Sony 16-50 pancake lens on Nex-7?

[artington]

Has anyone tried the new Sony E16-50 on a Nex 7 yet? I have only seen one review, on ePhotozine, which suggested it is OK given the price, but it was tested on a Nex-6 which, with the smaller sensor, is likely to be more forgiving than the Nex-7.

[artington]

I decided that the best way was to try it myself so I took a few test shots at various apertures and focal lengths using a copy at the local camera shop on my NEX-7. It is a neat little lens although I found it very hard to acquire an accurate zoom length as it is powered. Also, the lens will not zoom when an image is writing to card so this made it more tricky too. I used the camera's autofocus but am afraid to say I found all the images soft at 100% except at f8, where they were passable. Maybe this is too critical an approach and I expected too much but they were not that much better at 1:2 either. Admittedly, the lighting conditions today were very poor with low contrast and I needed to shoot outdoors at 800 ISO. Nevertheless, I'm afraid this one will not be finding it's way into my pocket. Maybe it is better on the Nex-6

[jeep1]

I've just bought a new one on ebay, forgoing the box and documentation and buying a split from kit one saved over £100-00. I've yet to fully try it out but others seem to be getting reasonable results. As always I shoot RAW and latest version of Lightroom has lens corrections included. Here are some shots from 'soundimageplus' using a NEX-7 http://soundimageplus.blogspot.hk/2013/ ... ar-on.html

[artington]

I've just bought a new one on ebay, forgoing the box and documentation and buying a split from kit one saved over £100-00. I've yet to fully try it out but others seem to be getting reasonable results. As always I shoot RAW and latest version of Lightroom has lens corrections included. Here are some shots from 'soundimageplus' using a NEX-7 http://soundimageplus.blogspot.hk/2013/ ... ar-on.html

Nice pictures - looks like Godalming? They are certainly better than I managed but then so is the light. Interesting commentary in your link, particularly about the lens correction imposed on the 16-50 in LR4 - very necessary at the wide end because the distortion is spectacular as I recall. And, yes, it would be so nice to have some decent lenses for the Nex as the interface and size is so nice. In that context, I cant really see why I would wish to use the Metabones Speed Booster because Canon EF lenses would dwarf the Nex body, which rather takes away the point of it. You make the point that you would like to see better telephoto lenses but for me it is the wide end that is lacking and this is where the Metabones adapter would be useful if the EF lenses were not so big. Unfortunately, it will not be possible to make one for LM lenses. For telephoto I too use LM mount lenses (with a Metabones adapter), specifically the Zeiss Sonnar ZM 50/1.5, the Voigtlander VM 75/3.5 and the Leica Elmarit-M 90/2.8 - all fantastic lenses. The latter, unlike most Leica lenses, can still be found second-hand at an almost reasonable price.

[jeep1]

Having now tried this out my only real criticism is that it is not really 16mm at the wide end by the time distortions are corrected, more like 18mm. I still believe primes are the best route to ultimate quality, but for a discrete compact walk round zoom which cost me just over £200.00 in a split from kit sale, it's not that bad, the power zoom takes a little getting used to. Also the delay in collapsing after power off is a little annoying.

[mikebore]

A firmware update for this combination has just been announced.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/2013/01/29 ... nt-systems

I expect it will address the slow retraction as well as distortion issues.

[jeep1]

A firmware update for this combination has just been announced.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/2013/01/29 ... nt-systems

I expect it will address the slow retraction as well as distortion issues.

Yes thanks I spotted this also, released 4th of February. I suspect there will always be some loss of view angle as the lens has a lot of distortion at 16mm, so correcting that will lead to some edge loss, wether correction done in camera or in processing software. Faster retraction will be good though. I think the lens is OK and a useful addition to my prime only kit, especially at the price I paid for it.

[jeep1]

The firmware update has improved the response of the SEL1650. I like this lens, here is a shot at 16mm. I use RAW always and although screen views and the preview in the file are corrected, you still need to correct the RAW file, although that it very easy with the profile supplied in the latest version of Camera Raw in Lightroom and Photoshop. It seems to perform pretty well, although I must admit this is my first NEX zoom as I did not like the bulk of the previous kit zoom or other zoom offerings. (As an aside why does it not state image pixel dimensions and size allowed here before you try and post an image, instead of gaining the information in two failed attempts, first size and then pixel dimensions!)

[artington]

Well I relented and, like jeep1, I bought an unused one on eBay for just over £200. This is an amusing lens. Without applying the lens profile in LR4 the 9% barrel distortion is hilarious on raw files. Of course you don't notice this in-camera because the latest firmware fixes it for jpgs, which are what you see in the EVF or on the LCD. Not using jpgs I can only comment on raw files. After correction in LR4 they are not bad. Sharpness in corners is not great but not awful either. As you might expect, the correction engenders some stretching in the corners so some subjects will not be conducive to this lens. Forget corner to corner buildings, for example. Furthermore, comparison of before/after images show that there is a cropping effect, possibly as much as 10%, so the wide-end equivalent is much closer to 26mm than 24mm. You have to get used to the motorised zoom but I found this much easier than on my initial trial, which was done before the new firmware. So it is possible that this not only hugely speeds up lens retraction on shutdown but also makes the power-zoom easier to operate. I don't know whether this is the case or not but I find it perfectly ok now, aided still more by the focal length being shown in the upper right corner of the EVF (note this latter facility needs to be triggered initially by nudging the zoom lever or ring). So conclusion is that this is a handy little lens producing results which are acceptable, even at 100%, after judicious sharpening and tweaking mid-range contrast a little. Whether this also translates into satisfactory A3 size prints I have yet to find out. My guess is it will since I have been able to achieve these from the smaller sensored (but better lensed) RX100. We shall see.