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New Sony, all I can say is, "WOW!"

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Vivek

Guest
Yes, the Sony lenses look fantastic on the outside... all shiny metal. That's the most important thing :D

Cheers

Brian
Sony might have missed an opportunity in providing a review outfit with their production stuff to them. They would have claimed, "all metal body, harking back" to glory days of film (while using a dog of a manual focus lens to proclaim that the NEX3/5 isn't as sharp as the m4/3rds). :ROTFL:
 

Brian Mosley

New member
Yes, big mistake in supplying the reviewers with production sample cameras - should have sent them brochures instead :D

In fact, I think this is what they did for dpreview :ROTFL:

Cheers

Brian
 

biglouis

Well-known member
I find myself teetering on the brink of m4/3rds denial, trying to proove that my GF-1 is a superior camera!

I think it will be interesting to the samples that Dpreview will put up when they finally get a chance to fully review the Nex-5. The Lumix 20/1.7 sells the GF-1 to me, so I'll be interested to see if the little Sony pancake lens is of the same quality.

The only thing which I find a bit odd is that they have gone for a 24mm equivalent pancake lens. I don't know why but in much the same way that the marketing hacks have insisted on useless increases in pixels, it seem de jour for pancake lenses to get wider and wider. Most people will find a 24mm equiv lens less easy to work with than the 35mm and 40mm equivalents from Olympus and Panasonic.

Incidentally, I do firmly believe that Sony will in the end dominate the prosumer camera market. They are a bit like Microsoft in their agressive and relentless competitiveness.

LouisB
 
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Photomorgana

New member
Won't there be a problem with such a short registration distance... in terms of the angle of incidence of light hitting the sensor?

Cheers

Brian

If its really true that flange distance = 18mm, than I understand why the samples are so bad in corners.
By making the flange so short and sensor so big, Sony is pretty much have to:
a. make larger lenses, to deal with angle of incidence.
b. use extensive in camera pp
c. develop sensor with microlenses like M9
d. all of the above together to achieve better image quality.

Looks like this camera was design by Sony's Marketing department and not by R&D. (having worked for Fortune's 20 company, I know how those things develop.)

I think the idea behind the shorter flange was to make lenses smaller than those of m4/3 competition. Sounds like Sony marketing people did not know about "Angle of Incidence" and that why they ended up in the "Circle of Confusion" ;)
 

ggibson

Well-known member
I must admit, the Nex system look very nice. It's not all good of course (with all of the downsides pointed out by others here), but it's certainly got some advantages over the available m4/3 cameras at this point. Low light performance looks amazing. If I was deciding right now between my GF1 and the Nex, it would be a touch choice.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
...
The Sony R1 had an extremely short distance from rear lens element to sensor ...
This is an irrelevant fact. The Zeiss T* lens used on the Sony R1 was a fixed lens designed in conjunction with and exclusively for that camera's specific sensor. The rear elements of the lens were designed to collimate the light paths and provide nearly exactly orthogonal incidence of light to sensor across the entire sensor photosite array. The in-lens shutter mechanism allowed the rear elements of the lens to approach arbitrarily close to the sensor assembly.

It's a design at least very difficult to achieve with an interchangeable lens mount and focal plane shutter, if not impossible. The closest possibility I can think of is Ricoh's interchangeable "lensors".
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
This was my first digital camera in 1999 - 2.11 megapixels, 5x optical zoom, USB, -50 +90 degree rotating Lens, No Viewfinder, Aperture range F2.8 - F3.3, LCD 2 ", LCD Dots 123,000............look familiar in any way?



back to the future...
I have no problem with the size of the lens vs body. My first "serious" digital camera was the Sony F707 which was a superb performer for its day, with that wonderful fast 5:1 Zeiss zoom on the little swivel body. The lens provides an excellent way to grip the camera and with the swivel body it was brilliant for waist level shooting.

Amongst other things I dislike about the NEX cameras, aside from the lens problem and control ergonomics which look hopeless to me for any serious shooting, is the complete lack of any eye level viewfinder, standard accessory shoe or flash connection.

I could see one of these with the flip-out screen and ultra-zoom lens as a waist-level only camera, but why I'd spend the money for that when I have other cameras that are just as good at it while being more versatile is a question I can't answer yet.

Of course this means I'll have to eat crow when I discover how wonderful the NEX are and buy one ... LOL!!!
 

Brian Mosley

New member
This is an irrelevant fact. The Zeiss T* lens used on the Sony R1 was a fixed lens designed in conjunction with and exclusively for that camera's specific sensor. The rear elements of the lens were designed to collimate the light paths and provide nearly exactly orthogonal incidence of light to sensor across the entire sensor photosite array. The in-lens shutter mechanism allowed the rear elements of the lens to approach arbitrarily close to the sensor assembly.

It's a design at least very difficult to achieve with an interchangeable lens mount and focal plane shutter, if not impossible. The closest possibility I can think of is Ricoh's interchangeable "lensors".
If the light leaving the rear lens element is nearly exactly orthogonal, then why would it be difficult or impossible to achieve with an interchangeable lens? couldn't you just move the lens forward?

Cheers

Brian
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
If the light leaving the rear lens element is nearly exactly orthogonal, then why would it be difficult or impossible to achieve with an interchangeable lens? couldn't you just move the lens forward?
The whole point of the R1/Zeiss lens design is to put the rear-most elements of the lens as close to the sensor as possible for the best collimation of the light path. You cannot get this close with an interchangeable lens mount and focal plane shutter, for several reasons having to do with mechanical clearances required for removing/replacing the lens as well as practical considerations like potential for handling damage to the rear-projecting portions of the lens assembly when off the camera.

Minox did a similar thing with the 5-element Complan lens in the Minox cameras made in the early 1950s: they put the rear most element directly in contact with the film in order to provide maximum correction and a stable film plane location. Those were amongst the best resolving Minox cameras of all, but they ran into inescapable scratching problems due to the film's motion across the lens and most of the cameras were retro-fitted with an alternative four-element design eliminating the rear element, with a small reduction in resolution as a result.
 
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Vivek

Guest
Minox did a similar thing with the 5-element Complan lens in the Minox cameras made in the early 1950s: they put the rear most element directly in contact with the film in order to provide maximum correction and a stable film plane location. Those were amongst the best resolving Minox cameras of all, but they ran into inescapable scratching problems due to the film's motion across the lens and most of the cameras were retro-fitted with an alternative four-element design eliminating the rear element, with a small reduction in resolution as a result.

You got it completely wrong and the reason why Complan was better than the later Minox lens was the exact opposite.

The Complan did not have corrections (distortions) for the edges as the later Minox lenses did and instead the film plane itself was curved in the earlier Minoxes to achieve maximum sharpness.

The R1's lens is zoom. There are fewer or no problems to make zooms (even very wide one) that are nearly telecentric (even the flimsy Oly-D 14-42). The design requirements for a prime with such qualities are different and would make them rather expensive and bulky.
 

douglasf13

New member
It must attach via the flash unit's socket, eh? Another completely non-standard item... unusable in any other context.
The m4/3 cameras also have non-standard data ports on top, AFAIK. ie. you can't switch EVFs between the two, right? The only difference is that they use a hotshoe to attach the item, whereas the NEX accessories attach to the port itself (probably not much room for a hotshoe on top of those tiny NEX cameras.)
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
You got it completely wrong and the reason why Complan was better than the later Minox lens was the exact opposite.

The Complan did not have corrections (distortions) for the edges as the later Minox lenses did and instead the film plane itself was curved in the earlier Minoxes to achieve maximum sharpness.
I didn't say anything about the film plane being flat. I said the film plane was stable and the light was collimated to the surface. Yes, the surface was curved ... that's irrelevant.
 
V

Vivek

Guest
Let me put it to you more directly. Longer back focal length and telecentricity are directly related.

Your idea of shorter back focal length means more telecentric is totally wrong.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Let me put it to you more directly. Longer back focal length and telecentricity are directly related.

Your idea of shorter back focal length means more telecentric is totally wrong.
I said nothing of "telecentric" either. Back focal length ...the distance from the vertex of the last optical surface of the lens system to the rear focal point ... has nothing to do with what I said either.

The Sony R1/Zeiss lens is designed to collimate the light paths as orthogonally as possible to the sensor plane, which happens to be flat, and the rear elements of the lens approach the sensor plane very closely as a consequence of that design and the fact that the lens is a fixed, embedded part of the camera: the lens did not have to be designed for an interchangeable mount. That is the point of what I was saying.

That was the same concept in the Minox 5-element Complan design, except the surface they were collimating the light paths to be orthogonal to is curved instead of flat. The rear element served the double purpose of collimating the light and holding the film plane in a fixed position to maximize performance.
 
V

Vivek

Guest
Godfrey, What you defined (which isn't the case with Complan/Minox at all and that has no connection to digital photography or Sony R1) was telecentricity.

[Minox was all about miniaturization. If they made the Complan a bit flatter field, that would have gotten out of the body because more corrective elements would have come in to play and hence would have defeated the purpose. Hence a Tessar (tad less sharp but with a flatter field) replaced the Complan]
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
You've missed the point of what I was saying entirely, which was that some solutions which work from a theoretical perspective are impractical in use:

- The Sony R1 lens could approach the sensor plane very closely as a part of its design for a fixed lens camera which is an impractical design for an interchangeable lens camera.
- The Minox 5-element design did a great job performance-wise but was impractical for reason of dust and scratching problems.

I was not discussing telecentricity at all.
 
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