Just Posted: Images from latest Sony E-mount lenses on NEX-6

Jafary, it is not a test....it was a pre production demonstration they were given permission by Sony for those quick sample. They haven't started review or test the lens properly yet. They were told what to do and what not to do.

Oct 13, 2012permalink

jafary

How come so many people throwing definitive judgement based on one set of snapshots from one tester that used the camera for a few hours, possibly on a pre-production sample? Other pics posted on this forum (by webgeek) and on other websites shows better results for the 16-50. I ordered this camera with the kit lens and I will calmly wait for other serious reviews and my own tests when it arrives. Only then I will decide if it satisfies me (compared to an APS-C DSLR) or if I will simply return it and look for other options.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Because it is a tester that has tested dozens of other cameras and lenses, did similar samples many times before and is aware that he is shooting first pistures that will be thoroughly evaluated and judged. So these samples have some value and if they are not on par with competitors (pictures shot by the same person and under similar circumstances), something is wrong and you cannot just deny the bad outcome.
On the other hand it may be a lens variation, that especially the lens that dpreview had for testing was wrong.
I know it from personal experience, I have just bought a lens that showed very weak performance; asked for a new one and the other one (I received only yesterday and am just testing it) is much better. So if I judged according the first lens I would say the XY lens is awful; considering the second lens it is perfectly OK.

Oct 12, 2012*permalink

Cane

Because that what old men on camera forums do. They do it to every sample set, from the best cameras to the worst. This is what you do when your only company is a cat.

Oct 13, 2012permalink

Phil_MI

I thought it was a good sampling of various subject matter. I wouldn't mind having a chance at "test driving" the latest photo gear offerings from any of the manufacturers. :)

phil

Oct 12, 2012permalink

The worst of the lot by far is the E 16-50mm F3.5-5.6 PZ OSS, which does not even come close to doing an APS-C sensor justice. Only the very center is reasonably sharp and it quickly gets softer going out from there. I was surprised how much distortion the E 16-50mm F3.5-5.6 PZ OSS has, even at 50mm. I have pocket cameras that have better lenses than that!

Oct 12, 2012permalink

And you got that from these pics???

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Yep, the distortion is very obvious even without downloading the originals,(which I also did to check for sharpness). Just look at the photo of the guy in the red shirt holding the wine glass. Now look at the vertical elements in the scene and you will see the high degree of distortion even here at 50mm. Given a decent lens, there should be very little or no discernible distortion in at 50mm on an APS-C senso.. Also in the window sill there is a lot of veiling flare, which reminds me of the problem of using my old Minolta lenses on the a700. Not a very good performance for this particular Sony lens, I'm afraid.
Sony needs to do a lot of work to improve their NEX lens quality.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Mike Sandman

With all due respect, I downloaded that image, displayed the grid in Photoshop and carefully rotated the image to align the window frame, inside shutter and pool cue with the grid. I did that because it's hard to judge distortion when the straight lines are at a slight angle due to rotation of the image. The lines of those vertical elements are straight, not distorted. Take the time to try it yourself and you may change your mind.

Oct 12, 2012*permalink

ZeevK

Distortion? I do not see any reasonable distortion problem at any of the 16-50 samples, definitely not around the 50mm end. Look at 21 sample -there are plenty of straight lines very close to frame edge with only a minimal degree of visible distortion, IMHO indeed very low distortion regarding the type of lens we are talking about.

It looks to me that beside these samples being quite poorly shot, mot people are just carried away with the flood of negativity....

Oct 13, 2012permalink

SunnyFlorida

Jonikon recently purchased a discontinued Nikon V1 and he is trying to validate his purchasing decission by thrashing other mirrorless sytems

Oct 15, 2012permalink

People stop being so negative. Im sure the RAW output is great. We arent talking about a Fuji X camera here. These Jpegs arent the best. Atleast with this camera the RAW output will be extremely malleable, unlike the Fuji's. Pull the shadows +3EV....no problem...

The 16-50 looks good. All of the rest, the NR is too strong to really tell.

Ive seen other samples of the 16-50 though. It looks to be an EXTREMELY useful lens. Its small and has a great range with a true wide angle. Doesnt get any better then that. Its atleast as good as the 18-55.

The 16-50 with the 24 and 50 or the 35 and....hopefully coming 85mm F2/2.8 and your good to go.

Oct 12, 2012*permalink

Mike Sandman

Thanks for posting these. I've ordered the NEX-6 hoping that the 16-50 lens would be better than the 18-55, and despite the complaints here, the shots are useful and I'm somewhat encouraged about the 16-50.

Oct 12, 2012*permalink

Colin Dutton

At last a voice of reason! I found them useful too and am also encouraged. I was worried after looking at the 'official' shots from Alaska but these show more promise.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

marike6

Not sure where you got that from but raw files from the X-Pro1 are every bit as malleable as my Pentax K-30 (16 mp exmor sensor). Compared to NEFs from my D800, the X-Pro1 files have not quite the ability to push and pull highlights and shadows, but they are not too far off.

But fine detail is much crisper than what I'm seeing here. It may be the lack of AA-filter in the X-Pro1, and the quality of the lenses, but my goodness they are sharp and detailed without looking brittle like Foveon images have the tendency look.

Oct 13, 2012permalink

pete24

Dpreview is a great site,
The Nex-6 and some of the lenses just seem to be totaly lousy..
The NR seems to be quite stronger then the one of the Nex-5N.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Well knowing the NR setting would be helpful. Im sure the RAW output is 10x better. It would be better to wait for the full review before making any judgements.

I do agree with the NR on these particular shots though.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Paul_B Midlands UK

wow, so much negativity - working at DP Review you must continuously be having to take serious amounts of anti-depressants and have some take a suicide watch over you's ... I love my NEX 5N, for now maybe I better stick with it.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Tape5

I thought only the Australian utility van drivers make YOU plural by adding S.

Oct 13, 2012permalink

Leiduowen

In addition to reviewing photographic equipment this has recently been my favorite site to study English - esp. the discussion section :)

Oct 18, 2012permalink

zeniu17

I was hoping to see more F1.8 shots done with the 35mm lens. That's the main reason anybody would buy this lens.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

TonyC5D

Sorry guys but, yet again, a very poor set of pictures. Lots of out of focus or blurry shots, and why the very high ISO samples, or is this a joint test of camera and lens. If so I think it would be much better to do these separately. Many shots are at low shutter speeds which will not help unless you were using a very sturdy tripod. This is supposedly the best review site on the web and your technical write ups are excellent but you do keep letting things down with poor quality galleries. Sorry but more attention needed I think. Having worked for camera manufacturers for many years I would feel rather aggrieved with the apparent lack of effort and technical skill put into the gallery shots.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Simon Joinson

It's not a test. It's not a review. It's a quick gallery of images. It's an attempt to grab a ton of shots in a very short time with a bunch of lens and camera combinations at a press event. We had no control of when or where these were taken. This is the only way we could get access to usable cameras. There will be more, more considered shots to follow. Just to reiterate, this was NOT a test of either lens or body.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Some nice artsy pics, but it would be more informative if your photographers selected scenes that allow comparison between center sharpness and edge sharpness. Lots of lenses are sharp dead center these days, but it's how they perform across the frame that separates the good from the ugly.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Shamael

NEX-6 runs without AA filter too, like NEX-7 and RX 1. Look the picture 2264079 in full size, and look how many moire pattern you find in the curbs of the leafs of the Pampa grass. They are all excellent cameras, but they have all that problem, same as D800E from Nikon.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

NektonFi

I was unable to locate any moire on this:
http://masters.galleries.dpreview.com.s3.amazonaws.com/2264079.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=14Y3MT0G2J4Y72K3ZXR2&Expires=1350053693&Signature=sOKR0AUXqaTvdziUBcTtM5pfnUg%3d

secondly, NEX-6, NEX-7 and RX-1 do have AA-filters.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Currently all Sony cameras have AA Filter man.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

I think what you are seeing is not moire, but rather the affects of processing high levels of CA out of the image.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

tex

Ummmm....not a super helpful gallery, imo. I have no real sense of how that 10-18 is performing at all. Please just let's have some dull, but instructive, test shots at all apertures. They don't have to be bench quality at this stage, but something more than this, surely. No offense or disrespect intended.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Joel Benford

Every sample from the 10-18 I've seen felt miserable, but then every sample I've seen was in miserable weather. I am a very emotional lens evaluator, I guess.

For general character and intuitive like/dislike reaction, the 35 and the standard zoom seem alright. Can't say about the peeping aspects.

Oct 12, 2012*permalink

jenbenn

Hm most of the samples are good, except for the last ones of the 16-50mm lens. The shots taken at 49 and50mm are either comletly out of focus or have been smoothed tremendously by Noise reduction ( not likley, since they were taken at ISO 100).
DPReview please check, these last two pics are so soft, it cant be duie to bad lens quality.
Also, most people buy a UWA lens to use it at its widest setting. I think you should at least provide a few test shots at 10mm fromthat lens. If I wanted to shoot at 16mm or longer I'd go for a cheper lens.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

samuelkwok

Are you sure that the UWA lens can be used on 16-50mm lens?
OR there will be a new UWA adapter for the new lens?

Oct 12, 2012permalink

The last shot is with 2x clear image zoom.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

peevee1

Are those straight OOC JPEGs or processed?

Oct 12, 2012permalink

SirSeth

I'm surprised that at web sizes these pictures suffer. I suspect it will be a case of "shoot RAW to get the best out of the NEX6 because JPG is smearing each shot to smitherines." But what is up with the metering? Many shots underexposed. Is it user error, the gray day, or does NEX need positive compensation? Time will tell, and this is only one look.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

samuelkwok

I am a NEX 5, C3 and 5N user.
Most of my photos are underexposed at around -0.3EV..
I believe NEX has a tendency to produce underexposed pictures... I usually apply a +0.3EV for my shots...

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Roland Schulz

In respect to the price of the 10-18 4.0 I had expected more. From what I see here I´m very disapointed.
I do not expect Nikon 14-24 2.8 (best UWW on earth in my eyes) quality, but the samples here a pretty soft.
I really hope the 12mm CZ will be BETTER.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

onkelboffen

The samples over at Steve Huffs site are better.

Oct 12, 2012*permalink

a-flying-wuss

Most of which are heavily processed, even over-processed considering the level of noise in some of his low-iso shots. Not that useful for evaluating a sensor/lens performance...

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Todor Bodurov

Shooting at random places, at random directions with random settings would produce photos about as useful as those here. Isn't there, at DP Review, anybody who knows how to take sample photos? Or are you intending to discredit Sony? But, whatever you are doing, thanks for trying.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

spidermoon

This is exactly what usualy people do, they put the default lense, use the green mode and take photo, "real" photographer who knows rule of third, how and when to switch in advanced mode or change white balance are a minority ;)

Oct 12, 2012permalink

M Jesper

You're describing 'real world' samples. And believe it or not you're supposed to actually use the various available settings in the real word. Sure they aren't works of art and the weather didn't help either. But studio samples will be here later i'm sure, don't worry.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

mikeydread

Oh NO!These are shockingly BAD - really soft, lacking in colour and contrast and full of artifacts and smoothing. Even at low ISO. Unbelievably bad. I have been holding out for this but these have completely made up my mind, I couldn't put up with quality this low.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

I think you guys are doing it all wrong, instead of blowing the pic up and expecting perfection you should look at them at the sort of size you would print/post at. They actually aren't bad at all, much better than my D40 and I get nothing but compliments for my shots. And that is the thing about photography, a good photo is a good photo, no-one gives a damn if the low level shadows are smeared, they won't even notice if the pic is good enough.

You guys should get out more and take some pics rather than worrying about the pixels. a good camera is the one that doesn't get in the way of what you want to do.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

le_alain

Hugo, buy glasses, at every size the landscape are SO bad !
and if you go on a hardware forum it's to inquire about hardware.
no complain about the photographers who take tehes pics or creativity, but only on the results

DPREVIEW helped me make my choice since 11 years
Thanks for your job

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Yeah Hugo you are right really. Pixel peep sounds silly though really. Its all camera can do best at high iso. Also reminds me that monitor cannot render picture well if it is higher pixel than the monitor display is set to. It may look interpolated on your screen for example you have 1920 x 1080 set on but image is bigger than that it may look ugly as monitor had to resample it to try make it look best but not that perfect to see it though. Best to view bit smaller than your screen set at and it looks better. Remember film is the same, it will look awful if you blow up on screen to 100% actual pixel after you scan. It looks like millions dots of blue/green/red dots not picture. It looks fine when I look at just smaller than screen size of those sony sample pic nothing wrong really. It looks good in sharpness and good colours. Maybe a tad bit mushy but not that bad at all really. It is not perfect in high iso anyway. My 7D isn't perfect in high iso as well, same boat to Sony.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

I should perhap show off sample of high iso in JPG with noise reduction apply. I am sure it will be nearly same as Sony no doubt.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

spidermoon

The only very bad is the last one, 50mm and landscape. Other are good to very good. The 35mm seems a great lense, perphaps a little soft/out of focus in corner. The Sony13_35_DSC038 is very good to me, you can almost count every single blade of grass, there is detail in shadow and few clipped highlight.
The kit zoom is better than i thougt, like the Sony28_16-50_DSC012, red cover are not oversaturated, and you can see cover texture, not bad for a 3200 jpeg.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Yes that is amazing though is it? I don't find many lens kits are good as these but some lens kits can be really good.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

What I do with test shots on DPreview is download them to my HD then have a look next to some of mine at the sort of size I look at pics. Blowing them up full size can be revealing but no-one except commercial photographers does that to show other people and these camera aren't meant for massive exhibition shots anyway so it's pointless getting upset if they don't look as good as a FF with primes on a tripod.

Oct 12, 2012*permalink

I have hint for you. If you want to compare the sensor noise. Go to studio comparison tool under menu of sample, compare Sony A57 with Canon 7D. Both are on par in ISO 12800 in JPEG but Canon 7D beats Sony by a bit less noise than Sony at RAW ISO 12800. You will see the difference a bit. But overall can't see much difference. Also this one on
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sony-alpha-slt-a57/11 < This page you can try that too as a difference in noise using both JPEG and RAW. They are close each other.

Oct 12, 2012*permalink

Michael_13

I don't want to criticize the creativity of the shots. This is useless, because Amadou was at an event and had to shoot several combinations of bodies and lenses in probably a short time. I want to see all the criticizers here do better in such a situation...

I worry, though, about the exposure. Is it me, or do many of the pictures seem to be quite underexposed?

Oct 12, 2012*permalink

Itś not only you, I noticed that as well; the pictures look dim.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

burnymeister

Huff's are also dark. All the reviewers are being wined and dined at an expensive resort on Sony's dime. Is it any surprise that Steve is singing the praises of the new gear ("NEX-6 is WAY better than NEX-7" - Really??) and of course posting links to BH all over his site? At least DP seems to maintain some objectivity.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Tord S Eriksson

The last two shots are taken at 49mm and 50mm, but differ radically - how is that possible?!

Oct 12, 2012permalink

deep7

Probably using digital "zoom"?

Oct 12, 2012permalink

I am a bit dissapointed. I admit the weather was not ideal, but the pics generally look matt/dull, unsharp. Expecting the Sony sensor to be traditionally good, it must be the lenses. Basically most of the competition showed here recently seems to be better. On the other hand it s no tragedy, just average, but I have expected more from newest Sony camera+lenses than average.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

fras23

i've been waiting for 16-50 samples before ordering. I wasn't expecting top end performance but it's just no where near good enough. A real shame.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

abi170845

Looking pretty good. Is it me or my 10EFS is still irreplaceabe? Really interested in going smaller NEX7 with this lens, but by looking at the photos, I still like my 10mmEFS on my 7D.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

wepwawet

Corner sharpness of the 10-18 seems OK at f4 and good at f5. Finally a good UWA option on the NEX? I feel weak in the knees ;-)

DPR team: please try to give us more useful test shots next time - brick walls, regular patterns, and the like...

Oct 12, 2012permalink

My guess is that they take shots like this to reflect the sort of things people actually take photos of. Unless you are a professional brick wall photographer of course, in which case you can wait for the studio tests.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Looks okay to me seems not interest me in these picture are boring. Come on, show us better picture. Sony noise reduction is a bit too harsh though but I believed they used the luminance noise reduction that cause to look mushy. I would only care about noise reduction is colour noise as it doesn't degrade the picture much. Canon mostly still on the lead with the best lowest noise on the planet. I think Sony and Fuji are both similar though in noise problem except the more expensive fuji camera the noise was pretty low though.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Please disregard this post since I found that moderator of Dpreview had said that this was not a review/test images. So it was just a pre production sample image. So thats understandable this time.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

plamens

Super meaningless test footages(as usual), i can't get an idea of the quality of any of the lenses!
35/1.8 is portrait lens, give us photos of people on f1.8
10-18/4 is super wide, give us photos of buildings, streets

Pleaese, make useful pictures!

Oct 12, 2012permalink

35 mm a portrait lens? Maybe on Nikon 1. ;-)
Anyhow I agree the test pictures could have been better.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

QuazyLogic

I think, these pics are jpegs,not raws. All jpegs are mushy and relatively low quality. Well there are some cameras with better, some worse jpeg engine. I dont care about jpeg output, only raw interests me.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Very uninteresting shots you got there DPReview. Pretty much degrades the lenses.

I bet even if you guys use a Zeiss or a Leica it will still be the same.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Todor Bodurov

It's hard to believe that DP Review would post such useless sample photos.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

CosmoZooo

How come none of the 16-50 shots show depth of field. This is boring like others said. One should take photos that differentiate such camera from point and shoot. I think these pictures didn't do the camera any justice.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Digital Suicide

Whose girlfriend (wife) was taking pictures this time? :)

Oct 12, 2012permalink

lifeispixels

engadget just posted their sample photos of A99 and to my surprise... how come the tech geek website can do a better/ more interesting photos than dpreview.. this is beyond my comprehension...
http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/11/sony-alpha-a99-dslr-sample-shots/

Oct 12, 2012permalink

These all look really good to me, what's everyone whininh about? It's only a camera/phone hybrid anyway, you wouldn't use it for anything other than snapshots. These more than pass muster, might even get one for the wife.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Hey Hugo, I think you'll perfectly fit to be a tester here in DPR!

Oct 12, 2012permalink

plasnu

Fuji XE1 will be much better in terms of IQ...

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Vlad4D

Even pro version of Fuji - X-PRO1 was not better, why XE1 should be better?

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Deeso

And more expensive. Yeah

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Zamac

Original size images are much better than the resized.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Ariston

are there any better samples ? the photo quality looks underwhelming.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

mu55

Did Sony specifically ask you not to take any photos at 10mm of a subject where people would expect to see sharp corners?

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Richard Butler

No. We never publish galleries in which we're told what we can and can't publish.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

worldcup1982

Question, is it possible to know which flenght you are using? thanks.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

marike6

It great that Sony is expanding their lens line-up, and the 35 1.8 and the UWA zoom look interesting. Based on a few of the jpegs I'd say raw (or at least raw + jpeg) is more or less a requirement. Of course I have no idea is NR can be dialed down. If so, jpegs could possible be quite usable.

Still, the most interesting new mirror-less camera for me IQ-wise is the Fuji X-E1.

But for HDSLR video shooters, and for someone who want to buy into the highly adaptable E-mount system, the NEX-6 looks like a fine camera.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Sosua

I agree on the proviso LR / ACR get the kinks out or processing...

Oct 12, 2012permalink

codeNsnap

Ditto for XE-1. Looking forward for Fujifilm's 10-24 f/4

Oct 12, 2012permalink

thx1138

The ISO 6400 is really mushy at least as a jpg. I would hope the RAW are vastly better.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

sadwitch

Try printing it out. It may just surprise you

Oct 12, 2012permalink

gianstam

Yes, it's the first thing I do when I saw samples like those here. I tried a 3200ISO printed ona laser printer. I asked from FastStone to print 1.2m X 0.8m and the A3 crop was amazing

Oct 12, 2012permalink

thx1138

I assume you will making a small print which has the same effect as downsizing the full image and dramatically improving noise. Defeats the purpose of 16MP to start with if you need to print small. If I printed the image as shown at A4+ it would reveal the mushiness clearly.

The IQ of the jpg is plain terrible no doubt due to Sony's overly aggressive in-camera settings. So again I await RAW samples and the chance to do my own processing.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

sadwitch

I think it's the reverse, its the whole purpose of 16MP. Say if you normally print 4R or 5R sizes would you prefer a 5MP image with noise or 16MP with same noise?

Oct 12, 2012permalink

sadwitch

I think it's more important to have detailed, sharp, good colour depth photos in lower iso up to 800 than to have mushy looking hi-iso 'performance' with little noise.

Oct 12, 2012*permalink

wislana2

For those not satisfied with posted samples i recommend excellent samples in this thread:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3280861

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Hey wislana, I love your pic! These looks great and rather interesting too! A big A+ to you. By the way I was shocked to see Nex 6 ISO noise have improved over the older Nex. I guess Sony must have got the message to fix the iso noise issue problem.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Sergey Borachev

I would consider the NEX-6 and the 16-50mm for a handy little camera that has every important feature built in (EVF, flash, tiltable screen, WiFi), to take everywhere in a jacket pocket. I won't buy any other lens for it and just treat it like an advanced fixed lens compact. With the typical high ISO performance of Sony sensors, it should be fine for most impromptu situations and cope reasonably well. I don't think that there is any other camera with an equivalents size that has the same combination of IQ and convenience. The E-PL5 comes closest as a small all-in-one high-performance camera but has neither a built-in EVF nor built-in flash.

Oct 12, 2012*permalink

deep7

Canon G1X would do the job better. Different dimensions but compact where it counts, better lens, similar sensor quality.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Michael

G1X relatively slow AF

Oct 12, 2012permalink

deep7

I keep reading that. Luckily, my G1X can't read and therefore focuses quickly and reliably!

Oct 12, 2012permalink

Dennishh

Just what I thought after seeing the first tests in Europe, not very exciting lenses. Just average at best not worth the $800 for the 10-18. The 16-50 might be as good as the existing 16mm at f8. I will cancel my pre-orders at Amazon. Sony just can't make quality lenses which isn't surprising for an electronics company. This is disappointing I was looking forward to these.

Oct 12, 2012permalink

The Lotus Eater

How can you cancel a pre-order if you didn't actually pre-order?

At least TRY to sound convincing.

Oct 12, 2012permalink