As you can see I've been practicing quite hard at this manual focusing stuff on the Alpha cameras. Do I find it getting easier, well yes and no. It all depends what lens I've got mounted. Presently the best lenses I've used are both Zeiss, the 50 f2 Planar and the Tessar 85 f4. Both exhibit excellent colour and are very sharp. The best rendition I've seen on the Sony sensor so far. Some of the Voigtländer lenses have a very long throw and I'm in real trouble with a couple of them. I think these will be used more on the Nex line and my M43 cameras where they perform very well.

The image above was taken during the blue hour and in low light conditions. It was actually nearly dark and the lens was wide open at nearly MFD. This is one that I nailed but it doesn't happen often with this lens. I must find the correct settings for nailing focus without using the magnification function, as that puts me off totally.

This is me prcticing my manual focusing skills. At least winter has something going for it, and if you haven't guessed it yet I just don't like winter (although it's not too bad if we get snow which is rare where I live). As you can see I do sometimes nail the focusing with these manual focus lenses, and when I do, I'm quite impressed with what can be achieved in terms of dynamic range and lens rendition. Sharpness is also very good and the Nokton 35 f1.2 II is sharp wide open but only at close focusing. I would not recommend this lens for anything nearing infinty. Well, I don't use it for that anyway.

I must admit I'm having problems with manual focusing on the Sony Alpha A7 and A7R cameras. I find it much easier on the Nex family and evn on the M43 cameras. It must be the FF sensor thing. The Zebra function the cameras offer is great in my opinion and once I figured out how it actually works I never switched it off again. To get the best possible use out of it, ensure that you see some Zebra stripes in the viewfinder. If you don't then you're underexposing the frame. The way I set it is to use EC to back off the expsure (if required) until I don't see any stipes in the viewfinder and the bring the EC back up until I do see some. This gives me my required exposure for the shot; and it works.

Theproblem I'm having is nailing the focus on the exact spot where I want it. On the Nex and M43 cameras I was able to do this quite quickly and I could be pretty certain the focusing was correct. I'm not able to fo that with these Alpha cameras, my focusing is just off what should be in focus. Sometimes I've got backfocus and sometimes front focusing, caused by myself of course and not the camera because it's me that's focusing the lens.

I'm going to try the following methos for awhile to see if things get better. Set the cameras to raw + jpg and set the jpg for B&W. Turn down the peaking setting to low and colour to red which seems best for me in this config. You might prefer yellow because it's really a personal thing. Hopefully this will help me focus on the correct point.

As you can see in the image above, take wide open at f1.2, I don't think I nailed focus correctly on the bench, but it hard to see in my opinion. Anyone out there have any more tips to help me get better at this. One point though, I do not like using the magnified view, maybe that's my problem but I really have trouble with this function and I don't intend using it in the future.

_{This is the Voigtländer Nokton 35 f1.2 II which performs very well on the Nex bodies as well as on the M43 Olympus cameras. I always had problem using manual focus lenses on the Panasonic cameras when I started out with these lenses and I never used a Panasonic body for this afterwards. I won't in the future either because I'm so used to the Olympus and Nex bodies now.}

_{It's a very nice lens and quite heavy but namageble on these new Alpha bodies, quite comfortable to hold. Again, testing has to be done but I do have high hopes for this lens, I just hope I won't get any colour shifts on the A7. I had a slight ptoblem on the Nex-7 but not on the Nex-5N. Thinking about it I might test this lens after I write this blog post since I have them in my hands, and it might interest some of you out there.}

This one was taken with the Nokton 35 f1.2 II in one of the largest sea water aquariums in the world. Obviously this specimen wasn't alive but it just shows what's possible with the Nokton.

Again with the new Nokton 35 f1.2 II lens, it produces lovely photographs. I just love the rendition it gives. This fast lens (with a couple of othersI took along) helped a lot because of the low light levels. Here, it was quite light which wasn't typical at all during the trip.

Now this lens is something special. I'm not certain if you can see it at this size but I can definately see the 3D effect with this image. The lens is not small and is quite heavy. having said that, the finishing and quality is superb. ou really know you have a quality product in your hand. Just makes you feel that the images will be great. Looking at this image at print size, well, I could look at it for ages. This lens is something special to me and I bought it for the occations when I photograph aquariums and the like. This oportunity will be coming very soon and I'll post some images from my visit.