This is really good to know - thanks everyone I feared that the 16-80 would not be right for a wedding. I'm not an experienced wedding shooter at all, but the first photog is. She has said that I could bring my manual focus lenses and have fun with that. Maybe I'll follow sebboh's advice and rent a D700 and keep the NEX handy with my Zeiss Jena 75 on it.
I also use the LA-EA2 with the 35 and 85 SAM lenses. It handles very well hardly even notice it. I especial like the tripod adapter which I have an L bracket attached to that works great for tripod mounting and works as a handle/grip. The focusing is fast and accurate. I bought this originally to mount the Sigma 8-16 but have not bought it yet. I also like that the dust is kept away from the sensor when changing lenses.
dennishh wrote:
I also use the LA-EA2 with the 35 and 85 SAM lenses. It handles very well hardly even notice it. I especial like the tripod adapter which I have an L bracket attached to that works great for tripod mounting and works as a handle/grip. The focusing is fast and accurate. I bought this originally to mount the Sigma 8-16 but have not bought it yet. I also like that the dust is kept away from the sensor when changing lenses.
I agree the 35 is near weightless, and I hear the 85 is real crisp--plus all these "easy choice" lenses are cheap but good. The build is such that you can't believe it could possible do this: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7062/6947296149_964ee41a94_b.jpg
full Thats a camera jpeg at f/4. It can do better, but hopefuly you get the idea.
Uhoh, those look good. I grabbed the full JPG and while it's not pretty in the very farthest tidbits of the corners (again, at f/4), it is plenty sharp across most of the frame. Looks like it would be very handy for a 'people pictures' lens.
Edit: and posting a followup question if anyone cares to hazard a guess. I have read the reviews of the lenses I tried (16-80 and 16-50) and am not finding corner resolution to be smokin' on either lens when its stopped down. I am talking about reasonable corner sharpness, not the extremes.
Do you think it's an issue of using the lenses on LA-EA2/NEX system or is it just a reflection on the lenses themselves?
mco_970 wrote:
Uhoh, those look good. I grabbed the full JPG and while it's not pretty in the very farthest tidbits of the corners (again, at f/4), it is plenty sharp across most of the frame. Looks like it would be very handy for a 'people pictures' lens.
Edit: and posting a followup question if anyone cares to hazard a guess. I have read the reviews of the lenses I tried (16-80 and 16-50) and am not finding corner resolution to be smokin' on either lens when its stopped down. I am talking about reasonable corner sharpness, not the extremes.
Do you think it's an issue of using the lenses on LA-EA2/NEX system or is it just a reflection on the lenses themselves?...Show more →
I'd say it's a little of both, at least where the 16-80 is concerned. The corners were better on a DSLR than the NEX, but not really perfect. I don't think there is a zoom with perfect corners. Fortunately, the only people who obsess about the corners are photographers. It's rare when a viewer's eye makes it out of the central frame.
freaklikeme wrote:
I'd say it's a little of both, at least where the 16-80 is concerned. The corners were better on a DSLR than the NEX, but not really perfect. I don't think there is a zoom with perfect corners. Fortunately, the only people who obsess about the corners are photographers. It's rare when a viewer's eye makes it out of the central frame.
I agree about the corners, most of the time they are cropped out anyways. The 35mm SAM's sweet spot is f5.6, very good there.
Dennis - I think you are spot on about cropping, I have been doing little cropping lately.
Brad - I also think you are right about corners being something that bugs the 'tog much more than the viewer. I really like the IQ and character of the 16-80 for a zoom - the flower shots and portraits I grabbed with it were keepers. It seems optimized for those types of shots, and I feel it handles much better than the 16-50 on the NEX body.
I will have to get a better sample up from the 35/1.8
A long time ago I tested it against an FD 35/2 SSC thorium concave and you could not tell the difference except for the canon's warm tone.
dennishh wrote:
How do you like the 70-400G? I also have been thinking of getting a 55-to 210 to wait and see what the next E TeleZoom looks like. Great shots!
I think its sharper than the 55 210, but that lens is fine for what it is. My nikkor 180 AIS ED is better than both, and I know there are german lenses in that range which are really good.
The real deal is the Contax CY 100-300.
No AF but incredible sharpness.
the sony 70400 has a great build, but is 1600 grams. They say it is better than any zoom in its class--because it's a new design.
Long shots are a pain becaue of the variables. So I wanted an AF lens. My telyt 400/6.8 I think is sharper than the sony.
We have a great srping creek wetland 35 min south with huge bird activity--and I want to try shooting some in april.
Those heads are so expensive. I am really hopping Sony will make a fine stabilized telephoto for the NEX! The weight is the limiting factor for me. Thanks for the information if I find one used I will grab it.
I decided to buy a LA-EA2 and the 16-50 2.8 zoom for use with my NEX 7. There are times when I need to shoot things where autofocus is a big plus.
I gave it a good workout over the weekend, and discovered that, at f2.8, with the drive mode set to continuous, I am getting between 2-3 frame per second. However, if I stop down to anything at all, that speed drops in half, to just a bit better than one frame per second. Apparently on each shot, the lens opens up, focuses, then closes back down. This is pretty slow!
Now, I should add that if I set the drive mode to speed priority, it fires off a fast burst, whether or not the lens is stopped down. So I guess that speed priority is the solution I would need to use if I want to grab a few fast frames, but of course it is not re-focussing during that burst.
I'm thinking about the best way to use this lens to shoot dance. Low light, lots of movement... Of course, I might be shooting everything at f2.8 anyway, so I could get 2-3 frames per second that way with focus in between each.
One more question. I also bought the 85mm SAM lens to use with the LA-EA2 on my NEX 7.
Following some advice I read in Luminous Landscape, in the "Camera" menu, I set the AF/MF select on my NEX 7 to "Manual". With the 16-50 lens, this means that when I press the AF/MF button, the lens autofocuses, and when I let go, the focus is locked. I like this method of working a lot, since all the shutter button is doing is activating the metering. (I formerly had my Nikon D700 set this way).
However, for some reason, this won't work on the 85mm SAM lens. With that lens mounted, if I press the AF/MF button, nothing happens. When I press the shutter, it focuses (somewhat slowly...) and then shoots.
