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Fun With Sony Cameras

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pegelli

Well-known member
re: Fun With Sony _____

The crabs look fine, but not too much of a crab eater.
The first has a great summer mood, but clearly shows your sensor missed it's spring cleaning:(
 

Qamaro

Member
Re: Fun with the NEX cameras....

Alright I have been lingering in this forum for a while and since my wife owned a NEX-5 I wanted to see how folks were getting by with the camera. In fact based on most of the photos in this and other threads I decided this vacation period to leave my MF gear at home and use the NEX-5 combined with the 18-55 kit lens, Voigtlander 15mm & 35mm, Contax 90mm and the Canon 50mm FD (thanks to everyone who answered all my adapter questions or provided responses to others on this board on the same topic).

In any case the camera worked out really well I had to get used to its small size, the balance issues with some of the lenses vs. the body and the occasional accidental depress of the RECORD button but, for the most part once I got used to each of the lenses operational characteristics I found the system quite versatile. My favorite 2 lenses were the Voigtlander 35mm F1.4 (it was the MC - would have loved to have been able to try the SC) and the other was the Contax 90 (damn sharp lens). I also wish the focus peek firmware was available prior to me taking off as it would have really been helpful. The MF Assist helped to some extent but, I found at the wide open end it was very difficult to get my exact focus point spot on with the 15 and 35. While I would think things looked good with MF assist and viewing previews looked good on the back of the LCD they weren't always so hot back on the iPAD (guess I'm used to tethered shooting these days..lol).

So, enough with my comments as this here thread is for showing photos here are some of the photos from my recent euro trip. The ones below where from the Cote d'Azur region of France with a mix of these lenses.
 

Qamaro

Member
Re: Fun with the NEX cameras....

some others from France as well. I was really surprised at how good the camera was with skin tones and just overall look of people if you had the right light. Again a mix of lenses (primarily the Voigtlander 15 and 35mm).
 

pegelli

Well-known member
Re: Fun with the NEX cameras....

Nice set of images Qamaro. Your free vacation spirit shows and there's something in every image to like. Having such a beautiful lady travelling with you obviously helped for some of the shots as well ;)

I'm still looking for a good MF WA in either M or OM mount (those are the adapters I have), so I'm intrigued by your Voigtlander 15 mm remarks. Which one is it that you used and if it's a rangefinder lens did you see any of this corner smearing/colour shifts people talk so much about here? Current widest I have is the 18-55 kit which is not too bad at the wide end but if there is a good WA Manual lens that would complement my current 35/50/90 M set up that would be great.
 

Qamaro

Member
Re: Fun with the NEX cameras....

pegelli,

Thanks for the comments, yes my wife helped on many of my shots, I think she got sick of the lens being pointed in her direction on many occasions :D.

The exact lens was the Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 Heliar with Viewfinder for Leica M-Mount. I was worried about all the comments as well which is why I rented versus buying them for the trip. I'm not sure about smearing but for sure a small amount of vignetting and some color shifts were seen on some images.

In terms of the color shift, what I found is that its pronouncement was dependent on the position of the sun to the subject being photographed. On landscape scenes that were front lit or side lit the color shift (cyan / magenta) was minor enough that a pass through Cornerfix or using CS5 lens correction would take care of it.

On subjects where the light was directly overhead or backlit the color shift was more extreme on the edges of the frame, in particular to the center for some reason and I found CornerFix or CS5 would not take care of all of it even with a custom profile. In those instances I found I needed to crop after I ran it through a shift / vignette removal.

In terms of photo examples with the 15mm in my first series the ramparts overlooking Monaco had some color shift fix while I could not get rid of it all, it doesn't detract enough from the photo in my opinion. In the 2nd series you have the one overlooking Monaco's bay-area where I had to crop to get rid of the shifts effect on the center / edge area. I included 2 other examples with the 15mm from the Spain portion of the trip.

In the final opinion I loved both lenses while the 18-55mm has always been nice, having the 15mm in the bag for those instances where you wanted the option of something a little wider was great. So, I'd have to say if I picked up the my own NEX body (waiting to see what the next body will be NEX-7?) for myself I'd more than likely get these 2 lenses for my kit (yes the wife took the NEX back :( after the trip).
 

pegelli

Well-known member
Re: Fun with the NEX cameras....

Thanks Qamaro, so now I'm even more torn between the voigtlander 15/4.5 MF (I was already eyeing that one) and the original Sony Pancake 16/2.8 AF. The latter is cheaper, lets in more light and has AF but will only be half the fun (or less) versus the voigtlander, and the pancake also doesn't fit my my old and trusty M2 (even though a film takes more than a year to pass through that camera).

Decisions, decisions .... :confused:

Have you tried the E16/2.8?

Btw, seems your wife behaves very similar to my wife and daughters, must be gender related :toocool:
 
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PenSon

New member
re: Fun With Sony _____

One Vaxwing on a900 with Sony 500mm reflex (used a flash on camera)




_________
Trygve
 
re: Fun With Sony _____

Been away for a bit... I especially like the bear, Simon's first image in post #813, the portraits in the following two posts, John's "rock face" in the garden, Ed's flowers, and the Vaxwing, but these are all nice photos. Thanks for sharing!

Here is a small sampling of what I've been up to since I last checked in(EXIF intact):

Minolta 100 f/2.8 Macro(original):


16-35Z:


16-35Z:


16-35Z:


Minolta 28-135(didn't scout a good enough spot, tried to make the best of it):


Minolta 100 f/2.8 Macro(original):


16-35Z:


16-35Z:


16-35Z:
 
re: Fun With Sony _____

This is a composite multi-row panorama from 86 images shot at 135mm f/1.8. It's my first real attempt at the "Brenizer Method" of getting impossibly narrow DOF. Effective DOF is that of a 21mm f/0.28 lens.

This would work better with a closer object. There are also various stitching errors, but overall I am encouraged to continue experimenting.

 

scooter

Member
re: Fun With Sony _____

^^^
86 image stitch? Hope they weren't the 900's Raw files. Your computer must have been crunching for a while, mine would have probably blown up. :)

It was well worth the effort, the end result is wonderful!!
 
re: Fun With Sony _____

Thanks Scooter! I stitched half-size TIFFs, 3024 on the long side(about 36MB each). Took a couple of hours, also my stitching software got a bit confused on the clear sky so I had to go in and muck with it a bit. :D
 
re: Fun With Sony _____

Playing with the Minolta 1x-3x Macro. Ant at 3x, lit with ringflash(3 tubes of 4 active) 45mm, 1/200 at f/64 Cropped to about 1/3 frame



South Fork of Yuba River, at Highway 49, Nevada City, Ca. 16-35Z @ 18mm, 1sec. f/22 ISO 160

 
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