Something strange happened when I was taking this shot, it was like the Nex-7 had forgotten which lens was mounted because it didn't precess the image correctly. It's true that this lens has a lot of distortion at the wide end and then it's corrected in-camera before being saved to the card. I messed around with the camera and lens for about 5 minuts but I couldn't get the correction to work correctly. I just turned the camera off in the end, and took the lens off. I mounted it again and then it worked. This happened to me again a couple of times, and that's after cleaning the contacts on both the lens and camera. I'm not sure if it's a lens problem or if the camera is at fault and since I've only got one Nex-7 camera I can't really troubleshoot this any further. What I can do though is mount the lens on a Nex-5n and see what happens.
That is something I'm going to do shortly and see what happens. I'll post some images from that combination as soon as I can find the time to do it and report back. If it turns out that I don't have any problems on a Nex-5N then I must admit that it's the Nex-7 that's at fault but I have no idea how I can rectify the problem. Maybe it was only a one time thing, like the software had a hiccup and resetting evrything solved the problem. You never know with these things.
There's been a lot of flak about this lens on some forum boards, but I actually find it ok. This was taken at f5 at 16mm (35=24) and everything in the image seems to be in focus. Like I stated in a post a couple of days ago, I would much prefer if this was not a power zoom but I think it goes with the design of the lens, being a pancake. I have to rearrange my left hand when I want to zoom out or in and that's not really to my liking. I much prefer the design of the Olympus 12-50. However, I went out with it at the weekend and the images I got were pretty good.Good contrast and colour and the images weren't soft at all. Maybe mine is one of the better ones.
The more I use this lens the more I like it. This wasn't take wide open, actually f4, but I like the way it renders the image. This is a one off right now, but I will post some more from my trip to Spain as soon as I can. I hope to take more portrait photos while I'm there, which is what this lens was made for, especially at f1.2 because it's still sharp at f1.2.
Last one of these for now but I'm planning on posting more composites or collages in the future. This is where you see that I've processed the 50mm image a little warmer than 35mm one. I like both and tend to play around with some of these images until I get a look that I like.
If you would like more of these comparison images, please let me know and I'll do what I can to some more composites up.
Something a little different today. I took a little walk with 2 x Sony Nex-5N bodies, one with the Voigtländer 35 f2.5 Skopar attached and the other mounting the Voigtländer 50 f2.5 Skopar. These lenses are really small and compact and are great on the Nex cameras. I just photographed a few buildings and views from the same standpoint with each camera so that I could campare the images against each other. Both lenses performed very well, but I prefer the images from the 35 f2.5. If you look at the image above (showing my favourite building in Frankfurt), you can see the difference between a 35mm and 50mm lens. Both were set at f5.6, which is just about the optimum aperture for theses lenses on the Nex cameras. I just love the rendition I get from these lenses, and I admit to being a Voigtländer fanboy.
I'm not sure if you can see what I'm seeing at this size, but this image, to me, has definately a 3D look to it. maybe I should have posted this at a higher resolution than I did. This new 1 Nikkor lens is really nice and I'll be using it down in Spain shortly. It's going to make the perfect portrait lens (35=85) and it will be the first time I'll be using it on a shoot. I'm not a good portrait photographer but I'm hoping to do a little better this time around. I'm the designated photographer for the 10 day period I'll be there and I'm only taking the V1 with a few lenses. Keeping my fingers crossed that everything will turn out ok. It's not something that can be repeated.
When you look at this lens the first thing that goes through your mind is how small it is. The second thing that goes through your head,after picking it up, is how heavy it is. The third thing that goes through your mind is did I really pay all that money for this lens, because it's the dearest lens in the 1 Nikon system stable. What if it doesn't perform like I want it to?
I must say the performance of this lens is fantastic. Is it worth the money? A definite yes on that question. At the time of these test shots, I didn't have any dark venues to visit, as a matter of fact the light was bright and harsh but with the V1 capable of 1/16000th of a second shutter speed, there was no problem using this lens, even wide open.
The focus point was the middle of the handlebars and as you can see, DOF is pretty thin at f1.2, even on this smaller 1" sensor.
Panasonic Lumix G X Vario PZ 14-42 f3.6-5.6 Power OIS
Converted in Nik SFX II. This is what you can expect from this lens, I certainly can't fault it for web use as you can see from the image above. If you're interested in more images from this lens, just mail me, otherwise I'll just leave it at two posts.
Panasonic Lumix G X Vario PZ 14-42 f3.6-5.6 Power OIS
Where do they get the names for these lenses from? The Marketing Department must be working overtime because nobody in their right mind would create something like this. I'm sure these people think that the longer the title a lens has, the better the lens and more people are going to buy it. Well, this is one case it's quite the opposite in my opinion.
I bought this lens because I knew where I was going and I knew I wanted something small that could fit in a small bag. My usual lens the Panasonic 14-45 was a little too large and so my decision to purchase the PZ power zoom. I was a little worried by the posts on some forums stating the lens had shutter shock problems at certain shutter speeds, but I went ahead anyway. After using the lens for almost a week and after many images at different shutter speeds, I personally can't say that I experienced shutter shock with this lens. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, just that I haven't experienced it.
At present I own three zoom lenses, the Panasonic PZ 14-42 and the Sony E 16-50. I can tell you now that I'm not a fan of these zoom lenses although the Olympus 12-50 has a better implementation in my opinion. Maybe it has to do with the little rocker switch on the side, I don't know, but I much prefer using the Oly 12-50 because you turn the barrel and your hand stays where it should be, on the lens itself. When using the other two I find I have to readjust my grip again before pressing the shutter and it brings me out of rythm. Your mileage may vary.
Image quality seems to be ok, but I wouldn't use the lens if I was going on an important job. It's ok for snaps and for web use but printing is a not an option for me with this lens. Obviously being a very small package it does have it's advantages and I will use it again on the occasions where a small camera and lens is a must, but I will not be using it on a daily basis. For that, there are much better lenses on the market.
