What will undoubtedly happen is some thoroughly meticulous and curious photographer will get a 7 in and do an authoritative test just a camera ships and my credit card is dinged for the 7 I have on pre-order. Hopefully the result of that test won't cause me to put the camera up on eBay unopened.
I'm in the same boat as you with a 7 on preorder. I just look at is as an option since because of the unfortunate events in Thailand we will have no problem reselling it (after testing) at full price or possibly more if you want to go that route.
michael49 wrote:
I'm still not sure, something doesn't seem right about some of those "test shots". I'm still reserving my judgement on the NEX 7.
Honestly though I love my 5N with EVF. Only thing I don't like is not being able to use a flash and the EVF at the same time. I mostly use my Canon 550d and 430EX when I need to use flash, but I'd like to have more flash options (esp while using the EVF) with the NEX.
Using flash or radio slaves with flash and having an EVF is exactly what appeals to me about the 7, among a few other things.
I know the person who posted those NEX-7 test images and have briefly handled the NEX-7 he used for the tests. It's a preproduction model and in use you can tell it's not working quite right. Whether that had any impact on on the images he posted, I'm not sure as I was unable to do any of my own tests with it. I suspect some of the troubles could be adapter issues and those images were all done on a cheaper adapter, rather than a Novoflex or Voigtlander, though I'm not sure how much of a difference that makes, if any.
Here are a couple shots with the Leica 90mm f/2.5 Summarit on the 5N. I find I'm using this lens a lot on the 5N, whereas on the M9 I seem to view things more wide to normal. In this respect, I think the 5N or 7 would be a nice complementary camera to a rangefinder.
Being totally new to Sony I noticed a couple things about the NEX files. The JPEGs at the default setting (though with high ISO NR set to low), at least at low ISOs, are detail packed, if somewhat flat looking compared to the default M9 rendering. Coming from many years of Canon, in-camera JPEGs were typically inferior to RAW conversions, so it was nice to see the detail in the Sony files. I would guess the flat nature of the Sony JPEGs will give those preferring to work with JPEGs a lot of options in post. The RAW files in LR 3.5 process nicely and it's good to be able to get around some of the heavyish higher ISO NR seen in the JPEGs, though as I mentioned, not sure there is much more actual detail extraction at low ISOs. I also tried RPP on a few files, and I would say conversions contain maybe marginally more detail (depends a lot on the sharpening setting) than what I'm seeing from LR, though in many images I actually prefer the look of detail in the LR conversions. RPP at default seems to handle highlight transitions better. With some of my LR conversions I found setting what looked to be a normally exposed NEX file to -1 exp. comp. in LR, then lifting the mid tones and shadows got me closer to the retained highlight details I got from RPP.
rscheffler wrote:
But for now, here are a couple with the Voigtlander 15mm on the NEX-5N. I pretty much relegated the 15 to special use on the M9 because of the strong edge color shift, though the latest firmware did improve that situation somewhat. Sure, I could use cornerfix, but my feeling was that it flattened the character of the files. Anyway, surprise, surprise to me, the 15 works great on the 5N, even if it looks terrible in Steve Huff's NEX-7 test.
The flip screen came in really handy here and makes the camera really easy to shoot like a waist level finder, but shooting verticals off the display is a pain. Really need that EVF......Show more →
Nice shot, but not the one to check CS. Can we see one with sky accross top?
Thanks Michael. I suspect the NEX-7 will be 85% usable for most of our needs, just that there may be issues with certain wide angle rangefinder lenses. If Sony or Zeiss were to release a quality lens somewhere in the 10-14mm range, then it might address a lot of this on the 7. Of course an appeal to using rangefinder lenses is that some of us already have them, and that they're typically small and high quality... but at least for me, I think I could live with one Sony super wide in conjunction with the rest of my RF glass if that's what it took to make the 7 work for my needs.
Ron, the concern that I have is that the NEX-7 sensor will still not be quite as good with native Sony lenses, too. There's already evidence that the Sony 16mm is better on the 5N when compared to the 5, and that could be the case with the Zeiss 24, but we'll see.
Good point Douglas. It's something I neglected to consider.
Nice varmint there sebboh. Found these on my first day out with the 5N at dusk. Leica 90 Summarit at ISO 12,800 straight from the camera JPEG, high ISO NR set to low..
Impressive, lots of contrast and sharpness although I assume some comes from PP. The often heavy-used aluminium look of the jupiter kind of implies it should be softer... totally non-scientific of course :-)
wfrank wrote:
Impressive, lots of contrast and sharpness although I assume some comes from PP. The often heavy-used aluminium look of the jupiter kind of implies it should be softer... totally non-scientific of course :-)
i applied my standard curves adjustment, vignetting, and a multistep sharpening/downsizing in PS. the aluminum body just implies cheap construction (and higher likelyhood of sample variation/aging poorly) the optical design is exactly the same as the old zeiss. contrast and saturation are surprisingly ok though colors are similar to in accuracy to uncoated lenses. the lens is decently sharp in the center even wide open at short to medium distances. at infinity it isn't as good with a fair amount of CA and corners that never get that sharp. i'll post some crops at some point, though not of this picture as it is at iso 1600 and won't give a very representative idea of sharpness.
rscheffler wrote:
[..... Coming from many years of Canon, in-camera JPEGs were typically inferior to RAW conversions, so it was nice to see the detail in the Sony files.,,,
I was someone who always shot RAW with my Canon gear but I find myself shooting jpeg 90% of the time with the 5N. I have some standard import settings that I use in LR that work very well for me.
vallejo wrote:
....How is the experience of shooting with 5N and the EVF, compared to a DSLR, in terms of viewfinder and shutter lag? My thing is street photography...
Its better, at least for me. Using MF with peaking you can easily focus anywhere in the frame, plus you are seeing the actual exposure and WB, in addition to a live histogram if you want it. The auto-ISO feature is God-send for street shooting as well.
