Sony Alpha NEX Cameras and E Mount Lenses

NEX-7 with Voigtlander 21mm f/1.8 Ultron via Novoflex Leica M to E-mount adapter . TechTalk with Ron Sheffler tested the new Voigtlander 21mm f/1.8 Aspherical Ultron against three other Leica M 21mm lenses on the Leica M9. He also used the lenses on the Sony NEX-7 and found that the Voigtlander 21mm f/1.8 the best at farther distances and large apertures. The Leica 21 f/3.4 Super Elmar-M came in second, the Zeiss 21mm f/2.8 Biogon in third, and the Leica 21 f/1.4 Summilux at the back of the pack. At f/4 all the lenses performed equally well on the NEX-7's APS-C sensor. Here are some samples from the NEX-7 and the Voigtlander 21mm wide open at f/1.8. You can see more samples at TechTalk. Sample Images from NEX-7 with Voigtlander 21mm f/1.8 Check out TechTalk with Ron Sheffler for an extensive review and comparison between the four 21mm Leica M mount lenses mentioned above. There are also plenty of sample images from the Leica M9 with the lenses. Voigtlander 21m

All shots are from the Sony NEX-7 with a M-Rokkor 28mm f/2.8 and a close-focusing Leica M mount adapter. Happy holidays everyone and thanks for following the blog.

NEX-7 with Voigtlander 15mm, Sigma 30mm, and Fujinon 50mm lens Here is a set of pictures by Emmanuel C. taken in Turkey with his Sony NEX-7. He brought along a pair of adapted manual focus lenses: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 Super Wide Heliar and the Fujinon 50mm f/1.9 lens. He also used the native E-mount autofocus the Sigma 30mm f/2.8 DN lens. This provides a nice set covering 22.5mm, 45mm, and 75mm equivalent field of view. Check out Emmanuel's website at EmmanuelChampagne.fr .

The new Leica M This is the new Leica M camera and this is where the NEX system should be headed. The Leica M has technologies proven in NEX cameras such as focus peaking, detachable and tiltable electronic viewfinder, accepting other lenses via adapters, and a movie mode. The Leica M adds the following to the NEX system: a full frame sensor, rangefinder focusing system, a weather proof body, and a GPS accessory. The Leica M will be around $7000, around 6x the cost of the Sony NEX-7 . Kudos to Leica.

Voigtlander 21mm f/1.8 Ultron Here is a new Leica M mount lens from Voigtlander. It is a fast f/1.8, 21mm wide angle lens. This translates to 30mm (effective FOV) for the Sony NEX sensor. The big question is, will it play well with the APS-C sensor? We are hoping that it does and give us a fast, wide angle lens similar to the Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 ZA E . The manual focus and aperture, Leica M mount, Voigtlander 21mm f/1.8 Ultron will cost £1149. It is almost twice the weight of the Zeiss 24mm. 21mm f/1.8 Ultron Specs from Voigtlander Germany: Due to its large diameter elements, you can shoot with available light even in severe light condition, and also shallow depth of field and super wide angle, this mix of features offers you a chance to emphasize main things with great bokeh. Any kind of aberration is corrected properly by the construction of 13 elements 11 groups with Aspherical element. 13 elements in 11 groups with Aspherical lens Full Metal Barrel with high stiffness and durabi

Sony RX1 35mm Zeiss Sonnar Autoocus Lens Sony RX1 35mm Sonnar Lens MTF Chart at f/2 and f/8; 10 and 30 lp/mm Here is the calculated MTF Chart for the 35mm f/2 Sonnar lens on the Sony DSC-RX1 . We will try go give a quick explanation of the RX1 MTF charts above. The red lines show how well contrast will be reproduced by the lens. The green lines show sharpness or resolving power of the lens. The higher on the chart the better. The horizontal axis represents the point from the center of the lens. This tells us the corner performance of the lens. The Sony's RX1 35mm Zeiss Sonnar lens as described in the press release: Complementing the full-frame sensor is a fast, bright Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* lens with a fixed focal length of 35mm – a versatile choice for portraits, street photography and everyday shooting. Recordable dynamic range is reduced at sensitivity levels below ISO100. Full-frame Image Sensor APS-C Image Sensor3 Derived from the German word “Sonne” (“sun”), the Sonna

Sony RX1 with Zeiss 35mm f/2 Sonnar Lens Sony has set the digital camera world abuzz with leaks of the Sony RX1 . The RX1 uses the full frame, 24 x 34 mm, 24 megapixel sensor from the soon to be released Sony SLT-A99 camera. The pictures show that Zeiss developed an autofocus 35mm f/2 Sonnar lens for the RX1. Is it a fixed lens camera? Zeiss will display three new prime autofocus CSC lenses later this month at Photokina. Could they be for the RX1? A 35mm, shown above? a 50mm standard? and a 90mm macro? The speculated price for the RX1 with the Zeiss 35mm Sonnar is $2799. This is line with Sony's pricing since the NEX-7 with the Zeiss 24mm Sonnar is $2300. RX1 with Built-in Pop-up Flash RX1 showing Video Button Below is a quick mock-up of the Sony NEX-7 with the Zeiss 24mm ZA ($2300), a Leica M9 with a 35mm Summicron ($9700), and the Sony RX1 with the Zeiss 35mm Sonnar ($2799). Sony NEX-7 with 24mm Sonnar, Leica M9 with 35mm Summicron, Sony RX1 with 35mm Sonnar What do

R.C. at LensRentals.com performed a test on several lenses on the NEX-7. The lenses comprised of the native E-mount lenses from Sony and Sigma. A Leica Summilux was also thrown into the mix since it's done well in previous Imatest challenges. The numbers below represent MTF-50 at aperture f/4. The NEX-7 was set at ISO 400 and each lens was manually focused and bracketed so that focus errors were eliminated. from Imatest. Device or system sharpness is measured as a Spatial Frequency Response (SFR), also called Modulation Transfer Function (MTF). MTF is the contrast at a given spatial frequency (measured in cycles or line pairs per distance) relative to low frequencies. The 50% MTF frequency correlates well with perceived sharpness— much better than the old vanishing resolution measurement, which indicated where the detail wasn’t. Now let's look at the test results at aperture f/4. Lens Max Avg Sony 16mm f/4 915 646 Sigma 19mm f/4 920 765 Sony 24mm f/4 1000

A Owens posted pictures of his adventure with his sons in the Sahara desert. Here is what he wrote: Left all the Canon gear at home for this trip and went light with the NEX C3 only together with Voigty 15mm , Zeiss 21/4.5 and 50/2 and Elmarit 90/2.8. My youngest 2 sons were with me camping into the desert to sample life without Xbox, TV, western comforts etc.. They loved it. Here are A Owens shots with the Sony NEX-C3 and some manual focus lenses. It's nice to see that the C3 won't be a stumbling block for making great memories. Check out more of A Owens NEX-C3 Western Sahara / Morocco shots in his dpreview gallery . Thanks A!

I was lucky enough to catch a few drinks with another photo enthusiast who happen to have a Leica M8 and a chrome 50mm Summilux-M ASPH. I had my NEX-5 with a Voigtlander 35mm Ultron since I needed the speed whilst at the drinking hole. He was generous enough to slap the Summilux-M onto my Leica-Nex lens adapter and allowed me to use it. All the shots here were taken with the 50mm lens wide open at f/1.4, thus Summilux. The NEX-5 was set to Aperture Priority and ISO 3200 and with the dim lighting conditions at the bar forced the Shutter speed at 1/20th of a second. I would have preferred a shutter speed of 1/75 or higher (50mm x 1.5 crop factor) to keep camera movement at a minimum. The 50mm Summilux-M ASPH is a brick of a lens and I think the weight help stabilize the camera or was it the fear of dropping someone else's lens? The focusing was very well damped, a big difference from my Voigtlander. This made focusing a bit easier with the Leica. The shots were taken in RAW

Luminous Landscape is doing a rolling review of the Sony NEX-7 . So far they've covered the user interface and high iso capabilities of the NEX-7. The fourth installment of the review is perfect for gearheads. The NEX-7 is shown with most of the E-mount lenses and the LA-EA2 lens adapter. The camera is also shown alongside the NEX-5N with viewfinder, the Fuji X100, the Leica M9 with a 50mm Summilux, and the Panasonic GH2. The video gives us a good idea of the size of each camera and lens. Grab a glass of wine, dim the lights, and play the video in full screen - get ready for 12 minutes of gear lust. NEX-7 and the X100 Side by Side Thanks Luminous Landscape! Make sure to follow the rolling review in the link above.

NEX-7 24mp APS-C Sensor vs Leica, Canon, Nikon, and Fuji DxOMark published their test results for the Sony NEX-7 sensor and we wanted to see how it compares to the most popular cameras around. The top row shows the NEX-7 vs the full frame contenders, Leica M9 and the Canon 5d Mark II. The NEX-7 comes out on top overall with a score of 81. The Canon 5dII is a close second gaining a DxOMark of 79. The Leica M9 comes in third with a score of 69. The NEX-7 edges out both full frame contenders in Portrait (Color Depth) and Landscape (Dynamic Range). The 5dII wins in the Low Light ISO category followed by the NEX-7 with the M9 in third. The bottom row of the image above shows the APS-C sensored cameras. The NEX-7 and the Nikon D7000 are the top APS-C cameras in this comparison. The Fuji X100 comes in third and the Canon 7D comes in last. The scores are based on RAW sensor performance of the camera as tested by DxOMark. Check out DxOMark's favorable impression of the NEX-7 . Tha

Sony NEX-7 ISO 800 with 18-55mm OSS @52mm f/5 We posted earlier about our trip to Unique Photo to see the new Sony NEX-7 . It was an open house with Sony representatives exhibiting the new Alpha and NEX cameras, Sony lenses, and flash guns. There was a lot of interest with the new cameras so our time with the NEX-7 was curtailed. The Sony representatives were all very helpful allowing lens changes and personal memory card usage to grab some images of the pre-production NEX-7. The brief time with the NEX-7 was great. Since the NEX-5 was our main camera, it's been a while since we used a viewfinder. The NEX-7's EVF was a new experience. It felt odd in the beginning putting a small electronic screen up to your eye but we adjusted by the end of the night. We didn't have time to adjust the diopter, which we should have. All the information from the rear LCD is translated to the 2.36 million dot, 0.5" XGA OLED EVF. The EVF and slightly larger body of the NEX-7 made

Galapagos Islands by thkhoo with the NEX-5 Check out these great NEX-5 photos by Teng Huang Koo from the Galapagos Islands. The images were produced using the following lenses: Sony 18-55mm OSS Sony 16mm f/2.8 Pancake with VCL-ECF1 Fisheye Converter Voigtlander 12mm Ultra Wide Heliar Voigtlander 50mm f/1.1 Nokton Leica 90mm f/2.8 Elmarit NEX-5 Photos by thkhoo Here is the underwater camera setup: Sony Alpha NEX-5 Sony 10mm fisheye (VCLECF1) Nauticam NA-NEX5 housing Nauticam 4.33" dome port Nauticam tray and handles 2x Sea & Sea YS-110a strobes Universal arms and joints Light & Motion SOLA600 focus light 2x universal float arms The images demonstrate the NEX system's versatility and in the right hands it's capability to capture beautiful pictures. See more NEX-5 shots at thkhoo's flickr gallery .

Carl S. was generous enough to share his gallery of adapted lenses on the Sony NEX-5N. The lenses used were mostly Voigtlander lenses in Leica M mount. There are also Contax G lenses and a Canon 24mm Tilt Shift Lens. Check out the Carl's NEX gallery which covers lenses from 15mm to 90mm focal lengths on the NEX-5N shooting the same scene. Make sure to look at the high resolution samples.