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.
Sony RX100 UnBoxing
Hey look what came in the mail today!
Review and comparison coming soon. I’ll be comparing it to a NEX-7 and NEX-C3 and Olympus OM-D E-M5.
Olympus OM-D E-M5 versus Sony NEX-C3
Just a small preview of some more extensive tests.
I underexposed these two images with nearly the same framing, then I boosted exposure +2 and shadows +100.
To my eyes, it appears the NEX-C3 holds on to a bit more shadow detail and just more detail in general but it’s darn close.
Click the image to see it in better detail.
Will be posting far more detailed comparisons shortly.
Just another day with an amazing lens.
I was just testing out a wireless flash trigger I got and shot what was on my desk. It is essentially my daily carry. Although I rotate watches once in a while.
NEX-7 with Zeiss Sony 24mm F1.8 ZA
Rolex 5513 Spider Dial and Prada Wallet
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.
Costa Rica Landscape
This is probably the best shot that I took while I was in Costa Rica. It cost me a migraine. I was out in the sun riding ATVs all day and when everyone else went home, I stayed out a bit longer to do some photography. I ran out of water, started driving home and kept seeing wavy lines heat mirages everywhere, got to the house, drank soda, jumped in the pool then the migraine hit.
Somehow during the trip I forgot my Lee Filter holder although I remembered to bring all my 4×6 filters. So I had to hand hold and it didn’t turn out too well. I gave up and ended up just using a Marumi graduated filter. That presented it’s own problems due to vignetting at 24mm on the ZA 24-70mm F2.8 since I was using a 82 to 77mm adapter.
The screw on filter though let me be a lot more flexible in moving the camera around and I’ve started to wonder at myself if the resin square filters make sense for my style of shooting.
If anyone knows of a good lens distortion correction profile for this lens, I would appreciate it.
Sony A850, Zeiss 24-70mm ZA F2.8
Costa Rica Landscape 1
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
(more…)
Another Night, Another Few Watches
Shot again with the supremely versatile Zeiss ZA 24-70mm F2.8. With just a B+W MRC Circular polarizer for some of the shots. No magnifier was used. More Pics after the jump.
More pictures after the jump. (more…)
Shooting inside a Bar – Panerai 372 and Panerai Bronzo 382
Some watch photography I did with an unorthodox kit. Sony A850 with a Sony ZA Zeiss 24-70mm F2.8 SSM and a couple of flashes. I used just a Marumi Achromatic +5 Close up filter to enhance magnification on the already macro friendly ZA 24-70mm. My simple leather jacket was used as a backdrop and a small metal sheet I fit into my small bag. The important thing is to just modify your light and use RF triggers so you can have off camera flashes.
While a lot of patrons of the bar did not appreciate flashes popping left and right, I’m relatively happy with the results.
More Pics In the Link
Marumi Achromatic +5 Filter on Zeiss ZA 24-70mm F2.8
I picked up a Marumi +5 Achromatic double element close up filter in 77mm to use on my Zeiss ZA 24-70mm F2.8 because I wanted a single lens solution that can handle it all. About 70% of my use of macro lenses is in very small spaces along with a lot of people I also need to photograh. Its really hard to take people pics with my normal SIGMA 105mm F2.8 DG EX Macro because the spaces aren’t too big sometimes. So I picked up the filter to try to make the first lens do double duty. A lot easier and safer to take off a filter in a dark bar then switch lenses. No post editing or even cropping was done here, just white balance set to flash in LR3 on all the photos.
The filter does a great job, it doesn’t add any chromatic aberration as far as I can tell at F8 but it is massive and heavy and makes the whole combo of full frame camera + giant flash + giant lens + giant filter extremely heavy. And while the Zeiss 24-70mm has unusually good .25x magnification anyway, even with the filter it doesn’t come close to the 1:1 mag of the Sigma macro.
This is how big the difference is at their closest possible focus:
Zeiss 24-70 with +5 Filter:
Sigma 105mm F2.8 DG EX Macro:
The following are Sigma macro first then Zeiss 24-70 at 70mm. All were shot at F8 since that is what I always shoot my macros at if I’m not using a tripod. The framing isn’t exact because of the difference in focal lengths a tripod couldn’t be used.
The following two were at F2.8
And now F8 again:
My final thoughts are that there isn’t much lost except magnification by using the Zeiss zoom with close up filter than the Sigma macro for my uses. What you give up is weight, the 24-70 with the big filter is much, much heavier than the Sigma 105mm. The working distance is also much closer which can be an issue if you’re using on camera flash even if you’re bouncing.
In terms of rendition, the Zeiss still has more contrast and deeper colors. This surprised me as I thought the Marumi filter would add a bit of haze to the images but it didn’t too much. Blacks are blacker on the Zeiss and the Sigma has a slight yellowish tinge to it even at the same white balance settings. In terms of fine detail, I really can’t tell the difference between the two, they’re very very close.
The bokeh is about equal, they’re both very smooth, very boring because the working distances are so close.
Overall, I prefer the Zeiss fast SSM focus with easy over ride, cooler color, deeper saturation, and stronger contrast but I prefer the Sigma magnification, size, and weight.
I’m still undecided but I’m leaning towards the Zeiss. I might still have to pack the Sigma occasionally for special occasions of once in a life time pieces I might come across but I would have to be expecting it.
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
