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Best "non-Nex" Lenses

douglasf13

New member
Ooh, those shots look great, deepdiver. We'd love to see some corner crops at infinity (the problem area for M lenses.)
 

roweraay

New member
I'm using Nex 5 with ZM biogon 35/2
I think this combo is really good....
All @F2
The drawing style looks really good with the 35/2 Biogon. :clap:

Still debating about the $559 Voigtlander 35/1.4 Nokton (200gms) and this Biogon....the larger max aperture and the small size of the Nokton sounds great, but have no idea how it performs on the NEX5.

Here is the Nokton 35/1.4
 

roweraay

New member
Ooh, those shots look great, deepdiver. We'd love to see some corner crops at infinity (the problem area for M lenses.)
I believe the Biogon 35/2 is pretty even in its rendering and maintains sharpness into the outer corners, even wide open. It is an impressive optic, even though I am trying to go as cheap as possible here (along with the f/1.4, which I doubt a future Sony NEX lens will match), by opting for the Nokton.

Of course the 35/1.2 Nokton is also a sub-$900 lens, but is relatively large and heavy at 1.1lbs.....but of course is an f/1.2, which makes it a rare animal.
 

sebboh

New member
I believe the Biogon 35/2 is pretty even in its rendering and maintains sharpness into the outer corners, even wide open. It is an impressive optic, even though I am trying to go as cheap as possible here (along with the f/1.4, which I doubt a future Sony NEX lens will match), by opting for the Nokton.
the issue douglas and i are concerned about is how the lens works on the NEX in particular, not the lenses general performance. many rangefinder lenses with a short distance from the rear element to the sensor have problems on digital in the corners that they don't have on film (due to the angle of incident light). that is why the m9 has offset microlenses on the edges of it's sensor.
 

deepdiver

New member
Sorry i did not bring the infinity photo with ZM 35 today.
I tried it yesterday, It's really good... did not see any smearing at all :)
will post it later.
BTW,
I do have a sample from NEX 5 + Leica SE 18 at infinity.
looks good!!



crop 100% left



crop 100% right



To be honest I'm a bit disappointed with the JPG quality.
Is there a way to open the RAW file?
I tried LR 3, but cannot.
Anyone?

thx
 

sebboh

New member
those look really good. that's great to know. i have been opening my NEX raw files with RPP which shows a lot more detail than i see in the jpegs. unfortunately RPP is mac only and not very smooth workflow wise. hopefully adobe will come out with support soon.

Sorry i did not bring the infinity photo with ZM 35 today.
I tried it yesterday, It's really good... did not see any smearing at all :)
will post it later.
BTW,
I do have a sample from NEX 5 + Leica SE 18 at infinity.
looks good!!

To be honest I'm a bit disappointed with the JPG quality.
Is there a way to open the RAW file?
I tried LR 3, but cannot.
Anyone?

thx
 

douglasf13

New member
That Leica 18mm doesn't look focused to infinity to me. Is it not focused on the plants in the forground? What aperture was used?
 

barjohn

New member
I think we need to clarify what we mean by focus on infinity. What I don't mean is set the lend to infinity. You will have passed the focus point with most lens adapters. To actually focus at infinity, select an object far enough away to be considered infinity and then using the manual focus assist, actually focus on the object use enough magnification to get a sharp focus. If you just set the lens to the infinity position, in small pictures it will look ok but on close examination it will be soft.
 

douglasf13

New member
Yeah, when I say focus to infinity, I mean focus at objects at infinity. Some poorly made adapters unfortunately don't allow you to simply set the lens at infinity.
 

deepdiver

New member
Crop for the top left





Crop for top right


I believe I was using F8 to take this picture :)

let me know what do u guys think.

thx
 
C

Coms37

Guest
Posted earlier in another topic .... hmmmm (mistake)

Yes the 35mm looks really nice, and I was wondering where to get one forgetting that I have a whole boy of contax stuff in the wine cellar (which I use as a camera storing room).... including the 35mm (amongst other)

the box;
 

jonoslack

Active member
Made me very irritated.
I had all of those a couple of years ago and sold 'em for a song to a penniless student :mad:
 
C

Coms37

Guest
I went through all my boxes in the "wine cellar" I have so much stuff that I have forgotten about, like the Contax stuff, if I wouldn't of thought twice I would of gone out and bought a 35mm..... all to do with age you know!
 
C

Coms37

Guest
Do you mean that such a set is actually worth money?


(I mean more than a couple of euro's)
 

monza

Active member
A few months ago, 90mm Sonnars were about $100 at B&H; 45/2 Planars could be had for $150-$175 for 9+ condition. 35/2 were always a bit more as they didn't make nearly as many of those, I think I paid $200 for mine about a year ago. Good luck finding those prices now...
 

jonoslack

Active member
Do you mean that such a set is actually worth money?


(I mean more than a couple of euro's)
Certainly are - micro 4/3 and the other mirrorless cameras like the NEX have changed all that. Lot's of NEX users slavering to get hold of them :)

So if you don't want them yourself - this is probably a good place to sell them (especially if you're based in the States).
 

roweraay

New member
the issue douglas and i are concerned about is how the lens works on the NEX in particular, not the lenses general performance. many rangefinder lenses with a short distance from the rear element to the sensor have problems on digital in the corners that they don't have on film (due to the angle of incident light). that is why the m9 has offset microlenses on the edges of it's sensor.
I know the theory behind what you are talking about. And I believe some of the corner problems in the M cameras (and lenses) are due to the fact that they were designed decades back for film and were not digital specific designs. Once the digital age hit, they are now trying to make the old film designs perform really well under digital, which is what led to the M8 requiring to be a 1.3x sensor, even with micro-lens offsetting and the M9 requiring even more radical micro-lens offsetting design to make it work, with a 1.0x sensor.

The above however, is diametrically different from cameras like the NEX, which have been built from the ground up, with digital in mind. And as long as the RF lenses were designed over the past 5 years or so (after the onset of the digital age), my feeling is that it will not have any issues. Of course the older lenses may or may not have issues and its performance is, in turn dependent on how they were originally designed and whether there was a big focus on lens telecentricity during their original design phase.

And everytime Douglas brings up the "incident angle" issue, I point him to the Sony DSC-R1, which came with a 1.68x near-APS-C sized sensor and its 14.3-71.5mm f/2.8-4.8 lens, had its rear element positioned just 2.1mm (that is millimeters !) from the digital sensor plane. Absolutely no micro-lens offsetting, absolutely no vignetting, absolutely no aberrations or optical imperfections that one could detect - corner to corner. The imaging was as close to perfect, from an optical standpoint. Of course the difference here is that the Sony R1 was built from the ground up to be a digital product (and so was its lens)......as is the NEX camera.

The lenses we are talking about, are Full-frame rangefinder lenses after all, and not lenses that barely cover the APS-C imaging circle. But I agree, that with the older designs, I might treat it on a case-by-case basis on how well they perform on digital.
 
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