http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read. ... e=35359675

Even Phil has not picked up this one properly. The 16mm is 16mm because it is part of a three-lens system with two converters, that produce a 10mm f/2.8 fisheye and a 12mm f/2.8 ultrawide.

That's why it is a 16mm, and not a 24mm or anything else. There may be other lenses planned, but this set of lens plus converters was clearly planned for the launch and in my opinion it's a great simple concept - if the optical quality is there (with afocal w/a converters, that may almost be a first, but Minolta managed it with the converters for the Dimage 5/7/A series).

David

I just posted your comment there.

Seen it. Hopefully it will focus some thoughts, which often seem to miss the entire point of the system. I was thinking again, why am I getting NEX? I want good video, but Alpha will offer that within six months. I'll probably get a new lens with video-Alpha, because they will need to have them.

So all I really want NEX for in the long haul is as a pocket camera. I am selling my Kodak Zi6, Nikon D5000+18-105mm, our Sanyo XActi, my AIWA DAT recorder and my Sony MiniDisk recorder kit with external mic - probably selling my spare Alpha 350+vertical grip but might sell the A550 - sounds crazy, but the A350 has ISO 100 and that suits my studio work better.

The NEX will do the job of recording conferences etc using 640 x 480 video, not much bigger than audio files, with the benefit of a 16mm view showing the room and who is speaking. I won't sell my Zoom H4 digital recorder because that has four-channel surround sound recording ability.

David

There are other factors that Phil and other people don't get: First, we are following Japanese trends -like miniaturization, bokeh, and different shooting trends.

Then, good wide angles are appealing to a market (canon users) that miss them and are willing to pay top $ for a Zeiss manual lens -do you imagine how they will feel if Sony fix the issues with the 16mm wide open, for less than 300 US$?

In other hand, I don't imagine a "fast 50mm with some close-up ability" been pancakeable... but I'm not an expert in optics. The E to A-mount adapter + the 50 f1.8 and the 30 macro are good solutions (for A-mount lens owners) and I saw samples with the 18-55 that shown a good close up ability -even if not real macro. I'm more concerned about the lack of wireless flash function

David, did you physically see the wide angle and fisheye adapters? Because the wide and tele adapters for the Dimage 7/A were beautiful and HUGE pieces of glass...

Regards

The adaptors are tiny. They sort of extend the lens forwards a few mm, with a parallel sided petal hood, but remain about 55mm maximum dia (the basic lens has a 49mm thread, with a bayonet outside to fit the adaptor). I think you get both adaptors into a case which would fit a regular 2X teleconverter.

I'm sure they are designed along with the lens, and part of the problem with the 16mm may be related to a design which takes into account the converters.

David

Two things I note..

The interest appears to be more heavily driven with "video" than stills photography. Nothing wrong with that I can understand..esp when you look around and price up a decent camcorder that's pretty pricey and has a small sensor and not a lot of options for it, and it's still not all that for low light and it can't do shallow DOF.

The other point is why are we even talking about "converters" Surely the entire point of having a lens mount is to change lenses and offer some kind of "mini system". IMO if converters were the way to go you would see micro 4/3 or the Samsung NX doing it..I don't see why this as a logical way of proceeding.

It's a logical proceeding because Sony has made a fresh-sheet design with the NEX system, and is designing as much (proprietary) flexibility into it as they can. Imagine having three primes, fish-eye, UWA, and WA, that take up as much space in a system bag as one UWA zoom. I don't know about you, but I'd rather have the primes even at full traditional-sized bulk, but making it happen with two compact and relatively inexpensive converters is even sweeter.

I don't find it logical..it only makes sense for bridge type cameras with fixed non user changeable lenses.
And few will convince me an add on converter will provide no penalty to the optics..that's when they get around to re-releasing a newly designed 16mm prime lens which is actually good without any added on bits of glass to it

The more I read the more obvious some of the limitations are..reading the IR review there seems very little control over the video mode they say no direct control over shutter speed, aperture and ISO. Whist I have a very mild interest in video I am sure some have a fairly serious one. This looks like a very obvious problem to video shooters.

Some folks wondered why I repeated the "Simply Sony no thanks" now you've a pretty good idea what I've been saying for some time now. The company is in a fixed mind set and convinced the simple take is the one to go for..IMO it's the most glaring of mistakes for a company to make in the camera business outside the £80 p&s market.

The answer is in your own commentaire: if this camera is aimed to high end P&S (Sony H series cameras) that are used to "fixed not user changeable lenses", this adapters are perfect for them!

Same situation for handycam users, used to buy a wideangle adapter because the wide end of a handycam is never wide enough.

If the wideangle and fisheye converters are compatible/optimized for the 18-55 too (the pics of the lenses show both the 16mm and the kit zoom share the same filter size and bayonette for accessories) the system makes more sens than ever.

Regards

An unlikely but exciting prospect. Even if it isn't so, the converter options for the 16/2.8 are still more tempting than a UWA zoom. I remember campaigning on Backstage 101 for Sony to support the APS-C format with UWA primes, and it appears they were listening.

I agree. I used to carry a small Vivitar 19mm with my manual focus x500's and I never missed the zoom capability at the wide end. Others may have different requirements, but I found that for my photography I could usually 'zoom with my feet'. Furthermore, with digital, the image can be reduced as required by cropping rather than zooming in. Wide angle zooms tend to be big and heavy, with enormous filter threads (or worse, internal filters). I wouldn't criticise anyone who prefers a zoom lens, but there doesn't seem to be a prime option available for extreme wideangles on APS-C cameras, at least not in the Alpha mount. There are quite a few UWA zooms on the market, it would be nice to have one or two primes available as well.