My review of the Sigma 19mm lens used on a Nex 7 (the world's most demanding sensor....).

I have a confession to make. It won't seem like much because I've made it here before but...here it is: I don't like wide angle lenses. They are unruly and they take in too much useless scenery. But I've found one that I like enough. It's the Sigma 19mm lens for the Sony Nex cameras. Someone at Sigma did their homework and made a lens that is sharp, cheap and works well on what is a notoriously difficult sensor for a lens to please. As I understand it light rays need to be collimated as close to a straight perpendicular as possible to image the light wells on the sensor correctly. The sensor doesn't handle tangential light rays well. Apparently someone at Sigma incorporated this into the design of their recent 19mm and 30mm lenses.

The 19mm yields the same angle of view as a 28.5mm lens would on a full frame, 35mm camera. Wide enough for me but probably too long for real wide angle afficionados. The 19mm is one of three lenses I took with me on a recent trip to Boston. I used it whenever I wanted a wide view. After a while I noticed that I was using the 50mm OSS Sony lens and the 19mm for nearly 100% of my shooting and I'd been ignoring the 30mm Sigma lens that I presumed would be my "go to" lens because of it's equivalency to my normal favorite focal length, the "normal" 50mm on a full frame camera. Funny how lenses and formats can change your preferences. 

From what I've seen the 19mm is very sharp, even at its widest f-stop of 2.8.  Many photographers immediately state that they must have all their wide angle lenses be as fast as possible and I get it. That's why I recently picked up the Rokinon 35mm 1.5. But if we are being rational we'll probably come to admit that a lot of the use of a lens in this focal length class is for snapshots and documentation and a lot of that is done in fair to good light. The trade off for faster glass is size, weight and price. You get all three when you go faster. It's not a case of "choosing one..."

If our goal is a lightweight, high performance travel package then the 2.8 aperture makes a heck of a lot of sense. I happily bought the lens at it's full price of $199 but in the ensuing months there have been temporary price drops to as low as $100. The price seems to have stabilized at around $150. If you are shooting raw you'll find a profile in Lightroom 4.4 for this lens that corrects for its geometric distortion.  What you end up with is a sharp image from a relatively tiny package.

After using the 19mm for the last few months the only drawback I've found (with the Sony Nex cameras) is the lack of image stabilization. If you use the m4:3rds versions you'll find that the OMD does a wonderful job stabilizing the image and giving you the feedback you want in the EVF.

My hope, in terms of future development from Sigma, is that they make available whatever lens formulation they are using for the  Sigma DP3 camera. It's a dedicated 50mm 2.8 and from the samples I've seen all over the web (including sites I trust like www.luminous-landscape.com) it's as sharp as the Leica M series 50mm with which I used to photograph. If they can make this available in both Nex and m4:3 mounts they'll have a new cult super hero lens on their hands. I'd line up to get one. Especially if they keep their pricing in line with the 19mm and 30mms.

Boston is a fun city to shoot in but perplexing. Even though there are tons of great things to photograph (both people and buildings) I've never seen a city with fewer photographers rattling around on the streets or in the museums and public spaces. Is Boston just totally over photography?

The best systems for walking around enjoying life and photography--simultaneously.

Olympus OM-D

When we looked away for a moment the world shifted. A few years ago, when traveling, I would see people at events, at monuments and in the streets shooting photographs. Some were using point and shoot cameras and documenting their vacations to share with friends and relatives. The people who wanted to make serious photographs were toting along serious cameras. Big, heavy cameras. Canons, Nikons and more Canons. All with big, fast zoom lenses on the front. Now it all seems very anachronistic to walk around with a hulking DSLR. It's a trend time shift. 

Let's face facts. No one is getting paid to walk around and shoot in the streets. There's no market brimming with corporations sending out requests for state of the moment street photographs. This is something we do because we love it. But it's a dying trend. We've mined the shaft and plucked out the gold and now what were left with is the love of the exercise and its residual benefit, time spent outdoors looking and living. The reason working photographers buy cameras like the Nikon D800 (the new, defacto professional tool...) is to put them on a tripod and extract from them every square milliliter of excruciating details to bring to the service of their clients. It's what is expected when controlled imaging is commissioned and used in critical applications. But it's a level of technology that's actually detrimental to the practice of the kind of enjoyable, recreational photography we seem to pursue most often, and always for ourselves as the primary audience.

I speak from long experience. I've shot in the street with old Nikon F's and Leica M's as well as with Hasselblads and other medium format equipment. But my recent experiences with street photography in and around Boston and then back home in Austin have convinced me that we've achieved a plateau wherein the technology inside today's premium mirrorless cameras yields a practical quality which, by dint of operational fluidity, matches the level of image quality you'll attain from dragging around much bigger cameras and lenses.

It's all a matter of user relativity. In the grand old scheme it's impossible to argue that, all supporting practice being perfect, that current mirrorless cameras (APS-C and m4:3) are as potentially good as the current crop of full frame cameras. Square milimeter-age will always count. But when we take away tripods, studio flash systems and other accessories and we use both systems side by side to walk through a city for hours at a time the gap between technical superiority and on sensor equivalency starts to fall apart. The bigger cameras cause us to fatigue more quickly and that causes muscle tremors that degrade image quality. The increased blood flow means a stronger pulse and that also affects our ability to steady the whole rig. The smaller pixels in the higher res cameras like the Nikon D800 seem to require the highest platform stability in order to show best results. When a stable platform is degraded (with time, fatigue and other physical constraints) the ability of the more technologically advanced cameras is effectively degraded to the point where the smaller, and more agile format and body styles pretty much achieve actual quality parity.

When we shoot in the street we want good results but we also want to enjoy our time there. To do this it's important to find the optimum balance between the results your tools will give you in a hand held shooting scenario and the weight and bulk you are willing to accept. Almost every commercial, working photographer I know has accepted the binary gear paradigm. One system for ultimate, no holds barred, commercial image making and a totally different system for recreational use. We still want big, lush files, quick operation and a range of delicious lenses but we're no longer anxious to power lift our way to nice images. We're also learning that ultimate resolution or ultimate perceived sharpness aren't nearly as important, for most kinds of carry around photography as choosing the right subjects and being in the right place at the right time.

You can argue all you want but a smaller, lighter system goes a long way to extending your range both physically and emotionally. In the past, when we shot film, I did my commercial work with a range of mostly medium format (and some large format) cameras. But I never considered taking my four by five inch view camera out for an ambling stroll across town. It always had purpose on its side, not exploration. I supplemented those larger cameras with Leica M cameras and their much smaller lenses. In the early days of digital we used five pound Kodak/Nikon bodies which had short battery lives and very heavy batteries. We found various point and shoot digital cameras, like the Canon G series or the Olympus C-3030 type cameras to press into service for our portable, recreational rigs.

Now we don't have to make as big a compromise for portability. We can get relatively equivalent performance our of at least three different choices in the world of mirrorless when compared to traditional DSLR systems. In the case of the Nex 7 (I may be prejudiced...) we can also have a sensor that is better that most of the APS-C DSLR sensors, extant.

After having shot for three or four hours each day, in Austin and Boston, over the last seven days I can pretty much declare that, for me, the days of walking around with larger cameras have come to an end. There are three systems in the mirrorless category that I would use without reservation for the kind of fun work I normally undertake for my own enjoyment. I present them here.

Fuji X-E1

If I were starting with a totally clean slate I would probably be seduced by the Fuji X-E1. The sensor seems to be state of the art for color and low noise and the lenses are reputed to be very sharp. The 18-55 kit lens is a 2.8 to f4.0 which, coupled with good high ISO performance, makes for a good all around package, right out of the box. Two things hold my back from trading in my Sony Nex stuff and taking the plunge: One is that I've just gotten to the point with my Sonys of understanding them completely. Knowing how to wring the best performance out of them in most situations. I'd be reticent to go through yet another learning curve.... and the second reason is that I'm using the Sony DSLT cameras professionally and with the LAEA-1 adapter I can use the lenses from the DSLT system to supplement the Nex lenses while retaining most of the operational features (wide open metering, all modes + exif).

On the other hand the Fujis, right out of the gate, seem to have a better selection of better native lenses... But then the Sony has a superior EVF, better autofocus and equal usability with legacy lenses. Between the three systems I'm talking about I think the real choices come down to lenses and how the camera feels in your own hands...

If we're looking at sheer acceptance the camera that most advanced photographers have chosen for a second system (and, for a large number, even a primary camera system) is the Olympus OMD.

The benefits are very straightforward: This particular camera may have the best image stabilization ever implemented in a still camera. It's amazingly good. Like science fiction. And unlike the in body stabilization of my bigger Sony cameras you get to see the calming effect of the IS in the view finder. The next benefit is the electronic viewfinder. While all three of the these camera systems give you EVF's the Olympus version seems the most graceful. By that I mean that people in general find it more comfortable to use. Easier to look into. 

While the Sony Nex 6 and 7 have higher spec'd EVFs the only thing that really matters is the actual user experience and even I'll admit that Olympus wins that contest. When you add in the wide range of really wonderful lenses that are already available for the system it's hard to argue against it. I've often said that if Olympus had beaten Sony to market with the OMD it would have been my first choice for a second system. With the 12mm, 25mm, 45mm and 75mm lenses for the Olympus system I would have a fine wide-to-telephoto system that still fits in a tiny bag.  And it would be a lens system that is made more remarkable by the relative speed of the lenses.

I am looking forward to seeing how Olympus will top the OMD. There are rumors of a more professional camera coming down the pike but if my anecdotal surveys of users are any indication it will take a lot to move current OMD shooters to another camera. There just aren't that many things people actively dislike about the current body. The one thing they might consider is a "big type" version for seniors. I do hear the occasional grousing about the size of the buttons....

Sony Nex 6

I think the best value on the market right now would have to be the Sony Nex 6. It's got a good sized sensor (16 megapixels, APS-C size) that's been well proven in popular cameras like the Nikon D7000 and the Pentax K-5. It's a tiny camera, almost pocketable with the right lens on the front and it's been deeply discounted lately. While I like the eccentric dial design of the Nex 7 the 6 will appeal more to linear photo thinkers and people who have become used to dedicated dials for everything. I don't like the new 16-50mm lens as much as I like the old, much maligned 18-55mm kit lens.  If I were considering sticking my feet in the waters of mirrorless high performance cameras I'd start with the Nex-6 and the original black 18-55mm kit lens. It's a great package and used with some skill and knowledge, could be used for 90% of most photographers' work.

There is no right choice. All three of the systems have a lot to offer. If you don't do photography for a living you might find that one of the three systems above matches your needs more directly than the larger systems to which we've been consistently acculturated. As Apple showed us with the phone and Honda showed North America with cars, there is no shame in downsizing our tools in order to make them more usable.

One more thing. It's wise not to discount the power of symbolic sizes and shapes when considering a tool for a task that cries out for either discretion or collaboration. A smaller and lighter camera is often times perceived to be used only for fun and recreation and not for news, documentation and commercial gain. When people are confronted with big cameras and lenses they often are moved to believe that the photographer will be using the images he takes of them for his financial gain. They rightfully expect that if they are part of the amalgam that makes profit then they too should be rewarded. Especially if they perceive that they are giving up their rights of privacy. Very little of that stigma attaches to cameras with smaller profiles and less "professional" appearance. In fact, I'd say the user of the smaller cameras is more easily ignored, overlooked, discounted which, in the end gives them more access, and more intimacy. 

To be honest, at this point there's very little difference in the sensors between camera shapes (excluding the less than 1% who are using full frame sensor cameras) and most of us would be able to get the kinds of images we want out of either a big DSLR with big lenses or a smaller camera with equally good lenses (albeit half the size). Technology is allowing us the option of being in everyone's face and combining a program of aerobic weightlifting while shooting OR finding a new way of shooting that is sleeker, more agile and far more comfortable when used on the street or traveling around the world.

Of course, the usual disclaimers and caveats apply. If you have a nice camera of any size and no reason to shred your budget then no one is pushing you to rush out and change. If you shoot stuff on a tripod and need ultimate quality, professional project or not, then you are still a candidate for a very high resolution, traditional DSLR or DSLT equivalent. The camera itself, considered in a vacuum, won't make you a better shooter. But access, calm muscles, even breath and a lighter load might....  Just a thought after spending some quality time in the streets....

Let the Nex 6 episodic review begin !!!

disclaimer time. This is the start of a series of blogs about my impressions of the Nex-6 camera and some of the lenses you can use with it. I paid full price for the camera body at Precision Camera in Austin, Texas. I was not offered any financial or product consideration or quid pro quo from either the retailer or from Sony or any party related to Sony. I am answerable for my purchase only to God and my wife. If you don't like my opinions about the camera or the review, go write your own.

Let's get the critical stuff out of the way first and that would be: Why did I buy a Nex 6 when I already own a Nex 7, and how do I like the way it feels and handles?

Many years ago, in a moment of extreme photographic hubris, I took a trip to Paris with Belinda and brought along with me only one camera. It was a Leica M3. I'd bought it a couple weeks earlier from a well known camera technician and Leica specialist who told me he'd stripped the camera all the way down, and restored it to "like new" condition before thoroughly testing it. I also brought along one 50mm Summicron lens and a freezer baggie full of film.  On our first night in Paris a screw came loose somewhere inside the camera and got itself wedged into the film advance gears and that was the end of that Leica's usefulness for the trip. Since we would be there for two weeks and one of the main reasons for our  trip was to take some fun and interesting photographs it seemed obvious to me that I had only two choices: Find a trustworthy camera repair person in Paris and convince him to repair a Leica overnight for someone he'd never met before and would probably never see again, or, go to the FNAC store and buy a suitable camera to use for the rest of the trip.

I chose the second path and bought a Contax Aria with a little Zeiss zoom lens. A nice camera but nothing special and soon divested of when I got back to Austin. (The Leica was repaired and returned to me within an hour of presenting it to the original seller with my critique. We are still friends and still do business together. Everyone deserves to be able to make one non-fatal mistake....).  The point of my long story is that it's never a good idea to leave home for a wonderful trip, excursion, event, job, etc. without a back-up camera. A redundant tool that can be instantly pressed into service should your primary tool become unresponsive.  No one likes an unresponsive tool.

As most of my readers know I bought a Sony Nex 7 earlier this year and have been thoroughly enjoying it. It's a great camera. But as I continued to accrue lenses for it I started to think it would be wise to have a good and very similar back-up for the original, just in case. And, as I'm planning some out of town trips in the next few months for the express purpose of photographing I figured I'd go ahead and commit to a second Nex body. Logic says that it's good to get two identical cameras and it makes perfect sense: afterall, you bought the first camera for a reason. I bought a second Nex 7 which developed a problem and I sent it back to the dealer. I had the choice of having them refund my money or having a new body shipped to me. At the time the idea of also buying an a99 was percolating in my head so I just had the seller credit my card for the camera.

I went out to buy the Sony a99 yesterday and, as I was waiting for everything to get sorted and written up I made the mistake of asking to play with the store's demo Nex 6. It was great. It's so much like the Nex 7 but it feels and generates files that seem a little crisper (but we'll get on to that...). The finder on the model I fondled was identical to the one on my Nex 7 and the menus, not counting silly stuff like wi-fi and apps, were nearly identical to the ones I've become accustomed to on the 7.  You only live once I thought and added both the Nex-6 and the Sigma 19mm lens for the Nex cameras to the total tally. I'd purchased the 30mm Sigma just the day before.

If the Nex 6 tested out to my satisfaction and the files were good and rich and sharp I would have satisfied my photographer paranoia and I would be ready to do some day trips and weekend trips for the sole reason of shooting images with the comforting thought that I was as prepared as any boy scout. If you are tired of reading I'll skip right now to the conclusion: Based on my half day of shooting and then looking carefully at a hundred or so files at 100% in Lightroom I would say that I am very, very pleased with the Nex 6 and am glad to make its acquaintance.  It complements the Nex 7 and they overlap each other in very complementary ways.  For more detail, please read on.

This image of the Nex 6 was taken with a Sony a99 camera and the Sigma 70mm Macro lens. It is a direct, out of camera Jpeg. It was shot in the studio at ISO 6400. I've included a 100% (unretouched) crop below for your  pixel peeping pleasure....

The 6 looks a lot like the 7 everywhere except in the material of the body covering and the switch of the Tri-Navi dials to more conventional mode and concentric control dial. I worked with both during the day and didn't have problems changing back and forth. Both cameras are more comfortable in my hands than any of the micro four thirds cameras I've used except for the the Olympus Pen EP 3 which is the prettiest and more ergonomic Pen camera that company has ever made.

Part of my newfound prejudice in favor of the Nex 6 is the fact that I coupled it with the 30mm Sigma lens. It's a lens that comes close to my all time favorite focal length of 50mm on a full frame camera and, I've come to find out, it is exquisitely sharp. It may be the best cheap lens I've ever purchased. I haven't had time to test the 19mm Sigma yet but if it has the same DNA as the 30mm lens I will be delighted. You can judge for yourself from the photos presented below but I will tell you that, looked at large (100%) it make the original 18-55mm Sony kit lens look a bit anemic.

While the system performance is important, and is the only set of parameters that can be objectively measured, I find it difficult to use a camera whose feel I don't enjoy. Here's where everyone is different. What I like in a camera others may not, and vice versa. I'm right eyed so the finder on the top left of the camera feels just right to me. I have small to medium sized hands and if you have large hands you may find the button placement too tight and the grip too small. But for me these cameras are functionally well imagined. The bigger DSLT's are a whole different ballgame and evoke a different way of holding and working that has its own feel and structure. Not better or worse, just different.

This is a 100% crop from the shot just above, included to show the performance of the a99 at ISO 6400 with no retouching or post process noise reduction.

What are the things I like about the Nex 6?  Well, first off the less dense sensor in this camera is better at doing files in low light and at higher ISOs than the Nex 7. How much better? How about a stop and a half. While I'm sure that some of the improvement comes from a newly redesigned 16 megapixel sensor I'm equally sure that Sony is catching up with Nikon on figuring out how to introduce in camera noise reduction that is less smeary than the last generation and also has more monochromatic noise and less chroma (color splotchy) noise. Both of these things give us files that appear less noisy and more detailed and, for the most part, that's a good thing. So why not just get rid of the Nex 7 and get another Nex 6? Good question but I have the suspicion that the Nex 7 files are better at the other end of the spectrum; at the lowest ISOs.  Both cameras are really great imaging machines. If I needed the most resolution and detail with the  widest dynamic range I think the Nex 7 will be the leader. I'll test them head to head someday just to see but for now I'm happy to own a low noise camera and an uber-detailed camera. As I said, they cross over each other nicely.

I came into the kitchen last night and one small halogen can light was on at low intensity over the work table. I hand held the camera with the 19mm lens on  it (no image stabilization) and shot a few frames using the auto-ISO function. The white balance is very, very good for a low intensity halogen source while the  exposure, using manual metering, is both right on the money and exactly as I saw it (pre-chimped) in the electronic viewfinder. See the image below for a 100% crop.

100% crop of the frame at ISO 2000. Nex 6 and 19mm Sigma.

While this generation of Sony Nex cameras (the Nex5R has the same basic sensor) is not going to kick sand in the face of something like a Nikon D4 it certainly is as good as the Nikon D7000 or any of the other Sony chip toting APS-C cameras and perhaps better than a number of them. I'll say right up front that I found the files to be relatively noise free up to 800. Very good up to 3200 and usable even at 6400 (albeit at smaller sizes when in the nose bleed territory). But as a general, all around town camera, working at sane ISO's like 100, 200, and 400 it is the IQ equal of any APS-C camera on the market today at just about any price. That's pretty darn good.  So, good noise handling and good hand handling. Let's go on.

It was a lovely day in Austin. A bit overcast but not too warm and not too cold. Belinda joined me for a Sunday walk around downtown. I carried the 6, equipped with the 30mm Sigma and old a spare battery in one pocket.  Here's what I observed as we walked and I stopped from time to time to shoot a few images:

The camera seems to wake up slower than the 7. Some have conjectured the slow start may be lens dependent, and since I bought the camera without the new kit lens and have only use the Sigma I can't be sure. But I know that from the time I flip the "on" switch till the time the camera is ready to shoot can take four or five seconds. With this in mind I rarely turned the camera totally off but preferred to let ut fall asleep. When the camera was awake it focused very quickly. A bit quicker than my 7 and not much slower than a typical mid-level, conventional DSLR. 

In many daylight scenes the camera seems to like to underexpose by 1/3 to 2/3s of a stop in order, I suppose, to protect the highlights. I liked most of my daylight scenes best with a +1/3 stop adjustment. Of course, when I'm shooting in manual I mostly judge the exposure by the look of the image in the EVF and what I'm seeing in the live histogram.

A few reviews have nicked the 6 for not being perfectly white balanced under artificial light conditions but I think this is mostly ramped up criticism coming from writers who feel hell bent to be "balanced."  And by that I mean they feel that they have to come up with some negatives in a camera review to balance out any analysis of a camera that's overwhelmingly good. My experience with the camera, both under florescent light and tungsten light is that it is exceedingly good at coming to a convincing white balance. Probably better than a number of regular DSLRs, with the added benefit that you can see what the camera is choosing for a white balance in the EVF as you are analyzing the scene, even before you shoot it. It's a simple matter to dial in a more accurate WB in real time. But hardly necessary. All of the images in this report were done with AWB in Jpeg and they are as accurate as I can remember.

While I know that most advanced photographers like to shoot raw I tend to shoot my casual photographs in Jpeg. I usually set the camera to the largest file size and the lowest compression (highest quality) and rarely am I unhappy that I have foregone the ritual RAW dance. I am beginning to think of RAW files as something that only needs to be done on very critical shoots and by owners of OVF cameras who don't have the luxury of both pre-chimping their shots and having a good, reliable review/preview image to view. The screen on the backs of most cameras is rarely reliable because of all the ambient light falling on it. Rear screens are really only usable for reliable file review if you both to carry along and use something like a Zacuto or Hoodman loupe. With an EVF your view of the image is sheltered from the ambient light and different light color temperatures giving you a much more accurate rendition of how the scene will look on your monitor back in the studio.

I've been using the Nex system since mid Summer and I have two real complaints, one which is solved by spending more money and the other time will be solved by time and the building success of the system. The first is the meager number of exposures you get per charged battery.  With batteries that have been charged three or four times I'm getting around 500-600 exposures. I'd like to get more because I'm a pretty promiscuous shooter. That problem is solvable by buying more batteries. I have six between my two Nex cameras and that more than enough for a comfortable weekend of shooting or a long commercial job.

I take off Sony points for making 6 owners charge their batteries in camera with one of those silly-ass USB chargers. But my work around was to buy two aftermarket batteries, complete with their own charger so now I can charge two batteries at a and still be able to shoot. Yes, the batteries seem to all perform exactly the same.  

The second problem really is a paucity of fun lenses with which to shoot. But those seem to be dribbling and drabbling onto the market at a quickening pace. The new wide angle Sony zoom is a great addition which I'm sure I'll buy at some point but what I really want are more fast, long lenses. I'd love to see a 70mm 1.8 and maybe a 90mm f2.0.  In the meantime I am very happy with the 50mm 1.8 OSS and I am happy with my brief experiences with the Sigma lenses.  Additionally, I've had mixed success with Olympus manual Pen FT lenses and Fotodiox lens adapters. All the longer lenses work well at wide open to middling apertures but the shorter lenses (20 and 25 mm) seem to have magenta patches that start around f8 and get worse and worse as I stop down. It probably has to do with the angle at which the light strikes the sensor lenses. I don't really know.

My recommendation to anyone buy one of the Sony Nex cameras is to pick up the primes.  Pick up the primes. I don't have first hand experience with the 16mm, but that's mostly because I've heard so many complaints about it. I can vouch for the two Sigmas, the 19 and the 30mm and I've heard great things about the Zeiss 24mm.  Again, if the system proves to be a marketing success I'm sure that the third party lenses will begin to arrive, en mass, in a short amount of time.

In the meantime I'm also having good success with the Nex 7 and regular series Alpha DSLT lenses, via a Sony adapter.  I use the 35mm DT, the 50mm DT, the 85mm 2.8 and even the longer zooms on the Nex 7 (and soon on the Nex 6) without any fringing or discoloration. I like using the LAEA-1 adapter since it adds no mirror or glass between the camera and the lens but I do find that particular adapter might as well give up the pretention of providing AF because it's slower than third world mail and hunts more than Cajuns. I take advantage of Sony's well implemented focus peaking and focus all of the adapted lenses manually. It works very, very well. In cases where I'm making important shots I use the focusing magnifier to fine focus at much greater magnifications and this makes the process dead accurate. 

Using auto-ISO in Aperture preferred priority the 6 does a good job of matching up ISO with shutter speeds that I can handhold with great sharpness and I like that. On the Nex 6 the auto-ISO goes all the way up to ISO 3200 and even there the camera makes really good files. What good is capping the ISO at a lower ISO if unsharpness from handholding the camera ruins the image anyway?

 The image above and the three images just below were shot at the W Hotel this afternoon. Most of the images are from the conference and event spaces on the second floor and are in low light. The camera was set to f4 and, via auto ISO, set shutter speeds of around 1/60th and ISO of anywhere from 1600 to 3200. All of the images were perfectly exposed by the camera. Pretty cool. I'm not so thrilled with all the white furniture in the space or the really forced modernesque paintings, loaded with lots of sharp angles and diagonals. Seems like a blend of 1999 and high school art class at the Star Fleet academy but I can't blame the W's bad taste on a little Sony camera...

So the real question that seems always implied when people get carried away and start buying these little cameras is--------Why would you buy these when you already have camera bags full of real cameras that can already make amazing images? Why buy a slower, less featured camera?

It's not just fashion. Really. These cameras do some things that we used to value in the days of yore. They are small and light which makes them easy to pack and carry around. A significant value is that they don't look like big professional cameras so no one really pays any more attention to them than they do to a cellphone camera. Advantage? I spent a half hour rummaging around the W Hotel and was never stopped or questioned by the staff. They saw the small camera and just assumed, "tourist/guest." That in itself is extremely valuable. I'm betting I could get into places which would be off limits for "pro cameras" and still be able to make convincing and technically good images.

The cameras a visually and aurally quiet. There's still some shutter noise but it's a fraction of the noise that conventional moving mirror camera make.

But it's mostly because, when used properly, there's no difference in the files between these small, easy to use cameras and their best lenses and the images that come squirting out of the slamming noisy V8 "professional" cameras----just a lot less drama and chaos. 

Absolutely freaking good automatic color balance under an avalanche of mixed lights. And darn nice candy.

The bottom line is that cameras and photography are changing faster than we ever imagined. All the things we thought were prerequisites to good photographs are dissolving in the proof of new technologies. The sensors in the Nex 6 and Nex 7 may be the very best on offer in ANY APS-C camera on the market today. The EVF finder is a powerful tool for both still photographers and (even moreso) for video makers. And I haven't even touched on the glitzy stuff like the built in HDR or Multi-Frame Noise Reduction or the ten frames per second mode, or the 60 fps full HD video modes, and the wonderful color rendering from these cameras.  We'll do that on another blog. 

For now I give the Nex 6 my highest award:  I bought one for myself. Yes, I could run an imaging business with it.  Optimally? Maybe not. Successfully? Better than with the tools we had for ten times the money just five years ago, and we made a lot of people happy with those.

Oh look. Out of coffee. I'm off to see a dress rehearsal. A different kind of scouting.

More to come.

Amazon current has the Sigma 19mm and 30mm lenses for Sony on sale for $149 !!!

Okay. I surrender. I'm using the built in HDR feature on both my Sony a77 and my Sony Nex 7. And it works.

I don't like a lot of the HDR stuff that I see on the web. In fact, I hate the flattened look and grainy, clarity overkill that I plainly see in so much of the work. But my friend, ATMTX, seems to have a light touch with it and he's always pushing me to stop being such a curmudgeon and try doing things like using the concepts of HDR to improve my work as well as using the rear screen of my cameras to compose with. "Use the force!"  He says.

After a recent post I read about throwing away a lot of stuff I knew I knew I decided to shelve my prejudices about photography and just go out and respond willingly to the stuff I saw. No big agenda. Just like moth to flame or a child to colors.  I gave up some control by putting my ISO on auto.  But I gave up a lot of control when I decided to turn on the in camera HDR in my Sony Nex 7.  This will seem old hat to some of you but in the Sony Nex there is a menu in which you can select HDR and then make a second selection for how many stops difference you want between each of the three shots that the camera uses to combine into one final frame.

The camera shoots the frames really fast and then micro aligns them and processes them into pleasing HDR files. For the uncertain it's nice to know that the camera also gives you a separate untouched jpeg that is the "correct" or center frame of the the three frame bracket.

All of the images in this particular blog post were done with in camera HDR and at ranges from 3 stops to 5 stops. I think they look darling and I didn't have to buy a book or go to a workshop in order to get them. Which makes me think that Sony is making a pretty damn sophisticated camera to be able to do exactly what I want it to do without any intervention from me....

All but the last image in this series were taken at the Austin Hilton Hotel, just across from the Austin Convention Center. I was out test shooting with the Sony LAEA-1 Alpha to Nex lens adapter, the 35mm 1.8 DT lens and the Sony Nex camera.  I like the combination very much and I can see using the Nex 7 as a primary shooting camera for professional work. I think mirrorless has come, now, totally of age and it's ready to compete with traditional camera paradigms. The Nex cameras, the Olympus OMD and the upcoming Panasonic GH3 are/will be capable of delivering nearly everything a typical, regional working pro needs in order to supply clients with professional images.  There will always be exceptions to this statement. I freely admit that micro four thirds and mirrorless Sony aren't ready to tackle high end architecture photography. Not because the sensors aren't ready but because there are no tilt/shift optics available and adapting the ones out there that are made for other formats isn't a solution because they are too long...

What I found after pixel peeping my take this afternoon is a camera that out resolves everything I've used before, handles like a dream and basically-----kicks ass. The other thing I found out is that the Sony DT series of inexpensive prime lenses kicks ass, squared. You can read tests based on flat resolution target bullshit or you can go out and shoot with the optics you are interested in and make up your own mind. I'll take the latter path every time. In my experience the Sony 35mm 1.8 DT, the 85mm 2.8 DT and the 50mm 1.8 DT are some of the finest performing optics I've shot with. But I'll be the first one to tell you that I don't shoot newspapers tacked to the wall or air force resolution charts.  And neither should you.  

If you want to test a lens you put it on your camera and then shoot the stuff you enjoy shooting.  Look at the results and make up your own mind.

So, all of these images are hand held with the camera setting shutter speeds between 1/60th and 1/80th of a second. I am consistently amazed at how the camera is able to align all three of the frames and make such perfect images.  If I'd had the camera on a tripod and the ISO set to 100 I can only imagine just how great the images could have been. But would I have liked them any better?

The Nex 7 is turning out to be the camera I really wanted from Olympus and Panasonic. But it's even more eccentric which endears it to me even more.  So much performance.  So many wild features. So many lens choices.  Has there ever been a better time for the actual practice of photography?

Finally, I've spent the last two years denigrating the whole idea of HDR. Do I feel guilty? Was I wrong? NO. The stuff that became known as HDR in common parlance was atrocious stuff. And it was applied to all kinds of inappropriate subject matter. I'm changing my mind and finding that judicious use of a three frame blend adds another tool to my creative and professional tool box. And that's okay. It's only when carpeting steps over the line to lime green shag that we have an aesthetic problem.....

Final note: The more I use the Nex 7 the less I want to use anything else. 

A strange confluence of sensor resolutions. Bizarre fun with high resolution.

Sony Nex 7

I was sitting at my desk this morning finishing up the final touches a self-promotional folded card with images of food on it and I was browsing through a recent collection of food images I'd taken. As I looked through some of my most recent favorites I checked the exif info and was mildly surprised to find that I had candidates from three different cameras taken within the same month. The thing that struck me as funny and strange is that all three of the cameras, the Sony Nex7, the Sony SLT a77 and the Nikon D3200 use the same size and same resolution sensor.  All three are 24 megapixel sensors with at least two of them being absolutely identical. So, within the last six months I've gone from a bountiful selection of  cameras with sensors that range from 12 megapixels to 21 megapixels straight to situation wherein my highest resolution camera sensors and my lowest resolution camera sensors are....identical.

I love using the two Sonys. I think EVF's are the way the entire camera industry will go for the mid to high end prosumer and professional cameras and I think the changes will happen faster than anyone imagines. I like the Nikon because it's silly good and silly cheap and that makes it the perfect knock around camera to keep on the floor of the car for all those times when you want to shoot spontaneously, in fast breaking muck,  but don't want to risk a more expensive unit. The D3200 would be perfect if Nikon had replaced the small optical finder with an EVF but at $699 for the kit I won't argue.  The camera makes great files, works without a hitch and can sometimes be....amazing.

So here I am. All of the micro four thirds inventory is gone. All the sub 24 megapixel cameras are gone. The 16 megapixel a57 is in Ben's hands now. When I go out to shoot it's all big file stuff now.  Not big like a Nikon D800 but twice the resolution of the nifty Nikon D700 I was carrying around only four years ago.  And all of them at half the price of a D700, or less....

Sony SLT a77

The big question is: Do I see any real difference in the files versus the stuff I was shooting with last year?  And the wishy-washy answer is "yes and no."  If I'm out walking around and handholding my cameras pretty much every camera from 12 megapixels up looks pretty much the same in terms of overall quality. I think my ability to handhold a camera steadily is really the deciding difference in perceptions of quality we have between cameras.  That and the quality of the lenses that we use.  Of course there are more dots in the files with a higher resolution sensor but are the dots anything particularly useful or are they just there to take up space when we shoot handheld, or in low light?  

Where I do see a difference in sensor resolution and it's impact on quality are situations were I am using the camera on a tripod and practicing good technique. On a recent product shoot I tried to pull out all the stops and do everything by the "high quality results" book.  I used a heavy tripod, focused carefully with the focus peaking in the a77.  I used a known to be good lens and I used it at what I knew to be its sharpest aperture range (5.6-11) and I even used a wired, electronic remote release.  The ISO 100 raw frame, ministered to in Lightroom 4.1 was stunning for the sheer amount of detail presented in the product image.  Was it necessary detail?  Hardly, the images will be used on packaging and will run half the size of the original files (or less).  Was it observable detail with real information?  Yes.  You bet.  Was this a make-it-or-break-it parameter for the product shot or the client? Gosh no.  We could have done files with an older Kodak 6 megapixel camera that would have satisfied the final use but it sure was fun, given where we've been in the digital spectrum, to see just how much resolution the "normal" camera of the day delivers.

Nikon D3200

In my mind the benefit of all those megapixels comes into play when you're looking for tonal smoothness combined with a high impression of sharpness, delivered by endless layers of detail. For me it's in the studio portrait. Shooting at 24 megapixels gives me files that have so much detail and so little "grain" that the skin tones take on the smoothness that we used to associate with medium format color negative film and that makes it a whole different look.  And the funny thing is that all three of these cameras can deliver that.

Another benefit of the newer sensor technology is the increased dynamic range in the files. If I shoot everything at ISO 100 (or even ISO 50 in the a77's) I see a definite difference in the range from light to dark vis-a-vis my EP3 or GH2 files.  The newer cameras also do a better job on the light to dark tonal transitions than did my Canon 5Dmk2.

I thought I'd have more use for the Nikon D3200 camera than I've gotten so far. Its files are no better (and probably not quite as good) as the stuff I'm getting out of the Sonys but I am very comfortable about tossing it into a bike pack or the aforementioned car floor, or even in the swim bag and expecting it to work without a grumble when I get to wherever it is I'm going.

While I think the 24 megapixel sensors work well for a guy like me who doesn't give a rat's ass about shooting at 6400 ISO I don't think it's a magic metric or indispensable. In fact, the 16 megapixel performance of the Sony a57 is largely indistinguishable under all but the most controlled circumstances.  The same is true, I am sure, of the Olympus OMD.  Oh, but wait.  That's a Sony sensor as well.  Has Sony become the digital equivalent of Kodak from the film days?  

So, why my ongoing fascination with the Sony cameras? Especially when I can get the same practical level of performance out of a $600+ Nikon?  It all boils down to the finders.  Once you've done EVF (Sony style) you'll never want to go back. Even if someone comes along with a lot more megapixels.  It's nice to be ahead of the curve once in a while.