Squares

All images - Sony nex-7 18-200mm zoom

There used to be many well regarded film cameras such as Hassleblad and Rolleiflex that produced a square image. But this seems to have have been largely ignored with digital. Noticing that I sell a disproportionately larger amount of square images to what I upload in total lead me to think about shooting some again. These are stitched together from two separate images and end up as 90-100MB files. I like them very much.

Sony NEX-7 and the "big one"

Sony NEX-7 18-200mm e-mount zoom lens

This lens illustrates what many see as the flaw in the Sony NEX system, small bodies / large lenses. However it is a superzoom with built-in image stabilisation, and even on m4/3 these aren't small. In practice it handles well, and even though as you can see, it won't even sit flat because of the barrel being so large, as an all-in-one solution, its (sort of) unique. (Tamron now make one as well, but the suspicion is that Tamron made this one as well, and since they are part-owned by Sony, that makes sense.)

I tried it on the NEX-5n and thought it performed OK, with all the usual superzoom problems. i.e. CA, fringing, distortion, softish at the telephoto end. I hadn't until today tried it on the NEX-7, and I wasn't expecting anything that great, as I suspected that all those extra pixels would show up its deficiences.

However despite my pessimism, it actually performed very well. Shooting raw files and using the Photoshop lens profile for the lens, I was impressed by the fact that the images were very "clean" and relatively free of CA / fringing. The lens doesn't have biting clarity, but the files sharpened up very nicely in Photoshop with very little increase in noise, and overall I was surprised by just how well it paired up with the NEX-7. 

I should also mention that the IS works very well indeed, which considering I took these in an icy wind was a good thing.

I've put these on flickr at full resolution so click on them > flicker > Actions > View all sizes > Original gets you the jpg. I created. I have sharpened them for picture / library reproduction use and they are at jpg 8. This is exactly how they would sell on picture / stock library sites. As ever please be aware that these are © images and will probably end up on stock sites soon. I am happy for you to have a look at them but any other use is prohibited, and its Getty's lawyers, not mine, that will come after you!!

Sony NEX-7 - 18-200mm zoom

All pictures - Sony NEX-7 18-200mm zoom lens

The 18-200mm zoom lens for the NEX system is a very useful, if rather large, lens. Like the majority of the NEX system lenses, its pretty sharp, but like the majority of Sony lenses I've used, of any description, it has a problem with both chromatic aberration and particularly purple fringing.

This is very nasty and not that easy to get rid of. Its worse on the NEX-7 as opposed to the NEX-5n, presumably to do with the higher pixel density and smaller pixel size, but then I'm not sure of that. This is also at f/9 and is an out of camera jpg. which seems not to have benefited from any in-camera correction. The raw files are even worse.

This makes the lens much less useful than it should be, and while I know that this isn't untypical of lenses of this type, it is somewhat disappointing, particularly since it performed well on the NEX-5n. It has therefore been moved to the "unsure as whether to keep or sell" list!!

As you will see from the following images, when I do fix the problems, its a decent enough lens, and there is no denying that it has a very useful zoom range.

Time for a change.

Yesterday I got somewhat "hot under the collar" fiddling about with my Samsung NX200 and Sigma 8-16mm wide angle zoom. Later in the day the light was still great, so I went out with one of my Sony NEX-5n's fitted with the 18-200mm zoom.

All images - Sony NEX-5n 18-200mm Zoom lens

A pleasure to use a camera that let me concentrate on the pictures I was taking rather than compensating for its inadequacies.

I thought it might be useful to include a "contact sheet" of my afternoons work to show the kind of images I shoot and the selection I pick from to post. Also how the edited image differs from the original.

Maybe a bit over the top.

Some of my recent posts about the Sony NEX-5n may seem to be a bit over the top and somewhat "over-enthusiastic" However I am VERY impressed by what its capable of and it is that rare phenomenon of a camera that I like more as time goes by. I have indeed ordered a second one, which is arriving today, but I may have over reacted by threatening to sell everything else. But then, if you are a regular reader, you'll be used to that by now!!

It is a remarkable camera with remarkable resolution though, and the following are images with huge blowups showing what its capable of. The images are also all upsized images. They have been interpolated in Adobe Camera Raw to the size of the a77 or NEX-7, i.e. 25MP, and the blowups are taken from 100%+ versions of those 71MB files.

 Sony NEX-5n Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton

 Sony NEX-5n 55-210mm zoom

 Sony NEX-5n Voigtlander 18-200mm zoom

Sony NEX-5n Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar

Even the kit zoom, with a blow-up towards the edge of the frame turns in a decent

performance. Not as sharp as the other lenses but still pretty good, considering the size of the enlargement.

Sony NEX-5n 18-55mm zoom

Working with the Sony NEX-5n and 18-200mm lens

As a practice for a future project, I asked my nephew Ben to see if he could shoot a video of me working with the NEX-5n and 18-200mm lens. We managed it despite terrible light, and a very cold wind. The photographs weren't that great but the video turned out OK, and I was pleased with it.

It was his first experience of working with the Olympus E-P3 and 12mm f/2 lens. The Olympus is very good for hand holding with its in-body stabilisation. I added stabilisation during editing in iMovie and despite a few "wobbles" its worked quite well. I'm actually growing to like the wobble effect!

The dark glasses aren't an attempt at anonymity, due to an eye related problem I have to wear them whenever I photograph outdoors. Hence my enthusiasm for the NEX-5n's OLED viewfinder, which is polaroid friendly.

I was keen to show how nice the lens is to work with. Whether or not its "too big" for the camera is irrelevant as far as I'm concerned and I'm much more interested by how it works as an outfit. For me it works very well. As you can see I'm very comfortable with it, and its certainly not particularly heavy. When we got home, we compared it to a m4/3 camera with a 14-140mm zoom. While the Panasonic camera / lens combination is slightly smaller, its around the same weight and personally I like the feel and layout of the Sony system better.

Sony NEX-5n just gets better

All images - Sony NEX-5n 18-200mm

Its usually the case that I get very enthusiastic about a camera when I first get it, and then that enthusiasm wanes somewhat after I've used it for a while and its "peculiarities" start to become apparent. The Sony NEX-5n is somewhat different, in that I seem to be liking using it more the longer I have it. Who knows, I might actually even get to like how it looks!

Even using it with the monster 18-200mm zoom, I like the handling, and I find it comfortable and easy to navigate. The stabilisation in the zoom is excellent, and I'm using much slower shutter speeds than I normally do, confident in its ability to produce sharp images.  I also like the "elasticity" of the raw files and the ability to lift shadow areas without adding lots of luminance noise. I'm even getting the hang of the menus and have got all my most used adjustments set up on buttons which I can access while using the viewfinder.

Yesterday, the dull drizzly weather finally relented late on and some beautiful autumn sunlight appeared. Living where I do I can get to places that I know will produce pictures that take advantage of such light very quickly and I had a great hour shooting the lovely warm glow of the setting sun.

How good is NEX image stabilisation?

Just how good is the NEX image stabilisation?
Well from these samples, using the 18-200mm on a NEX-5n, its very good indeed.

1/10th. sec. 100mm hand-held

1/10th. sec. 200mm. Hand held.

1/25th. sec. 200mm Hand held.

1/10th. sec. 200mm. Hand held.