NEX Firmware Updates

[John Bean]

I have the tech camera and had the Sony's as my smaller take anywhere cameras.....until I was invited on Safari in Kenya and bought a whole new m4/3 kit which was the easiest/smallest/lightest way to get to 600mm. I like the NEX so I've held on to it. Eventually something has got to go as I also have an X100.

You have too many cameras

The odd thing in my case is that when I bought a NEX it was for a specific reason (details unimportant now) and I was absolutely confident it could never challenge my preferred Panasonic m4/3 choices. But it did.

I found I was using the NEX-5 far more than my G1, to the point that I have abandoned m4/3 altogether. That was the exact opposite of what I expected.

 

[JCT]

You have too many cameras

The odd thing in my case is that when I bought a NEX it was for a specific reason (details unimportant now) and I was absolutely confident it could never challenge my preferred Panasonic m4/3 choices. But it did.

I found I was using the NEX-5 far more than my G1, to the point that I have abandoned m4/3 altogether. That was the exact opposite of what I expected.

I'm in the same situation and curious to see how this evolves for me now that I have the NEX-5.

I truly love the Pana 7-14, though, very hard to give that up. I imagine I could end up swapping my GF1 for the NEX-5 if the native Zeiss wide angle could supplant the 20mm on my GF1.

 

[John Bean]

It will depend on your uses and preferences, which are most likely not at all like mine.

Currently I own no zoom lenses (and no AF lenses either for that matter!), it's just the way I prefer to work with small camera/manual lens combinations so there's no real difference in lens choice (for me) whichever camera I'm using. What it came down to was that I prefer the waist-level handling of the NEX with its tilting screen and rarely need an eye-level finder.

I briefly tried a GF1 but couldn't live with the fixed LCD, whatever lens was on it - again, personal preferences.

If I needed long lenses (or bulky zooms) it would be a different matter and the ergonomics of a camera like the G1 come into play, but I don't

 

[douglasf13]

Agreed, John. If native, AF lenses are the goal, I wouldn't be shooting NEX, but it is a dream with manual lenses. Granted, there are a bunch of NEX lenses on the horizon. The only AF lens I own is the Sony 16mm, and I must admit, it is a pretty capable 18mm equivalent with the Sony .75x adapter.

 

[John Bean]

I had a E16 for a while; decent enough lens, but I don't normally use anything that wide even without the adapter.

I bought it on the spur of the moment in a NEX-3 kit at a bargain price, thinking it might be handy to have two NEX bodies to save lens swapping. But for some reason I didn't really like the "feel" of the NEX-3 and hardly ever used it. I was tempted to sell just the body but I got a good price for the complete kit and I don't miss the E16.

I think that as the new native lenses appear I'll be tempted by some of them; there are certainly times I'd like to have AF available to me on a short-normal lens in the 28~35mm range - preferably faster than my current Leitz Summaron 35/3.5 (lovely, tiny lens), or the crude but surprisingly good SLR Magic 28/2.8 I'm playing with currently

 

[s.agar]

Another happy customer with the focus peaking and with the new firmware in general.

I tried the focus peaking today for the first time. Even on a sunny day, it works great. I used Contax G2 lenses, and mostly the 35mm. Yellow was my preference.

The focusing accuracy and percentage highly improved over my previous trials.