Thanks, Boris! Yes, my lens is very nice indeed, BUT it is on a crop sensor, and backfocus is not an issue for the NEX. I will bring it, as ordered, to the Lofoten, so you can try it there if you want.
i've been playing with with my contax g 45mm and it seems that it's extremely high contrast is beneficial for high iso shots. i'm seeing much less visible noise in shots from it than at the same iso with lower contrast lenses. i should do a direct comparison to be sure, but here's a few example shots:
philber wrote:
Amazing, Sebboh! How do you do that, push the exposure in post?
just bumping the exposure setting in lightroom. it would probably look better if i took the time to set the right iso in camera, but these are just quick grab shots.
uhoh7 - Iso 2-400, I see hence no noise. That makes sense. Thanks
Philber -Wonderful shots with ZM50. They all seem to show strong three dimensionality of statue's volume. Very nice color and lighting on first shot is great. What is your finding so far?
sebboh - It is amazing how you keep noise to minimal with such high ISO shots. Especially the first shot, with large dark area, I'd expect more noise.
Thanks for the kind words, Akul!
IMHO the ZM 50mm f:2.0 is a first-class lens. Detail, sharpness, colour, contrast, 3D, it has it all. I have done a couple of shoot-outs with the well-respected C/Y 35-70, where it always come out better. It also outperforms the ZM 35 Biogon C f:2.8. I haven't tested it wide open or close up, which aren't my usual shooting conditions. I also use it on a crop camera, so I wouldn't know about edge performance in FF. The fact that it isn't that expensive (for a Zeiss, that is), is a bonus. I haven't tried the more expensive and faster 50mm f:1.5, so I can't compare them. The fact that mine is a Planar and the f:1.5 is a Sonnar indicates that they are not at all identical in design.
sebboh - those are all wonderful shots. I must say, though, I love the bench shot a lot. It just feels like it is 'there'.
g45 and ZM50 are both very saliva enducing, but that Leica R elmarit 28 is also quite nice. The thing is, I already have pretty good CY28, and decent Nikkor 50, and CY50 1.4 waiting to be converted. For that matter, I should not be looking at these focal length.
sebboh wrote:
some more shots from the contax g 45mm testing it's 3dness wide open nothing particularly interesting but i'm liking the depth:
the forecast for chicago today includes a thundersnow blizzard, so maybe tomorrow i'll have some interesting scenery to shoot.
uhoh7 wrote:
I can see why that lens is so famous.
Did you shoot them raw or jpeg, much pp?
i always shoot raw. the outdoor shots just have my custom curves settings applied in lightroom during import and then maybe a little tweaking of white and black point and that is probably it. the portrait has the same treatment with the addition of a big bump in exposure and recovery along with some noise reduction and maybe a saturation tweak. after i export the photos i downsize them for the web using a multistep sharpening/downsizing script modified from what denoir posted.
edit: i forgot, i add significant vignetting to nearly all my photos as well.
Another brilliant set, sebboh!
I don't know why it is, but I seem to prefer the NEX's close-up up to mid-distance shots, rather than the ones at infinity. Considering the diversity of lenses used by the posters, I can't ascribe that to the lens, so it could be a "camera thing". Or maybe it is just on those pics that the crop factor is less of a drawback...
philber wrote:
Another brilliant set, sebboh!
I don't know why it is, but I seem to prefer the NEX's close-up up to mid-distance shots, rather than the ones at infinity. Considering the diversity of lenses used by the posters, I can't ascribe that to the lens, so it could be a "camera thing". Or maybe it is just on those pics that the crop factor is less of a drawback...
thanks! as far as the NEX at infinity goes, this might just be me but i think that good pictures that should actually be focused at infinity are few and far between. i really only do such things when traveling to places that have distant mountains, shooting out plane windows, or testing a new lens at infinity (usually a waste of time given the amount of haze chicago has - anything at infinity will be blurry no matter how good the lens is). i shoot hyperfocally a fair bit, but that always compromises things at infinity a bit. another possible reason for your observation might be that all those adapted lenses focus past infinity on the NEX and people aren't getting infinity focus quite right.
I'm sure it is just the particular shots you've seen. There are plenty of great aps-c shots at infinity in the world, and there shouldn't be anything specific to nex.
Thanks for the feed-back, Sebboh, douglas. I wasn't saying that "the NEX can't do infinity properly", which would be technical nonsense, but that I found it more appealing on other-than-infinity shots. Your examples show that this does not need to be so. I will now aim to see what is "wrong", if anything.
sebboh wrote:
uhoh7 - great shots, have you tried using the tilt adapter to extend dof for a landscape shot?
i was unable to go out the day after our big blizzard in chicago but i got a few shots 2 days after on my way to work. all these are with the contax g 45mm.
even in the frigid cold it is too hazy to get a decent shot of downtown.
You got some serious DOF on that first shot! What was your aperture?
Yes, I really want to try extreme DOF. To that end I have one of these on the way:
