Seeing the Photo

Watery Street │ NEX-7 + Sony E50mm F1.8 OSS │ 50mm F5.6 1/400s + 1/500s ISO100

A few of you thought that yesterday's photo “Miniature City” would work better in a vertical orientation. It's a valid point and certainly worth trying, so today I returned to the scene to try my luck at a vertical composition. At the water's edge, I immediately found out why I stuck to horizontal photos the first time around. Framing shots close to the water means having to fold the screen up unless you want to crouch down in the mud (it's still a little cool to be playing around in the water). With the camera in a vertical position, however, the screen can't be tilted up. Usually you can see enough, even when viewing the screen at an angle, but in this case the glare off the water caused the screen to  be almost completely washed out. That translated into a lot of cropping when I got home.

Above the Water

Megablock │ NEX-7 + Sony E50mm F1.8 OSS │ 50mm F5.6 1/3200s ISO100

Miniature City │ NEX-7 + Sony E50mm F1.8 OSS │ 50mm F4.0 1/1000s ISO100

Sharp Eye

Blue Circles │ NEX-7 + Sony E50mm F1.8 OSS │ 50mm F1.8 1/80s ISO125While yesterday's idyllic canal scene may serve a purpose when looking for potential weaknesses in lens performance, it's the not the kind of photo I would take all that often with a 75mm equivalent lens. Normally, I'm likely to be a little closer to my subject, whether that's taking street photographs or portraits. For these kinds of photos I'd want the option of being able to use the lens wide open. Luckily, that doesn't seem to be a problem judging by the sharpness of the eye in the F1.8 crop above (Click the image to view at 100%).

Crop Location

Sony E50mm F1.8 OSS Test Images

The 50mm F1.8 prime plugs a major gap in my NEX lens kit. I shot about a third of my photos at a similar focal length while I was using the Micro Four Thirds system, so having a comparable NEX lens was essential. For a while I considered getting the Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 50mm F1.5 ZM. It's faster and, based on my experience with the 35mm Biogon from the same manufacturer, the images it produces will likely go beyond technical excellence.

The Sony lens also has its advantages: it's almost 3 times cheaper and a third lighter than the manual focus Zeiss with an adapter. But in the end it was the integrated image stabilization that tipped the scales in favor of the Sony prime. I prefer having lenses in my kit whose capabilities are differentiated by more than just their focal lengths. Each lens offers something the others don't: the Zeiss Sonnar 24mm F1.8 focuses exceptionally close, the Zeiss Biogon 35mm F2.0 is optimized for manual focusing and the image stabilization of the new Sony 50mm F1.8 lets me shoot hand held at slow shutter speeds.

Amsterdam Row │ NEX-7 + Sony E50mm F1.8 OSS │ 50mm, various apertures and shutter speeds, ISO100I've had a request to post some RAW files taken with the Sony E50mm F1.8 on the NEX-7. I'm happy to oblige, especially considering that I actually got to enjoy some sunshine while standing behind my tripod today. There's enough detail in this scene to get some sense of how image quality holds up at larger apertures and in the corners of the frame. I'd say the results are good; sharpness drops off gradually towards the corners at large apertures. That's much less objectionable than the sudden drop in sharpness I witnessed with Sony's kit lenses (SEL 16/2.8 and SEL18-155/3.5-5.6). Things look very good once the lens is stopped down to F5.6.

For those who want to check out how the Sony 50mm F1.8 OSS performs for themselves, here are the links to the RAW files of the test scene above:

SEL 50mm F1.8 OSS at F2.0
SEL 50mm F1.8 OSS at F2.8
SEL 50mm F1.8 OSS at F4.0
SEL 50mm F1.8 OSS at F5.6

2CV Colors

Looking Back │ NEX-7 + Sony E50mm F1.8 OSS │ 50mm F2.0 1/640s ISO100When I saw this collection of colorful old 2CVs (deux chevaux) on my home from the camera store, I just had to stop for a few test photos with my new Sony E-mount 50mm F1.8 OSS lens. Based on first impressions, I would say that this lens is going to see a lot of use. The integrated image stabilization also seems very effective, quite a bit more so than on my Panasonic Leica 45mm F2.8 prime. This lens definitely offers a lot for a relatively modest cost.

Yellow Bonnet │ NEX-7 + Sony E50mm F1.8 OSS │ 50mm F2.0 1/1250s ISO100
Inside Outside │ NEX-7 + Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* E24mm F1.8 ZA │ 24mm F2.0 1/320s ISO100