Son,
Glad you started a thread like this, very interesting.
I have been trying to compare shots from Leica and Zeiss m lenses on M8,M9 vs. NEX 5 and find the M8,M9 shots are much sharper,clearer and with more detail then the NEX 5.
Do you agree?
Son,
Glad you started a thread like this, very interesting.
I have been trying to compare shots from Leica and Zeiss m lenses on M8,M9 vs. NEX 5 and find the M8,M9 shots are much sharper,clearer and with more detail then the NEX 5.
Do you agree?
hi Wayne et al,
First I like to say that there a many things that I like about the Sony NEX camera:
1. I like the dynamic range over the Panasonic GH camera; though this is based on my memory only. When I first bought the GH camera, I was excited to put all kind of lens on the small camera but immediately, I was turned off by the poor dynamic range. The Sony NEX is superior to the GH camera IMHO.
2. The Sony NEX represents a constant factor as a recording medium for us to test and characterize the lens of interest. As you can see from the preliminary data samples, I prefer the Leica Summilux-M 1.4/75 over the Canon FD 1.2/85. Though I did not took the same scene but the preliminary data tells me that I prefer the Leica looks immediately. Therefore, I believe in general the rangefinder lens has a different character than the SLR lens in spite the depth of field.
In digital medium, the limitation of physics in optics between rangefinder and slr is reversed compare to film. However, I no longer look for perfection instead I look for the strength of the lens to help me create the image that I want to tell a story. In the end if the image can withstand against time, then the lens has become memorable to me. For example, the Rollei/Hasselblad Carl Zeiss Makro-Planar HFT/T* 4/120 represent tonality and smoothness that can hide flaws from my digital sensor. In fact, it act almost like an AA filter to reduce noise. This reasoning makes sense as we know the Canon 1D series camera always has a thicker AA filter than the 1Ds series camera. Thus, the concept of noise reduction built into your very own special legendary lens. Try it sometimes and you see optics can really attenuate your camera high ISO noise. We can speak about the weakness of every lens but I prefer to speak about the strength of the lens. Thus, the Sony NEX is the beginning stage camera to allow us see the differences among lens characteristics. My hope is that one day soon a full frame mirrorless camera with similar sensor like the Leica M9 that can handle the rangefinder lens and can offer us live view. These combine technologies allow me to use the camera like a paint brush to bend the light the way I want it to do (see image for example).
Though it may not be fair for us to put the absolute value to the comparison between the Sony NEX and the Leica M9. There will be an argument that a high level algorithm raw process is needed to see the Sony NEX file. However, I believe that no matter how efficient the raw processor can pull the data out it cannot pull something that is not there. Thus, I agree with you that the present data showed that the Sony NEX cannot be compared to the Leica M9.
Despite, the Sony NEX has its limitation, it allows us to characterize different lenses and use it for other special applications as I shown an example here below:
Leica Apo Summicron-R 2.0/180 at F2
-Son
