Available adapters for NEX3/5 thread

[barjohn]

Here I am adding a few shots taken of my back yard with trees and I think this may be the best I have seen at displaying leaves. I will check against M8 shots of the same area and post later.

 

[wayne_s]

John,

Thanks for posting these shots with your Leica M 40/2 lens.
Looks like maybe there is some smearing/loosing sharpness near the borders and the definitely the corners of the bookshelf shot. Not sure what aperture you used for the shot but hoping you shot this shot stopped down to provide enough DOF.
Can you provide a shot of a planar surface like the side of your house and then provide 100% crops of the corners and borders and the center. Just curious like everyone else how well the Leica lens works in the Sony NEX 5 system.
TIA.

 

[douglasf13]

John,

Thanks for posting these shots with your Leica M 40/2 lens.
Looks like maybe there is some smearing/loosing sharpness near the borders and the definitely the corners of the bookshelf shot. Not sure what aperture you used for the shot but hoping you shot this shot stopped down to provide enough DOF.
Can you provide a shot of a planar surface like the side of your house and then provide 100% crops of the corners and borders and the center. Just curious like everyone else how well the Leica lens works in the Sony NEX 5 system.
TIA.

+1

 

[barjohn]

Here are shots of a planar surface with a test pattern. The screen shots should give you a relative idea. They are arranged as follows (first 4 are 40mm/f2 and last two are kit set to est 40mm (actual 43mm)):
f2 f2.8
f4 f5.6
f5 f5.6

First set from the center pattern, next set from upper left and last set from lower right. There was some reflection from a window I couldn't quite block out in the upper right shots but I think you can still get the idea.

I just received my 16mm pancake and will try some test shots with it for comparison.

 

[barjohn]

I'm out of space as usual so I won't post the 16mm comparison; however, it is very very close in sharpness to the Leica at the center but falls off very fast and the distortion is very large where it is almost nonexistent on the Leica lens.

 

[douglasf13]

Thanks for taking the time, John. If I'm reading these correctly, it appears that the 40mm is in good shape. The real question is with 35mm and wider M lenses, as that is where the problems happen on m4/3.

 

[barjohn]

I wish I still had my 28 ASPH as it was a really sharp lens. It put the 40mm to shame as did the 50 Cron. I will have to search for some used M mount CVs or Zeis lenses to try one out. My gut is that it will be as good or better than the Epson RD-1 which I thought was pretty good. One note is that the Leica lenses make the little thing feel like a mini-tank. The 16mm NEX lens is really light and the whole thing feels like you could easily put it in your pocket.

 

[volkerhopf]

Thanks for taking the time, John. If I'm reading these correctly, it appears that the 40mm is in good shape. The real question is with 35mm and wider M lenses, as that is where the problems happen on m4/3.

Without having done exhaustive testing I find that there is not much of a difference between my 40 Summicron and the 28 Elmarit. Surprisingly no vignetting at all with the 28mm.

 

[wayne_s]

Thanks very much John for all your work here. Quite a difference between the Leica and the Sony 18-55.Good to see that with a 40mm lens it doesn't smear the corners or borders.

Volkerhopf,
Because of the 1.5 crop factor I wouldn't expect that much vignetting even on the 28.

Can you post some 28 test shots with corner crops? TIA

 

[volkerhopf]

Thanks very much John for all your work here. Quite a difference between the Leica and the Sony 18-55.Good to see that with a 40mm lens it doesn't smear the corners or borders.

Volkerhopf,
Because of the 1.5 crop factor I wouldn't expect that much vignetting even on the 28.

Can you post some 28 test shots with corner crops? TIA

Hi Wayne_s, here are some corner shots f2.8,4.0,5.6,8.0 C=centre, LB=left bottom, rt=right top.
http://333-2009.blogspot.com/
The shots are from a fly screen. I am very happy with the lens / NEX combination and will use it together with the 40 Summicron and 90 Elmar-C.

 

[barjohn]

If it will do the 21mm with minimal vignetting and loss of corner resolution it will prove itself to be the best inexpensive Leica replacement going.

 

[wayne_s]

Hi Wayne_s, here are some corner shots f2.8,4.0,5.6,8.0 C=centre, LB=left bottom, rt=right top.
http://333-2009.blogspot.com/
The shots are from a fly screen. I am very happy with the lens / NEX combination and will use it together with the 40 Summicron and 90 Elmar-C.

Thanks for the link to your blog and the 28 lens test on the NEX5.
Would be interesting to see how the Leica M8 or M9 compares in the corners using same lens but different camera platform comparisons are tough to do with all the different factors of RAW conversion and sharpening etc.

I see a big difference in the IQ of the shot between the 18-55 and the Leica 28 and 40. Keep the Leica shots coming.

 

[barjohn]

I added the thickness of a piece of 24lb bond paper as a shim and it appears that I may now have infinity where it should be. I will know more tomorrow after I have more time to test in daylight. If it is too thick I'll just remove it. You need a 00X50 jeweler's phillips screw driver to remove the screws.

 

[wayne_s]

John,
You might want to try using thin metal tape to shim it instead of paper.

 

[barjohn]

I just didn't have any. There isn't much room to work and it reminds me of the old days of trying to cut out gaskets for carburetors out of gasket material only much smaller and more difficult.

 

[barjohn]

I removed the paper spacer and replaced it with a piece of heavy duty aluminum foil. That was easier to work with though less thick so I think I may go just beyond infinity but I can't be sure without a really far off target like the moon. As I recall with my M8 setting infinity to anything closer than a star or the moon resulted in it being off. There is probably another way but I don't know what it is.

 

[Vivek]

John, Your best source would be a shop that sells stuff for models (trains, planes, etc). They should have a set of thin brass shims (it costs ~4-7 Euros for a set of ~4-5 sheets here and it is from Chicago) of various thickness.

 

[Vivek]

Someone should make a NEX to m4/3rds adapter. The Pana 20/1.7 looks good on the NEX. Corners are dark but it does seem to project sharp images even wide open.

 

[MPK2010]

My M adapter arrives Monday. I should have results with the 35 Summarit, 50 1.5 Nokton, CV 15 4.5 II and 35 Skopar early next week.

 

[barjohn]

Vivek, Thanks. To the rest, I look forward to seeing what other produce.