Olympus 50mm F1.4 Impressions on NEX-7
This lens came with the OM-2N I purchased. Serial is 291952. I believe you can find these lenses for under $100, there appears to be several variants of this lens on OM mount. This is an early version without multi-coating.
I shot it using a NEX-7. It has very interesting rendering characteristics over the normal Zeiss lenses I’m used to. It has much less of a heavy touch in terms of global contrast and it has smoother bokeh.
Read below for a ton of photos and impressions.
Long Island is not bad and Rolex 5513
I forgot I went to highschool around here. This was around Oyster Bay, Northport, Centerport, Huntington Bay, etc.
Will post my Costa Rica / Bremont and my Colorado / Tudor pictures when I get around to it this week.
Hope you enjoy!
Ignore the A-850 24mm spec, for some reason the chip EXIF shows that even though it’s really the Zeiss 24mm F2.8 ZF.2 that is Leitax adapted.
Much more pics after the jump below.
Sample shots from Sigma 19mm F2.8 on Sony NEX-7
It has been very difficult to find a decent performing wide angles lens for the NEX-7. You can use an adapter and go with a big wide lens but that isn’t ideal if you want a compact solution. The rangefinder lenses have almost all shown magenta shift on the corners on the NEX-7 such as the Voigtlander 15mm and 12mm. Even the Sony 16mm F2.8 shows magenta shift and smearing at infinity in bigger apertures.
This is why it’s delightful when Sigma comes along out of nowhere with the lens equivalent of a double barrel shotgun. The Sigma 19mm and Sigma 30mm F2.8 lenses are both excellent lenses that are compact and high performing. What they give up on aperture speed they make up for in image quality.
The Sigma 19mm does show some CA but it’s very manageable and easily mostly removed with the auto chromatic aberration correction tool in Lightroom 4. It’s strength seems to be close up performance but it also does well at infinity. The colors are magnificent. At $200, this is a must buy lens especially right now with the shortage of good E-Mount lenses.
Here are some samples on the nex7, No saturation or vibrance added, except for 1 where it’s obvious.
The color separation and just fine detail close up is easily that of a $600 lens.
Click Below for Many More Sample Images
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Sony NEX-7 and ZA24 F1.8 Zeiss Samples
There is a lot of money tied up for me in this combination. I’m trying to decide if it’s worth it.
I know there’s also a lot of interest in this combo as well so I thought I would share my experiences.
From reviews on sites and forums, it seems to me that people are thinking that the lens is optimized for close range use and lacks for landscapes.
I’m inclined to agree.
On this first day of shooting, I notice quite A lot of purple fringing and chromatic abberation wide open even in the center if there are bright highlight edges with a strong contrasting background. When Stopped down to F5+, center CA improves a lot but the corners remain somewhat softer and CA never goes away completely.
From my initial impressions though, this lens has the Zeiss look. Think of it as a weaker smaller autofocus Zeiss 35mm F2 Zx. The wide open center rendering is remarkably similar, high contrast with high saturation. Actual resolution is above average but not spectacular. That improves when stopping down but the contrast is really rather exceptional.
AF is fast enough but not ZA 24-70 SSM fast. I’m still a little confused on how NEX does autofocusing, should read the manual. It seems to sometimes to go huge screen box and sometimes small boxes…?
Center sharpness and contrast is good even wide open. It only improves slightly when stopping down. Objects have high saturation and have a dimensionality to them.
Files out of the camera feel like they need very little post besides fixing the CA if you had branches against a white sky.
I can’t wait to shoot it more. Tomorrow is the New York Public Library.
Click Below for Many More Sample Images
NEX: Four new lenses in 2012, Four more in 2013
This is good news as I’m receiving my NEX-7 today.
I’ve been toying with the idea of picking up a OM-D and a PannyLeica 45mm F2.8 Macro for my macro needs due to the advantageous DoF of MFT but I might rethink that path if I need the funds for a NEX lens.
Excited for the “G” zoom which I expect will be similar to the widely praised 16-50mm F2.8 that is the kit lens on the new Alphas.
I bet the big aperture prime will be a 35mm F1.4 with a 50mm equiv. They have a big hole there.
Sony NEX-5N with Sony 35mm F1.8 SAM on LA-EA1
Playing with the 5N + Sony 35mm F1.8 SAM with the LA-EA1 adapter. Half tempted to get the LA-EA2 if it comes up for a decent price.
Sharp lens but doesn’t seem quite as out of the camera saturated as the 24-70 zeiss. At least on initial impressions. Interesting bokeh, decently sharp starting at F3.5.
Overall, quite a bargain lens for having an internal AF motor. AF takes about 3-5 seconds on the 5N with the LA-EA1.
Sharp at F3.5, this looks way over sharpened due to FLICKR!
Interesting Lively bokeh, centrally sharp at F2
Decent 3D effect
Processed Photos from Contax G 45mm F2 on NEX-5N
Here are some JPEG samples that were post processed from the NEX-5N. Come on Adobe, update ACR already!
This is an Extremely clear lens. It’s of course sharp but the contrast and clarity is phenomenal straight out of the camera. If you do end up picking an adapter to go along with NEX, at least get a name brand Fotodiox adapter. I had to send my generic ebay one back because of excessive grinding. If you have smaller hands the Metabones adapter is by far the best one to have, very smooth feel for an AF screw adapted lens.
Some experienced photographer say the G line of Contax lenses are the best that Zeiss has ever designed. While I can’t speak to the veracity of that, I have owned and used a very large variety of Zeiss lenses and I have to say, none of them have wow’d me as much as this lens has straight from the camera. The great minimum focus distance also makes it a bit flexible for compositions.
The weakness of the 45mm F2 lens is the bokeh. It’s a bit lively and condom like at F2, it calms down a bit at F2.8 but you will see octagonal highlights because of the fewer blades used for the aperture.
If you can deal with the APS-C focal length, I see these lenses jumping in value as mirror less cameras become more common place. Just an amazing lens to shoot with.
Click for more
Contax Zeiss 45mm F2 G on NEX-5N No Post Processed JPG out of camera
First, DO NOT buy the cheap ebay adapters, I’m returning mine to the sketchy seller. I purchased a Photodiox version and while it looks Identical on the exterior to the cheap ebay version, it doesn’t grind and stick. I also have a Metabones adapter on the way.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the Focus Peaking feature is pretty critical if you’re not using a viewfinder. I’ve finally gotten much better at figuring out how to use it. You can’t rely on it for critical focus. You will have to zoom in. But for focusing quickly, it will help you a lot. As you rack the focus you can see how your plane of focus shifts back and forth so this will be very useful in placing that where you want it. For low contrast objects however, it is often hard to see peaking highlights.
These are Out of Camera JPG with Noise on LOW and mode on Standard.
I have NOT POST processed these at all except for slight straightening and import/export out of Lightroom. The included lens hood was used, no polarizers or filters of any kind (more…)
Why you shouldn’t buy the Sony LA-EA2 Adapter
The Sony LA-EA2 adapter is a a follow on to the LA-EA1. What the LA-EA1 gave you was full aperture control functionality from the NEX line of cameras for your alpha mount Minolta and Sony lenses. The focus on the LA-EA1 was still manual however.
The LA-EA1 was a compact adapter with a removable tripod mount. It was a high quality adapter and allowed you to use the very impressive stable of Sony and Minolta alpha mount lenses. I would recommend people pick up the LA-EA1 over the LA-EA2. Here’s why. (more…)
NEX-5N 18-55mm Kit Lens Impressions
NEX-5N with 18-55mm Kit Lens
What can you say about a kit lens. Competent, not exceptional, handy to have in your arsenal especially with the lack of native e-mount lenses. Autofocus is quick and silent, it’s a bit weaker… (more…)
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… (more…)
NEX-5N Initial Impressions and Photos
I received my NEX-5N two days ago from Beach Camera. Here are my initial impressions and some test shots.
