Sony NEX Series Cameras ??

[bigdazzler]

I know at least one member here has got one and has posted some what seem to be very impressive images. Ive also had a look though the flickr pools and this thing seems to be producing really really great photos.

I was thinking about a G11, but I am now seriously thinking about one of these for my new travel camera.

The obvious advantage for me, using Sony DSLRs, is the interchangeable lenses and the availability of the NEX E-mount to DSLR A-mount adapter. Unfortunately for the time being though, no AF on A-mount lenses when using the adapter. There is a firmware update rumoured which will fix this though.

So .. does anyone else have one, or used one ?? Interested in all thoughts. :)

[bigdazzler]

oops ... sorry mods,

Please move this to gear talk :o

(Very tired this morning .. been up watching Germany get beat :D)

[I @ M]

Please move this to gear talk :o



Done :)

[bigdazzler]

Cheers mate. Still asleep.

[Boo53]

Bigdazzler

I'd also be interested in other's opinions.

I'm contemplating buying something like this for my wife as a present

Ok - that's the excuse, she'd be lucky to take 1 happy snap per holiday, but when we go bushwalking she can't carry a heavy pack because of arthritis so I have to carry a lot of her gear & 1-2kg of camera (A300 + lenses) all ads up.

One of the cameras in this style would suit and also when back in civilization the interchangeabilty of the lenses would be a +

John R

[bigdazzler]

yep Im approaching this purely from a travel perspective mate. My FF A850 is big and heavy and a PITA to travel with. I just lugged it around Thailand for 3 weeks and I would have loved something more compact but with large sensor IQ ..... enter the NEX :)

Something you should know though .... your A-Mount lenses for your A300 wont fit directly onto the NEX. You will need an adapter (about $200) to use your current lenses on the NEX body. And at the moment when using the adapter, you will only have manual focus at your disposal.

The NEX uses an E-Mount system, as opposed to the Sony Alpha DSLR range of lenses which is A-Mount.

[Boo53]

BD

Yes I'm aware I'll need an adapter, but most of its use when bushwalking would be landscapes so the small zoom would suit, just nice to be able to use the others occasionally.

John R

[bigdazzler]

BD

Yes I'm aware I'll need an adapter, but most of its use when bushwalking would be landscapes so the small zoom would suit, just nice to be able to use the others occasionally.

John R

Absolutely. The 16mm pancake will be perfect for that stuff.

Im thinking in terms of using my portrait lenses, like my 50 1.4 and CZ85 1.4 on it as well. That would be a nice little kicker :D

[bigdazzler]

Well no-one ever accused me of being slow off the mark ...... :o :D

http://i445.photobucket.com/albums/qq176/DarrenGrayPhotography/2010_07_001.jpg

[Boo53]

Ok

That post was 6:21 and its now 6:44 so I'm guessing there's at least 40 or so shots now been taken for review, so what do you think of it

John R

[bigdazzler]

batteries are on charge mate ... ;)

[arthurking83]

Well no-one ever accused me of being slow off the mark ...... :o :D

.....

LOL! :lol:

Just like the Borg say... resistance is futile!
:th3:

well done, and hope to see some cool images from you're new toy.

[bigdazzler]

AK ... first impressions are fantastic mate. Gonna be great for travelling.

[arthurking83]

I'm curious as to the carry-a-bility factor. obviously smaller and easier than a DSLR. But it's not pocket-able, as in slip into the top pocket of a shirt or whatever.

How big is it in your hand?

From what I've seen IQ is more than good enough, so those specs wouldn't bother me.

I'm just trying to justify to myself.. if nikon brought out something 'similar' with the ability to attach F-mount lenses via an adapter.. would I get one?
(probably not.. I'd still wait for the D700s :p)

[bigdazzler]

Yea it is probably ok with the pancake on, if you got big-ish pockets, but you wont fit it in a pocket with the 18-55. It could be a touch smaller I suppose, but it will be a lot easier than lugging around my A850 thats for sure.

Excuse the dirty iPhone picture ..

[Jules]

How do you find the handling Daz? From the photos, it doesn't exactly look as though it's been ergonomically designed. Have you tried any of your A mount lenses yet? Looks like it could be a bit front-heavy.

[bigdazzler]

Only got it late yesterday Jules so havent had a good play just yet.

It feels ok in the hand, but if youve got super fat fingers you might feel a little cramped on the shutter button side, toward the bottom of the body. Its OK for me, just.

A little front heavy with the zoom on, but fine with the pancake. I suppose thats to be somewhat expected. The upside is that the zoom has a VERY good build quality, almost feels CZ like :eek: Definitely not plasticcy like the A-mount kit lenses.

Wont be buying the A-Mount adapter for while yet .. gonna hang in there and see what they do about this rumoured firmware update to fix the AF and TTL issue first.

Might be fun to stick the 70-200 on it down the track, with the crop sensor, for sport and stuff :D

[bigdazzler]

One thing that is bugging me ... this thing takes two types of cards, an SDHC or a Memory Stick Pro Duo. Now thats a good thing, but theyve put them in the one card slot !! So you can still only run one card at a time. I suppose the idea was to keep the chassis as small as possible .. or something.

I have CF and MS dual slots on the big camera, and that is very handy.

I have about 30GB worth of Sandisk CF memory already, which is obviously no good to me here, and I have one 4GB MS. So Ive just ordered 2 x 8GB Lexar Pro MS from Cheap Chips, so im all sorted for memory now. 20GB of MS should do me, even for video when im travelling.

Now ... to go find a 49mm CPL ... It never bloody ends .... :eek: :D

[Boo53]

[/QUOTE]Now ... to go find a 49mm CPL ... It never bloody ends .... :eek: :D[/QUOTE]

That's one of the first things I noticed when you put up the photo. 49mm Dia, another set of filters

John R

[arthurking83]

I'd be curious to know how well the CPL works too.

One thing I have noticed with the D300 in Lv mode is that the effect of the CPL is masked when viewing the scene via Lv mode.
Using the vf is a much more visual representation of how the CPL affects the scene.

Different when using a GND tho. Adding the GND(or any number of combinations of them) to the lens instantly transforms the image on the review screen to one that actually makes sense. The dynamic range of the review screen in LiveView mode is not acceptable for use as a visual guide.
it's strange tho that the review screen can accurately represent the image once the shot it captured, but not whilst in Lv mode. :confused:

[bigdazzler]

mmmm .... I didnt really consider that AK. I havent used LV for a long time, as the A850 dont have it.

Ah well .... guess Ill be getting one of these too then (http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921666192668) :D

[arthurking83]

Yeah I was going to ask about whether you got that little device.

Problem with it is, great for getting the frame almost right, as parallax error will be present(as with al non TTL(through the lens) cameras are.

I shot a roll of film with my little Rollei a few months back and it has a separate vf window like a rangefinder, except that it doesn't focus as an RF camera does.

trying to use filters with that camera was fraught with much uncertainty and ultimately a lack of real success.
If I taken any shots of the filter I'd used on that little Rollei it have you rolling around in laughter.

Teeny little 30mm lens with me holding a 77mm CPL over it! :D

With the 16mm lens, that's where you start to see that weird v-shaped blue sky effect with a CPL in some situations, but you probably won't see the effect via live view. It's hard(but not impossible) to judge with a good optical vf, and then you see it in the review screen and think to yerself ... oh! it didn't look that bad when I composed it! :confused:

49mm polarisers should be all that expensive anyhow, and definitely get one as they do more than just create blue skies.

[bigdazzler]

yea .. the HOYAs are about $40 on eBay .. so not much to lose really.

After all whats another 40 bucks right ... :eek: :o

[bort]

I'm kind of intrigued by these models - would be cool to have a compact camera to wander around with instead of an slr. The images produced by these dont seem bad at all. The menu system seems to get a lot of criticism in reviews (too many button presses to do basic things).

[bigdazzler]

I read those things about the menus too bort but I actually find the camera quite intuitive.

There is a main menu button, which will bring up 6 submenus. The entire camera can then be controlled from these submenus using the control dial.

WB and ISO are controlled from one submenu (Brightness/Colour), and Shooting modes (AUTO, P,A,S,M) from another (Shoot Mode).

After only one day playing with the camera I find myself hitting the buttons intuitively, and controlling it pretty easily.

[bort]

Thats good to hear bigdazzler, thanks - I'm looking forward to seeing some pics from it.

[bort]

The lure was too much for me - I've joined the NEX club

[bigdazzler]

The lure was too much for me - I've joined the NEX club

There you go :th3:

[arthurking83]

The lure was too much for me - I've joined the NEX club


:lol:

sounds like you and Daz have been "assimilated"!

Those damned Borg and their assimilation tactics!.. and all this futile irresistiblity.

Although! :D... bort the Borg has a nice ring to it.

how do I find the necessary moola to assimilate myself too, I wonder :D

Another thing I'm curious to see work is that panorama feature these things have.
Apparently these things have a sweep panorama mode where you press the shutter and do a sweep motion, to capture panorama images.
I think it works on the HD video doodad/thingy!?? :confused013 .. so it may not be uber high 14Mp resolution. And now I read that it also does a 3D pano sweep thing too.. where you can see the resultant pano in 3D on a Sony screen? :Doh:

anyhow... all this stuff make me think how easy it's all becoming.

ps. there's a new firmware for the 3D pano sweeping thing.

[bigdazzler]

Spot on AK... Pano sweep does exist and it works bloody well !!

It takes a little getting used to though. You need to pan at a very consistent speed cause if you slow down midway through the motion you will end up with a plain grey section at the end of the stitch

I've only done one or two of these so far playing around in my office at work and on the LCD at least the stitching looks undetectable


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Boo53]

Daz

How good an image do you get in the pano stitch mode.

Our P&S is an Olympus u8000 & it stitches pano's by taking the 1st shot & then sowing on screen guides to take the 2nd (&3rd if you want) which I thought was great when I first used it, but the resultant finished image is only about 500k and the original images aren't kept, so its pretty low res

John R

[bort]

:lol:

sounds like you and Daz have been "assimilated"!

I would have assimilated ages ago if I thought it would be this much fun!

Even the shots I took last night looked ok (for non flash, ISO 1600 pics). Might have a wander at lunch time today at work and try some daylight stuff.

I blame Daz for it all (good on ya Daz!) :th3:

[bort]

I went and tried a few panoramas at lunchtime, they look pretty good to me, had a look at 100%, I cant see the join (it was a cityscape)

The jpg created is 8192 by 1856 res (6.28 MB) - the individual images arent available

I can link to a pic later if you like (cant seem to upload to Picasa or Flickr from work)

(no, I wont link the full res pic....)

Hope you dont mind me butting in with an answer to a question for you, Daz...

[bigdazzler]

nah mate .... youre good :)

I did one this morning in my living room too to see what the res would be. It was exactly the same as yours. Bit of a bummer that you cant shoot pano in portrait mode though ...

The joins look seamless to me as well. I reckon im gonna like this feature when travelling.

[bort]

Bit of a bummer that you cant shoot pano in portrait mode though ...


Well, you can turn the camera and shoot it top to bottom....

[bigdazzler]

nah I meant holding the camera in portrait mode and sweeping left to right ..... the camera wont allow that.

Thats the best way to shoot panos, cause if you have to crop post distortion correction or lens correction or something it gives you a bit more room to chop off top and bottom.

[Boo53]

OK

you two guys have just about convinced me, but I've just ordered a Tokina AF 11-16mm f/2.8 AT-X Lens, so perhaps I better wait a couple of months.

Still the panorama sounds good.

The first time I tried using it on the Olympus was on the routeburn track in Unzud - it looked pretty good & I thought I'd get a print, but when we got back to Queenstown and downloaded to the laptop its only about 250k in size.

http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc103/soils1111/temp/Picture118.jpg

We're doing the Overland track after Christmas and I'd like to have the Nex by then.

From what I've seen on the net, the only difference between the 3 and the 5 is the case material and the quality of video. Do you think its worth the extra for the 5?

John R

[bort]

Yes, it would be cooler if it could do that. I wouldnt have thought it would be any harder for the processor to handle that.

Its all pretty new to me - I've never done a panorama before. I could get hooked on them.

[bort]

From what I've seen on the net, the only difference between the 3 and the 5 is the case material and the quality of video. Do you think its worth the extra for the 5?

I believe thats right. I never actually tried the 3 in the store. Didnt seem to be a big difference in price, so I decided on the 5 right away. A few reviews have mentioned the grip on the 5 is much better.

Video wasnt really the deciding factor for me either, just the build quality.

[bigdazzler]

Do you think its worth the extra for the 5?


I didnt actually hold the 3 mate, the store I was in didnt have any in stock.

The body is plastic though, whereas the 5 is magnesium alloy and its slightly smaller in size.

The only other difference is the HD video and you have the ability to shoot with a remote commander.

You can compare specs here (http://www.sony.com.au/product/CompareProducts.action?site=hp_en_AU_i&models=NEX-5D&models=NEX-3D)

[bort]

Was just playing with the face and smile recognition in the office - lots of fun. I know this isnt a new feature for cameras (well, I'm pretty sure it isnt), but I havent seen it in action. Its amusing enough to see a smile setting, with slight, normal, and big smiles - but it cracked me up when I saw the smile meter on the screen as I was taking the picture.

[I @ M]

Was just playing with the face and smile recognition in the office

Obviously your boss wasn't around then. :rolleyes: :D

[bort]

Obviously your boss wasn't around then. :rolleyes: :D

Actually, he was pretty amused ;-)

Heres a small version of the panorama I took today

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_BHs16XgmGbA/TDwwkU_9hZI/AAAAAAAACZA/WuSrd2CqqMo/DSC00050small.jpg

And just a link to the original

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/lh/photo/ejASF_1Wp1AQcf0hhkps2V8aasZ4l48wSWxN9hx0XwQ?feat=directlink

[arthurking83]

8000 x 1800 is one of the specs I was after.
Sounds kind'a cool if you ask me.. and probably good enough to still print a decently sized image.

[bort]

Do you need to get panoramic pics printed anywhere special - or can most places do them?

[arthurking83]

I have no idea.. but with a gun like that.. and your beard, you'd probably have luck everywhere you ask!

try the local fruiterer store or shoe store.. I bet you they'll say yes..... to whatever you ask! :p


LOL! I think almost all photo printing stores can print to pano format.

[bort]

I have no idea.. but with a gun like that.. and your beard

If only I really looked like that - I'd get some respect ;-)

[bigdazzler]

Do you need to get panoramic pics printed anywhere special - or can most places do them?

Ive only printed one pano, a cityscape that hangs above my TV, and I got it done at a Camera House Lab in Sydney. It was A1 size and they guillotined the white edges for me. Im not sure if you can print them to size without having to trim the paper.

[bort]

nah I meant holding the camera in portrait mode and sweeping left to right ..... the camera wont allow that.

Actually - I've just found out that you can set the shooting direction (up, down, left, right) from the camera menu, under "Panorama Direction".

[DanNG]

Great little camera, loving the in camera pano mode, here's a vertical pano. (camera rotated - didn't know you could change the pano direction! great tip)
Jealous that you got one in black bigdazzler! - Im looking forward to trying macro with the a-mount adaptor and 30mm macro lens =)
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4094/4798629029_49c7d472aa_b.jpg