i've been looking for a 50mm f/1.4 or f/1.5 sonnar at a reasonable price for some time with no success, but i did just get nikkor 5cm HC for next to nothing. sadly it has a horrible fungus or something in it in addition to the surface scratches the seller mentioned. here's a few test shots with it anyway, all with heavy curves adjustments to make up for severe lack of contrast. hopefully it didn't drop spores all over my sensor.
Ok, well this is just a boring test shot but I'm posting it just in case anyone is looking for an outstanding, tiny 28mm lens for their NEX (Micro 4/3rds, ect.). I just received an Avenon 28mm 3.5 today (AKA Kobalux) and this was the first shot wide open at 3.5. Further testing has revealed that their is absolutely no corner color vignetting or smearing to speak of! Even wide open, this lens shows no noticeable vignetting. By F8, all corners are tack sharp. The crop is 100%. Straight ACR conversion - Sony NEX-5. Picked this lens up for $350 but since they are somewhat scarce, the price can vary dramatically.
Finally, here is a profile of this little Avenon between the tiny voigtlander 15mm 4.5 and 28 1.9. This is one small lens! All metal with a build quality similar to Voigtlander. http://www.gibranstudio.com/nex.jpg
sebboh wrote:
sweet, looks like an excellent candidate or the compact walk around. what's the mfd?
It is a longish 3 ft. One thing about the focusing scale that I really like is that there are more distance markings then are present on my Voigtlander lenses. For instance, there are 7, 10, 15 and 30 ft markings before infinity whereas my Voigtlander lenses only have 7 and 15 ft before the infinity mark. This makes zone focusing much easier for a walk around lens.
Ataboy wrote:
Great thread! How do you manually focus on these cameras? Zooming in on the LCD all the time?
thanks. on the sony NEX there currently is no evf so all focusing is done through the lcd, which is sufficiently high res that i usually don't have to zoom in unless i'm shooting at an aperture of f/2 or wider. below f/2 the zoom is definitely necessary (one button press to activate it and a half shutter press zooms back out).
Ataboy wrote:
How many OOF shots you get on average?
zero if the subject isn't moving and i use the lcd zoom. tracking moving subjects in nearly impossible though. i usually use zone focusing for that. without using the zoom i get maybe 1% oof shots at f/4. for anything longer than 100mm equiv, i always use the zoom.
Sebboh and others, I wanted to mention that Cameraquest has a special deal on Nikon S mount rangefinder lenses right now. You can get the Voigtlander 50/2.5, 50/1.5 and 85/3.5 for $500 total! It is a sweet deal.
Tariq, that Avenon is a cool find. It is half the price that I paid for the MS Optical 35/3.5 Perar, although the Perar collapses to something even smaller. I'm still waiting for mine to be delivered, but here of some pics from Luca with the Perar mounted on NEX. It's even more pocketable than the Sony 16mm:
Yes, it does not get any smaller then that MS Optical Perar when collapsed. Looking forward to seeing some of your shots with it. The examples I have seen thus far looked quite sharp. Is there something weird about the aperture changing when you focus the lens or something?
I saw that special at Cameraquest about a week or so ago. It sure would be a sweeter deal if one of the other wides was part of the threesome instead of two 50's. The other two things that would give me pause on those SC lenses are the weird focusing mechanism and the future usability/ resale value. The price is very tempting though.
Yes, it does not get any smaller then that MS Optical Perar when collapsed. Looking forward to seeing some of your shots with it. The examples I have seen thus far looked quite sharp. Is there something weird about the aperture changing when you focus the lens or something?
I saw that special at Cameraquest about a week or so ago. It sure would be a sweeter deal if one of the other wides was part of the threesome instead of two 50's. The other two things that would give me pause on those SC lenses are the weird focusing mechanism and the future usability/ resale value. The price is very tempting though. ...Show more →
I agree about the wides, but, for $500, I couldn't resist. The identical M mount 50/1.5 is $599 on its own.
The focusing mechanism is no different from my M lenses, as far as I can tell. Really, when attached to the camera, they feel just like M lenses. As far as value, who knows? It's possible they could go up, since newer Nikon rangefinder lenses aren't common.
bigkidneys wrote:
Here are a couple with my GF1 and 20 1.7 Really digging the combo. Just got my adapter for both it and my NEX 5 so pics with alt lenses coming tomorrow... My only qualm is Aperture 3 really needs to input the camera profile so I can use Raw. I have CS5 PS but hate using it as Aperture 3 seems much easier.
looks good, i thought aperture already supported both the NEX and GF1 in raw. i know i used the trial version of it to process my NEX raws while i waited for adobe to update NEX compatibility.
douglasf13 wrote:
I agree about the wides, but, for $500, I couldn't resist. The focusing mechanism is no different from my M lenses, as far as I can tell. Really, when attached to the camera, they feel just like M lenses. As far as value, who knows? It's possible they could go up, since newer Nikon rangefinder lenses aren't common.
That's good to know about the focusing mechanism. I thought there was a strange tab on the lens near where it connects to the body of a Nikon Rangefinder. At first, I did not realize the lenses also had normal focusing rings. For the longest time, I was searching for the Voigtlander 28 3.5 and considered buying the Nikon SC version at Cameraquest. I'm still curious if that particular 28 has color vignetting issues on the NEX (since this lens apparently has some issues with the RD1, I would guess there would be some vignetting problems). I was completely surprised that I did not run into the issue at all with the Avenon.
douglasf13 wrote:
I agree about the wides, but, for $500, I couldn't resist. The identical M mount 50/1.5 is $599 on its own.
The focusing mechanism is no different from my M lenses, as far as I can tell. Really, when attached to the camera, they feel just like M lenses. As far as value, who knows? It's possible they could go up, since newer Nikon rangefinder lenses aren't common.
i wish that nikon s to NEX adapter included the helicoid for focusing the old nikkor 5cm sonnar lenses in addition to the lenses with their own helicoid. i don't really want to buy two expensive adapters.
douglasf13 wrote:
I agree about the wides, but, for $500, I couldn't resist. The identical M mount 50/1.5 is $599 on its own.
How does this 50 1.5 perform on the NEX? I'm thinking of going for something like this in a rangefinder lens (although I have plenty of SLR 50's I could adapt but then there so physically long on the NEX). The lens I have sort of been lusting after is the Voigtlander Anniversary 50/2 Heliar.
sebboh wrote:
looks good, i thought aperture already supported both the NEX and GF1 in raw. i know i used the trial version of it to process my NEX raws while i waited for adobe to update NEX compatibility.
Aperture supports NEX with Raw but not the GF1. PS does but to be honest, I get a headache every time I open that program and really need more memory as my MAC amlost goes into a coma every time I run the program so I try to stay away from it. That and I don't want to watch 200 online tutorials on how to work a program
bigkidneys wrote:
Aperture supports NEX with Raw but not the GF1. PS does but to be honest, I get a headache every time I open that program and really need more memory as my MAC amlost goes into a coma every time I run the program so I try to stay away from it. That and I don't want to watch 200 online tutorials on how to work a program
weird, i just assumed the gf1 would be supported since it's been out so much longer. i know what you mean about PS, i almost never use it because the interface on lightroom and aperture is so much better/more intuitive. it takes me forever to figure out how do something in PS even if it does do a better job.
edit: you could probably just convert the gf1 raws to dng and then give them to aperture.
sebboh wrote:
weird, i just assumed the gf1 would be supported since it's been out so much longer. i know what you mean about PS, i almost never use it because the interface on lightroom and aperture is so much better/more intuitive. it takes me forever to figure out how do something in PS even if it does do a better job.
edit: you could probably just convert the gf1 raws to dng and then give them to aperture.
I may look into converting them to DNGs. Not sure exactly how but I am sure the help function can assist. Isn't it possible to convert my RAW pics into JPEGs after PP in order to save space in Aperture 3?
bigkidneys wrote:
Isn't it possible to convert my RAW pics into JPEGs after PP in order to save space in Aperture 3?
i don't believe there is a simple way to do that (i'm sure it's probably possible though). one of the reasons i chose lightroom over aperture is that aperture tends to make multiple copies of images, which takes up a lot of space.
