philber wrote:
The 18-200 is the best Sony lens for NEX, as of now. It is just a plain good lens, if you can live with the specs (size, weight, lack of speed, range). A good lens, yes but don't expect this wide range zoom to match the IQ of great primes. The difference before resizing for Web is clear.
If you like the pics so much, maybe you and I can trade the Sony against your two ZMs
The 18-200 will be for travel. Although heavy, its gonna be lighter than my D700 with equivalent superzoom so I'm good. I'm just a bit worried about AF accuracy, hope its good enough for what I do.
I thought you also have the ZMs? After all, Its your post on this thread that made me buy them; ZM 50 Planar & 35 C-Biogon
Must have been hard, losing on those fantastic tiny darlings. Are you planning of buying them all over again, or you want to try other lenses? I'd probably change the Planar to the Sonnar as I've been really curious about the Sonnar's classic rendering everybody is talking about.
So far I have left over from my NEX 5 Contax G 21mm and 28mm, and Contax C/Y 35-70mm.
I have ordered a Zeiss 24mm f:1.8, which I expect to be my walkabout lens.
What will my final kit be? Something like Zeiss 24mm, and Sony G standard zomm (18-55 or whatever). If the Sony G zoom is good enough, then I won"t buy again the ZMs, if not I plan to buy a 35, but unsure which, as both have their staunch supporters. OTOH, I will probably not repurchase the ZM 50, in favor of a Contax G 45 (much cheaper, stellar IQ, sae adapter as my 2 existing Gs.
I will be trading the C3 for a 5N in the next couple of days, and wait for the 7 with baited breath.
Regarding your lust for the 50 Sonnar, be aware that "classic portrait rendering" is another way of saying "very, very soft wide open"; If you wish, ask denoir he has one.
BTW, the new bodies are a significant upgrade from the previous ones.
Have fun!
AhamB wrote:
@sebboh: Perhaps you can do two RAW exports (one developed for the highlights and one with higher exposure for the shadows) and try to merge them with this technique: http://jtrujillo.net/qpix/
I must say that I usually don't like the washed out look that fill light and highlight recovery (esp. the latter) usually give. In Lightroom I often try to use the GND tool to tone down and get more detail in overexposed skies (or the opposite, lowering exposure and raising the landscape with the GND). Even so, this doesn't work well in many cases because gradient simply doesn't look natural.
yeah, i'm not much of a fan of the fill light or recovery look either, though i do use them in small doses for portraits. i'm' actually surprised how much contrast is retained in this considering the fill is cranked up to 90 in lightroom. i think blending different exposures is probably the best solution. i'm glad that the NEX files seem to have enough latitude to do this (and the 5N looks even better), since i never shoot on a tripod and am not terribly thrilled with the idea of shooting jpeg hdr photos.
thanks to everyone for the ideas on processing the shot.
if you set the camera on bracketing and on highest speed per second, you can shoot multiple exposures without a tripode. And why not switch to RAW just for those shots where you need multiple exposure?
cyra wrote:
if you set the camera on bracketing and on highest speed per second, you can shoot multiple exposures without a tripode. And why not switch to RAW just for those shots where you need multiple exposure?
sorry, i wasn't clear. i do shoot raw. what i don't like about sony's in camera hdr is that i have to switch to jpeg only and then back, which is annoying and then of course i have to worry more about white balance. as far as bracketing goes, sony doesn't give you enough of range in bracketing for it to be noticeably better than just pushing and pulling the raw file to make multiple virtual exposures.
sebboh wrote:
yeah, i'm not much of a fan of the fill light or recovery look either, though i do use them in small doses for portraits. i'm' actually surprised how much contrast is retained in this considering the fill is cranked up to 90 in lightroom. i think blending different exposures is probably the best solution. i'm glad that the NEX files seem to have enough latitude to do this (and the 5N looks even better), since i never shoot on a tripod and am not terribly thrilled with the idea of shooting jpeg hdr photos.
It's mostly recovery that I don't like actually, because it's not selective enough for my taste. I almost always use the adjustment brush (or some other method in PS) instead. Fill light can be more useful, in my experience.
Btw, bracketed exposures should be feasible with the NEX, as long as the exposure time is reasonably short. Since there is no mirror slap I guess it should be a bit easier than with a DSLR. Enfuse and other HDR software should be able to align the shots if there was a small amount of motion between the exposure.
I'm usually too lazy to bracket exposures, but sometimes I regret not having done it.
Well, got my adapter in today, so got to try out my newly incorrectly-rebuilt Rokkor 58mm f/1.4 and my 24mm f/2.8
Love the 24, "meh" on the 58, especially since I lost my aperture click stops. I'll have to reassemble it or something, maybe I messed something up. The bokeh is pretty harsh though.
First one the 58, other 3 the 24. Love the 24! (all just test shots, late in the day, etc etc)
Thanks Ryan! Actually, I find shooting from the waist with the screen tilted up very easy and pleasant. Certainly more than heaving a heavy DSLR to eye-level. But, so far, the nEX has two weaknesses in this respect: portrait mode, because the scrren only tilts in one dimension, and sunny days, because glare dims the LCD. The forthcioming EVF should relieve both issues.
Overall I like the camera a lot, but I'm pretty unimpressed with the JPEGs w/r/t noise reduction. It's pretty visible even at base ISO. I'm pretty sure they don't really compare well at all to the JPEGs I can get from my K-5, which uses a similar but older sensor. (That said, it's been ages since I used JPEGs regularly with any camera.)
