Sony A7 and A7r Hands On at PhotoPlus Expo

Sony A7r with a Voigtlander 12mm Lens and Viewfinder

It was a very crowded Sony booth at PhotoPlus. The great thing was the Sony representatives were very accommodating to anyone who wanted to play with the new Sony A7 and A7r. We had our bag of lenses and was able to mount them all on the A7 and A7r - check out the 12mm viewfinder on the A7r above. The lenses include the following:

• Voigtlander 12mm f/5.6 Leica Thread Mount on a helicoid adapter.
• Voigtlander 35mm f/1.7 Ultron LTM.
• Minolta 24mm f/2.8 Rokkor MD.
• Contax G 28mm f/2.8 Biogon.
• Contax Zeiss 85mm f/1.4 Planar with the Metabones Speedbooster and the standard C/Y adapter.
• Zeiss 12mm f/2.8 Touit Distagon.

The cameras were pre-production and the use of memory cards to record the images was prohibited. We wanted to see if I could see immediate problems on the rear tilting lcd but none were glaring.  The only noticeable issue was color shift with the Contax G 28mm Biogon.  We're hoping that this can be remedied with the production models.

Sony A7r and a Contax G Lens

Below is the Contax 85mm Planar on a Metabones Speedbooster. As you can see it cannot cover the whole sensor but with APS-C mode on the A7 cameras the Speedbooster is still useable.

Sony A7r and a Contax 85mm Planar Lens via Speedbooster

The Voigtlander 35mm Ultron LTM was a nice surprise.  This lens gives the NEX-7 some problems with color shift but on the A7 this was not the case.  The few snaps that we took looked great on the rear lcd.

Sony A7r and a Voigtlander 35mm Ultron

The Minolta 24mm f/2.8 MD provide a nice wide angle image on the Sony A7.  It felt nice and balance on the slightly larger frame of the Sony A7.

Sony A7r and a Contax 85mm Planar Lens via Speedbooster

We were very excited to mount the Zeiss 12mm f/2.8 Touit on the new Sony A7.  We had the A7's APS-C lens detection off to see how much the Touit can cover the full frame sensor.  The lens has a plastic shroud to protect the rear element and this showed up in the shot below.  The Touit works perfectly fine in APS-C mode.

Sony A7r and a Zeiss 12mm Distagon Touit

The images above were from a smartphone.

NEX-7 with Contax 28mm Distagon via Speedbooster

Here are some sample shots from the NEX-7 and the Contax Zeiss 28mm f/2.8 Distagon using the Metabones Speedbooster. It was great shooting the 28mm at close to its natural focal length. The lens was always set wide open at f/2.8 and the NEX-7 was at ISO 100. We are very pleased with the Speed Booster.

NEX-7 with Contax Zeiss Tilt Adapter

Here are a few shots from the Sony NEX-7 and a tilt lens adapter with a Contax Zeiss 28mm f/2.8 Distagon. The 28mm lens provides an effective focal length of 42mm, very close to the human eye's fov.

The tilt adapter provides fun images, we posted about the tilt adapter in August 2010. It's great on the NEX system with focus peaking as you can see focus band as you "tilt" the lens. We have not shot much using tilt and were wondering if it can make it in our travel bag where space and weight is a premium. Do you have any tips for new users of tilt lenses?

Sony NEX-7 and the Shuttle Enterprise NYC Flyover

Space Shuttle Enterprise with Lady Liberty

Here's a few photos from the New York City flyover of the space shuttle Enterprise piggybacked on a Boeing 747. We had longer lenses available but the widest end of the Contax 35-70mm MMJ worked out best. The 747 flew above 1500 feet and a 50mm fov, Contax 35-70 @35mm, was great for the shot above.

The images below are at the long end,70mm, which gave a 105mm fov. The NEX-7 was initially set on the tripod but the pilot and NASA did not want to cooperate with my framing - hand held shots worked better.

Sony NEX and PlayStation PlayMemories Image Viewer

Sony PS3 PlayMemories Image Viewer

Here is a quick video of NEX panoramas viewed with PlayMemories on the PlayStation 3. PlayMemories supports 3D photos from the NEX, unfortunately our TV is not 3D capable. What we can show you is a panorama taken with the NEX-5 at Monza during the 2010 Italian Grand Prix.

We have not printed out a panorama and PlayMemories is a great alternative of sharing ultra-wide photos from the NEX. The exif information of the photo can be seen by press the X button on the controller. 12416 x 1856 pixels is difficult to print but easy to view on a large screen.

The video was taken with the older NEX-5 with a Contax 28mm f/2.8 Distagon.

Sony NEX-7 with Rokkor-M Konica and Contax Lens

Sony NEX-7 ISO 800 with 18-55mm OSS @52mm f/5

We posted earlier about our trip to Unique Photo to see the new Sony NEX-7. It was an open house with Sony representatives exhibiting the new Alpha and NEX cameras, Sony lenses, and flash guns.

There was a lot of interest with the new cameras so our time with the NEX-7 was curtailed. The Sony representatives were all very helpful allowing lens changes and personal memory card usage to grab some images of the pre-production NEX-7.

The brief time with the NEX-7 was great. Since the NEX-5 was our main camera, it's been a while since we used a viewfinder. The NEX-7's EVF was a new experience. It felt odd in the beginning putting a small electronic screen up to your eye but we adjusted by the end of the night. We didn't have time to adjust the diopter, which we should have. All the information from the rear LCD is translated to the 2.36 million dot, 0.5" XGA OLED EVF. The EVF and slightly larger body of the NEX-7 made shooting with quite heavy SLR lenses very manageable.

We did not use the two new dials on top of the NEX-7 since we were using manual lenses. The dials felt great when we did play with them briefly. There was an additional button by the Shutter button that we will most likely reassign to a new command.

We learned a few things about the NEX-7. It responded to the same remote control as the other NEX and Alpha cameras. Also in the menu there was a Micro Adjust option for auto focus lenses. Lastly the NEX-7 was considerably lighter than it looks and will make for a great travel companion.

What would we change with the NEX-7 from our brief encounter? Change the Exposure Bracketing to +/- 3EV with a 5 shot option. The extra button by the Shutter button hopefully is customizable. We would set it to EVF or LCD mode only and not rely on the sensor.

We set the NEX-7 to Shutter priority, and Auto-ISO when the light allowed. The camera was set to JPEG output and that is what's posted here. The posted images are resized and 100% crops from each lens. No other changes were made to the file. All the lenses handled great with the NEX-7. The snapshots are not the best but we had a great time playing with the NEX-7.

Sony NEX-7 ISO 160 with Contax Zeiss 85mm f/1.4 Planar - the shutter speed at 1/60 didn't help this shot.

Sony NEX-7 ISO 200 with Minolta 28mm f/2.8 Rokkor-M

Sony NEX-7 ISO 400 with Konica Hexanon 57mm f/1.2

Sony NEX-7 ISO 6400 +1EV with Voigtlander 12mm f/5.6 Ultra Wide Heliar

The CV 12mm Ultra Wide Heliar shot above was not focused and was taken to see if red-shift at the corners was present.

Thanks to Unique Photo, Sony, and the lovely model in the photos above.

Sony NEX-5 with Contax Zeiss Distagon and Planar

Here are my dream slr lenses on the Sony NEX-5. They are Carl Zeiss lenses made for the Contax SLR system. These lenses are on par with the modern Carl Zeiss lenses for Sony/Minolta, Pentax, Canon, and Nikon at a very reasonable price.

All the lenses were previously used on a Canon DSLR via a Contax / Yashica to Canon EOS adapter. They were mounted on the Sony NEX-5 using an EOS to NEX E-mount adapter. The direct way would be to use a Contax/Yashica to NEX E-mount lens adapter.

Here are the lenses mounted on the NEX and sample snap shots at wide open aperture and stopped down at f/5.6. These images are straight jpgs out of the NEX-5.

The first lens is the Contax Zeiss 28mm Distagon with a maximum aperture of f/2.8. This is a great landscape lens at a bargain.

Sony NEX with Contax Zeiss 28mm f/2.8 Distagon

Contax 28mm Distagon at f/2.8

Contax 28mm Distagon at f/5.6

The second lens is the Contax Zeiss 50mm Planar with a maximum aperture of f/1.4. The perfect normal lens, dreamy wide open at f/1.4 and tack sharp stopped down.

Sony NEX with Contax Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 Planar

Contax 50mm Planar at f/1.4

Contax 50mm Planar at f/5.6

The third lens is the Contax Zeiss 85mm Planar with a maximum aperture of f/1.4. The perfect portrait lens, dreamy with creamy bokeh wide open and tack sharp at smaller apertures.

Sony NEX with Contax 85mm f/1.4 Planar

Contax 85mm Planar at f/1.4

Contax 85mm Planar at f/5.6

The announcement of Carl Zeiss joining the Sony E-mount system with their rumored 24mm f/1.7 lens was great news to us. We are hoping that other Carl Zeiss lenses optimized for the Sony NEX are being developed.