transformers(the constructicons, they were green and there were 6 as I remember) for my son for Christmas and this is the same type for thing only updated but with no success because I'm striking out!

Rolling Hills Asylum Ghost Hunt - November 6, 2010

Yeah, yesterday, Mary and I went on our first and maybe not our last, over night ghost hunt. This occurred at the Rolling Hills Asylum in New York State. We are definitively not ghost hunters, more like disbelievers, but, we did have a good time, knocking around with the other participants. Everybody else was well equipped with "state of the art" tools and we, sadly, had none. We had flashlights, they had headlights and flashlights and glow sticks, Get it! . My brand new Sony A55 SLT barely coped with the extreme conditions we encountered, while the true ghost hunters pranced around with point and shoots capturing all manner of ethereal evidence of purported ghosts and or spirits and whatnot. To bad, so sad! We did indeed capture some intriguing pictures and video that you can view and use to make your own determinations. Mainly, the pictures and video suck, and we know this. However, just like anything else, you fall back and regroup. We now know that we need better equipment and supplies to do this properly.

Sonys A55 SLT

I've been testing one of Sony's newest cameras, the Sony Alpha SLTA55V DSLR and I must say that I'm impressed with this camera and it's sister, the Sony Alpha SLTA33 DSLR (there's not much difference between the 2, besides $100, GPS and some video capabilities). As I own Sony's first DSLR, the Sony Alpha A100 , the Sony Alpha A350 and the venerable Sony Alpha A700 , I think my opinion on Sony DSLR's carries a little weight. Lets clear one thing up: since this camera lacks a mirror some people will say it's not a DSLR. I don't care because light still reaches the sensor (I don't care how it gets there), and it still takes all the Alpha lenses. Since there is no mirror, Sony was able to make the body smaller and lighter which is more accommodating for a lot of people. This is one feature that I don't really like because I have large hands and there's not quite enough grip for me. I'm hoping Sony will come up with a vertical grip for this camera soon because the battery is slightly smaller than the NP-FM55 or NP-FM500H used in previous cameras and doesn't last quite so long. In Sony's arsenal of cameras that they're launching at the world, this would be the mid-range. The NEX series are the small fries followed by the Axx series and then the Axxx.

Image Problems with Sony Alpha Cameras or Lexar CF cards: part 2

On Mikes suggestion (thanks Mike), I downloaded pictures to my desktop and noticed some bad pictures (4 out of 300 some). I tried to download the Compact Flash card to Marys computer, but it crashed! (vista, who knew?) Then, using the same card and reader, I downloaded to my Netbook and , no errors! So, my problem exists on my desktop for sure, but what that problem is, I don't know. I'll keep digging for the answer though!

Image Problems with Sony Alpha Cameras or Lexar CF cards

I'm having a problem that I can't diagnose(yet). I own Sony Alpha line cameras (A100, A350,A700) and I have a reoccurring problem with some of the images.You can see by the examples I've posted that its ugly. But, I don't know the cause. Its occurred on 3 different CF cards and 2 different cameras!  I do have a couple "off" brand CF cards and I'm going to try them them.

Update: I posted on a forum about this problem here