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There a number of discussion forums for the Sony A100 DSLR

Dyxum: http://www.dyxum.com
Dyxum has a very good community spirit - both Minolta and Sony users congregate there. Super lens database and reviews.
For sale section is very useful.

Sony SLR Talk at Digital Photography Review as well as the Konica Minolta SLR Talk
Tends to have quite a few trolls, but if you are prepared to filter them out then quite a lot of useful information can be found.
No For sale is allowed, though quite a few do blatantly advertise that they have gear available.

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All Konica Minolta / Sony A100 DSLR users may be interested in Gary Friedman's latest offering in eBook form (a downloadable pdf file which you can view on screen or print out for your own use).

Advanced Topics
3rd party flashes, rescuing images with RAW, nullifying noise, the basics of proper exposure, combating "Lazy Eye", and much more... USD $9.95 as a downloadable .pdf file. (Click here to see sample pages.)

All of Gary's books are available from his webpage.

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A fellow Sony A100 DSLR user, Tom Harvey, has done some extremely thorough testing that illustrates the flash exposure problem.
This is with the camera's own popup flash.

Tom reports:
I cannot get anything other than TTL/ADI to change anything that I would not expect to change on my camera.
Here are my test shots, all set to AUTO (on the mode dial) with single setting adjustments indicated...




- [Ambient light, ADI, TTL ]
As per previous findings TTL about right, ADI underexposed.




Using ADI
- Ambient only [no adjustment, -1Ev, -2Ev] - Ambient & Flash [no adjustment, -1Ev, -2Ev, +1Ev]

Editor's comment:
Note how negative exposure compensation makes image brighter when Ambient only , this is the opposite to the result with Ambient & Flash

We are referring to the setting in Custom Menu 1 - see below:





Using TTL
- Ambient only [no adjustment, -1Ev, -2Ev] - Ambient & Flash [no adjustment, -1Ev, -2Ev]
Editor's comment:
Again note the opposite effect when Ambient Only is selected in Custom Menu 1




Using ADI
- [Wide AF area, Spot, Select (centre)]
No significant changes.





Using ADI
- [Matrix metered, Centre weighted, Spot]
No significant changes.





Using ADI
[Night portrait, Night Scene, Sports, Macro, Landscape, Portrait ]
Nothing unexpected





Using TTL
[Night portrait, Night Scene, Sports, Macro, Landscape, Portrait]
Nothing unexpected





Using ADI, Manual focus
- [On subject, minimum, maximum]
Distance information obviously is taken into account, but infinity focus seems to give roughly the correct exposure.




Using TTL, Manual focus
- [On subject, minimum, maximum]
No major impact.





Using ADI
- [DRO off, DRO standard, DRO+ ]
No major changes. DRO+ helps a little.

--
Tom

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Now how can we get Sony to look at this ADI problem?

David

Reading the Sony A100 DSLR camera manual p86/87 you could easily be confused by Flash Default.





What it boils down to is that the Flash default really only applies when the camera mode dial is set to AUTO.

It is over-ridden by the flash function setting in PSAM modes.

So you can have Autoflash in AUTO and Fill-Flash in P for example.

There appears to be something really odd with the way the Sony A100 DSLR camera flash exposure works, or rather doesn't work.

The ADI flash mode in particular seems to underexpose shots taken of generally dark scenes at close range.

OK here is where I am with the underexposure ONLY in ADI on DARK subjects:
Kit lens at 35mm focal length and camera to subject distance approx 1.2m

1. Changing focus distance manually through the range from closeup to infinity did affect the exposure as expected in ADI.
2. It did not affect the exposure in TTL also as expected.

3. Leaving flash exp comp alone at 0 and changing only the main exposure compensation dial, the effect in both TTL-Preflash and ADI depends on whether you have 'Ambient' or 'Ambient&Flash' set in Exp Comp settings menu.
Ambient Only: An exp + comp gives a dimmer picture and - a brighter which is totally counter intuitive.
Ambient&Flash : The opposite of above!

It should be noted that this 'Ambient&Flash' is odd in that you would expect that it would gang the two comp scales together, but it doesn't, if you move either the flash or the main exp comp, they still move independently.