I must apologize for being a day late on my weekly update, the time got away from me this past weekend. Nonetheless, I do have some news on my experience with Sony Laredo Repair regarding my NEX-7. Unfortunately, as most of you know, Sony decided to overnight my NEX-7 the night that I left for Spring Break. I got to Florida, while my camera arrived at my university. Tough luck for me. At any rate I picked it up today and found to my surprise that Sony seemed to give my NEX-7 a makeover. It almost feels like a new camera (it’s not though, I remember a few scratches unique to the camera)! The viewfinder is spotless, the screen has either been replaced or heavily cleaned (a protective film was over it), the entire body was wiped down, and the IR glass filter in front of the sensor is brand-new (the reason I sent it in). With everything covered under warranty, and the sensor brought back to essentially new condition, I am—finally—a pretty happy camper. I can’t wait to get back in the swing of all things photography: I’m learning some techniques for light painting this week, photographing a few sporting events, and will make time for a photowalk if the rain/cold briefly clears up.
Plans aside, last week down in sunny Florida was a blast. I chose the stress-free option for break, staying far away from any sort of partying. Instead, relaxing on the beach and catching up with/making new friends took up the majority of my time. That little Canon point-and-shoot I brought along did an O.K. job, at least for a 5 year-old camera. I definitely had to take a step back and focus on getting exposure, white balance, and composition right: with only 8 megapixels of low-quality JPEG to work with, there isn’t any leeway for post-processing!
Pardon the dust/sand. 🙂
As I mentioned last week, this PowerShot has a nice macro mode at the wide end, allowing for some SUPER close focusing that gives me some good control over depth-of-field. As such, there’ll be a lot of macro shots in this post. 🙂 To work out your own equivalency in focal length/field-of-view, this camera’s 6-60mm lens covers the 36-360mm field-of-view in 35mm-format terms. Simply take the mm’s listed in the following picture’s EXIF data and multiply by six.
Misty Bud
6mm, ISO 80, f/2.8, 1/160
Two Strangers on the Path
60mm, ISO 80, f/4.3, .4 seconds, panning blur
Votives
6mm, ISO 80, f/2.8, 1/50
Yellow and Broken
6mm, ISO 80, f/2.8, 1/400
Catch!
60mm, ISO 80, f/4.3, 1/500
How to be productive on break
6mm, ISO 80, f/5, 1/1250
Yes, I did practice trombone daily on the balcony. 🙂
Backlit
6mm, ISO 80, f/2.8, 1/200
I really missed having the good dynamic range of my NEX-7 with me on the trip. The tiny sensor (and pixels) in the PowerShot simply couldn’t record enough DR to save the highlights from blowing.
Triple Fly-By
6mm, ISO 80, f/5.6, 1/1600
A local army army base frequently flew over helicopters, hueys, and other large aircraft right over the water. Beachgoers always stopped what they did and either stared or saluted the troops.
Ticket to Ride
6mm, ISO 80, f/2.8, .3 seconds
Bunches of Color!
6mm, ISO 80, f/2.8, 1/125
Beautiful, Rainy Day
18.1mm, ISO 80, f/4.5, 1/160
Vivid
6mm, ISO 80, f/2.8, 1/200
Skygate
42.5mm, ISO 80, f/4, 1/400
Stand Out
6mm, ISO 80, f/2.8, 1/320
Perfection
6mm, ISO 80, f/5, 1/50
Definitely my favorite sunset of the entire trip!
Wow! What a trip. A shame I couldn’t bring along my “good” camera—there was a sizable handful of picture opportunities I missed that simply couldn’t be captured with the PowerShot. But, this forced excursion into P&S photography has let me know even further that—though modern cameras and lenses can help—good photography is entirely dependent on the photographer, whatever “box” he or she may choose to shoot with. Geeze, a lot of the pictures in here I could have probably captured to at least some degree with my cameraphone! But I will admit, it’s great to finally have my NEX-7 back in my hands, at last.
That’s all for this post guys and gals, thanks for dropping by!
Matthew Durr Photography 
point and shoots tend to do really well at Macro stuff but I especially liked the flyby, it reminded me of the Charlie don’t surf scene in apocalypse now for some reason.
Hehe, I do see a resemblance. Thanks! 🙂
That really great, already has the nex 7 back, we’d lost track, Greetings my friend.
Hey Freddytto, it did take a while, and upon closer inspection, I’m not sure Sony actually fixed what I asked them to. I no longer hear the tell-tale “chirp” of the sensor cleaning when turning it off, and there are chip marks all around the screen.
I’ll have to call them soon.
what really happened with your nex7? you have the full warranty? I had a problem with the nex5n few months, got wet, so went to sony store and they gave me the chance to upgrade to the nex5r so take the chance, but I have also the warranty on the nex7, I think is for any accidental damage, I can get a new one. You should call and check well that is what is happening with your nex7 …
What originally went wrong was the failing of the sensor-cleaning mechanism. Everything was covered under warranty, and I do have a 90-day warranty on the repair, so don’t worry, I’ll get everything sorted out. 🙂