Mike Hatam
Senior Subscriber Member
Has anyone tried the Olympus OM wide angles? An OM 21 or OM 18 would be great compact lenses, unless they have the dreaded magenta/smeared corners on the NEX-7.
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Lens experience with Sony Nex-5 and Nex-7
- Thread starter Woody Campbell
- Start date
Mike Hatam
Senior Subscriber Member
A few of my most used MF lenses on my NEX-7:
Voigtlander Ultron 35mm f1.7 with Hawks Helicoid adapter. This lens lives on my NEX-7 - my current favorite lens for walk-around.
Konica Hexanon AR 85mm f1.8 with Konica-NEX adapter. My favorite long portrait lens.
Fujinon TV 75mm f1.8 with C-NEX adapter. A surprisingly decent portrait lens, and an excellent landscape / still-life lens.
PC-Nikkor 28mm f3.5 SHIFT lens with Nikon-NEX adapter. My current perspective-control solution for architecture shooting. A little too long for indoor work, so I'm exploring other PC/SHIFT options as well.
As for AF lenses on the NEX-7, my favorite native NEX mount lenses right now are the Zeiss 24, the Sony 50. Those two are head-and-shoulders above any other native NEX lenses as far as I'm concerned. I'd like to see Sony make a native NEX Zeiss 75mm f1.8 to complete the set.
Here are two Alpha-mount lenses that I use frequently on the NEX-7:
Sigma 8-16 with LEA-2 adapter. This is the best ultra-wide solution I've found for the NEX-7. Optical performance is quite good when stopped down to f11. Unfortunately, it's not a very convenient travel package due to the size, so I still find myself taking the Sony 16/2.8 for travel.
Sony G 70-400 with LEA-2 adapter. This is my current sports lens (mainly soccer). The phase-detect with the LEA-2 adapter works very well with continuous focus, giving me a pretty decent sports shooting solution. All I miss from my A77 setup is the image stabilization. Now if only Sigma would release their 120-300 f2.8 lens in an Alpha mount - that would be the perfect sports lens for my use. For now, this one is the best I've found:
Voigtlander Ultron 35mm f1.7 with Hawks Helicoid adapter. This lens lives on my NEX-7 - my current favorite lens for walk-around.
Konica Hexanon AR 85mm f1.8 with Konica-NEX adapter. My favorite long portrait lens.
Fujinon TV 75mm f1.8 with C-NEX adapter. A surprisingly decent portrait lens, and an excellent landscape / still-life lens.
PC-Nikkor 28mm f3.5 SHIFT lens with Nikon-NEX adapter. My current perspective-control solution for architecture shooting. A little too long for indoor work, so I'm exploring other PC/SHIFT options as well.
As for AF lenses on the NEX-7, my favorite native NEX mount lenses right now are the Zeiss 24, the Sony 50. Those two are head-and-shoulders above any other native NEX lenses as far as I'm concerned. I'd like to see Sony make a native NEX Zeiss 75mm f1.8 to complete the set.
Here are two Alpha-mount lenses that I use frequently on the NEX-7:
Sigma 8-16 with LEA-2 adapter. This is the best ultra-wide solution I've found for the NEX-7. Optical performance is quite good when stopped down to f11. Unfortunately, it's not a very convenient travel package due to the size, so I still find myself taking the Sony 16/2.8 for travel.
Sony G 70-400 with LEA-2 adapter. This is my current sports lens (mainly soccer). The phase-detect with the LEA-2 adapter works very well with continuous focus, giving me a pretty decent sports shooting solution. All I miss from my A77 setup is the image stabilization. Now if only Sigma would release their 120-300 f2.8 lens in an Alpha mount - that would be the perfect sports lens for my use. For now, this one is the best I've found:
Photon-hunter
New member
Sweet!!!Voigtlander Ultron 35mm f1.7 with Hawks Helicoid adapter. This lens lives on my NEX-7 - my current favorite lens for walk-around.
E.
kit laughlin
Subscriber Member
As soon as my body arrives this week, I will post images of the many 35s I have to try on this camera. I have the Hawk's helicoid too; and it will be living on that body, too: it's a fantastic addition that really completes the MF lens experience and utility, for me.
Since I started shooting with the Nex7, I have worked with several Sony lenses and have listed my thoughts for each.
18-55 kit lens. really nothing special in it to me. I found it actually softer than the 18-200 in the same range. Since the F range is about the same and I don't mind carrying the 18-200, I took the 18-55 back.
Sony A 16-50mm F 2.8. I briefly shot with this lens but found it very corner soft. It's a big lens and I had hoped that it would provide a good solution for the F2.8 to F4 range, but images center sharp with very smeared edges/corners. Could have been the particular lens and I didn't have any others to work with.
Sony A 16-80mm, by far the best overall lens I have used on the Nex7. Sharp from 16mm to 80, with no CA and detail smearing. The color/contrast is also very nice. Once I learned how to use the focus peaking both in the eye piece and the LCD, my hit rate got very close to 95%. When using the LCD I get the best results with the camera on a tripod. However when using the viewfinder (I didn't realize you could zoom it to 11.7 at first), I find that I get very good results hand held, I guess since the camera is being held close to my face and thus a bit more stable. Only downside to me is the lack of AF in the lens so it's only a Manual focus solution thus mainly for landscape or macro. One note, you can be off by just a hair and it makes a huge difference but this lens when on can really deliver. Since I am using the Sony E to A adapter I mounted my L bracket to the lens and this makes a much more stable platform.
Sony E mount 18-200, this lens has been a positive surprise. It's not as overall sharp as the 16-80 at 16mm to 24mm but in many cases it will get the job done. The ability to have AF and OSS does come in handy. I shot several series at 1/15 on a morning sunrise, (totally by mistake) but the images were very sharp and could be used. Color and contrast are close but not as good as the Sony 16-80mm. For general purpose, this is great lens, and has a very good reach. Image quality was a surprise for me.
Other lenses I am hoping to work with soon.
Sony E mount 50mm 1.8. Mainly for low light work. But from what I have read this is stellar lens.
Contax Distagon 28mm F2.8 and 50mm 1.4. Both of these have been dusted off and I am waiting for the Fotodiox adapter to use them. Hoping that I won't get too much vignetting on the 50mm 1.4
Sony A mount 11-18mm Just curious how well it will do on the Nex7 for the wider needs.
So far my only disappointment on the Nex7 has been noise. 400iso and higher is quite a bit noisy (using LR4 or LR3) for conversion. Hoping that a firmware update might help on this, but not holding my breath.
Paul
18-55 kit lens. really nothing special in it to me. I found it actually softer than the 18-200 in the same range. Since the F range is about the same and I don't mind carrying the 18-200, I took the 18-55 back.
Sony A 16-50mm F 2.8. I briefly shot with this lens but found it very corner soft. It's a big lens and I had hoped that it would provide a good solution for the F2.8 to F4 range, but images center sharp with very smeared edges/corners. Could have been the particular lens and I didn't have any others to work with.
Sony A 16-80mm, by far the best overall lens I have used on the Nex7. Sharp from 16mm to 80, with no CA and detail smearing. The color/contrast is also very nice. Once I learned how to use the focus peaking both in the eye piece and the LCD, my hit rate got very close to 95%. When using the LCD I get the best results with the camera on a tripod. However when using the viewfinder (I didn't realize you could zoom it to 11.7 at first), I find that I get very good results hand held, I guess since the camera is being held close to my face and thus a bit more stable. Only downside to me is the lack of AF in the lens so it's only a Manual focus solution thus mainly for landscape or macro. One note, you can be off by just a hair and it makes a huge difference but this lens when on can really deliver. Since I am using the Sony E to A adapter I mounted my L bracket to the lens and this makes a much more stable platform.
Sony E mount 18-200, this lens has been a positive surprise. It's not as overall sharp as the 16-80 at 16mm to 24mm but in many cases it will get the job done. The ability to have AF and OSS does come in handy. I shot several series at 1/15 on a morning sunrise, (totally by mistake) but the images were very sharp and could be used. Color and contrast are close but not as good as the Sony 16-80mm. For general purpose, this is great lens, and has a very good reach. Image quality was a surprise for me.
Other lenses I am hoping to work with soon.
Sony E mount 50mm 1.8. Mainly for low light work. But from what I have read this is stellar lens.
Contax Distagon 28mm F2.8 and 50mm 1.4. Both of these have been dusted off and I am waiting for the Fotodiox adapter to use them. Hoping that I won't get too much vignetting on the 50mm 1.4
Sony A mount 11-18mm Just curious how well it will do on the Nex7 for the wider needs.
So far my only disappointment on the Nex7 has been noise. 400iso and higher is quite a bit noisy (using LR4 or LR3) for conversion. Hoping that a firmware update might help on this, but not holding my breath.
Paul
pegelli
Well-known member
Yesterday I borrowed somebodies Takumar 105/2.8 with a M42 mount. (it was the 105th day of 2012) and as expected it performed very well on my Nex 5. Also that focus ring just operates so smooth that it was a real joy to use. Only rotating to focus is counter to my Leica M and Olympus OM lenses , so that took a little getting used to.
Here's some examples:
Here's some examples:
mbroomfield
New member
I've been using a number; 18, 21/2 and 24/2. I have the 18mm ZM so the main reason I started using the OM18 is that I bought a tilt adapter. On the Nex5N these are all excellent and I would think they'd perform the same on the 7.
In order 18mm, 21 with tilt, 24 with tilt;
Mike Hatam
Senior Subscriber Member
Thanks Mike - those look great. If/when someone builds an OM-NEX SHIFT adapter, I was thinking of picking up the OM 18 or 21 and use it as a shift lens on the NEX-7. With the ful-frame image circle, I figure I should be able to get around 6-8mm of shift with the lens on a NEX-7 body.
mbroomfield
New member
Mike, you could Leitax them to F mount and get one of the F-shift adapters. Here's one taken with an F mount 14mm Bower (Rokinon etc) and 8mm of shift (you're right this is the max);
PS, looks a little soft here, here's a link to the bigger version on pbase
http://www.pbase.com/mike_broomfield/image/142697451/original
PS, looks a little soft here, here's a link to the bigger version on pbase
http://www.pbase.com/mike_broomfield/image/142697451/original
Last edited:
pegelli
Well-known member
Here's another Takumar, the SMC 50/4 macro. Goes out to 1:2 and is super sharp wide open, great colours and bokeh.
And some of the results:
A small violet
Apple blossom
Rusty rooster
Wavy leaf
Who's got the nerf to walk there
All on a Nex 5 with a M42 to A-mount converter and then a LE-AE1 adapter to get to E-mount
And some of the results:
A small violet
Apple blossom
Rusty rooster
Wavy leaf
Who's got the nerf to walk there
All on a Nex 5 with a M42 to A-mount converter and then a LE-AE1 adapter to get to E-mount