NEX-5N Corners

Previously on the NEX-5 and NEX-3, the corners of images taken with wide angle lenses would get smeared. This was thought to have occurred… because of the very close registration distance from the back of the lens element to the sensor. You’ll see the same type of behavior on the Leica M9 which exhibits unusually soft corners. The micro lenses on the sensor just weren’t coping with the steep angle the light was coming in at the corners.

With the NEX-C3, we saw a major improvement to this fault and it appears with the NEX-5N it at least didn’t get worse. I’m reading early reports that the JPG output is looking great with the corners exhibiting almost no weaknesses than the usual one would see with a wide angle. RAW output however still seems to exhibit some weakness but again at least better than the last generation.

Below is a picture taken with the 16mm F2.8 Sony lens. Not a great picture to show corner strength but perhaps a reminder that in many very wide angle shots, usually the corners don’t matter quite as much if you have a strong subject. AUTOHDR was used in JPG mode.