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help with new 5N and good wide angle lens

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runningamok

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Hi everybody,

i recently bought a new nex5N with th 18-200 sel lens. Now i'm wondering wich good wide angle lens i could purchase.

I'm coming from a canon mark 2 with 16 mm lens experience before selling everything for smaller and compact gear with this sony(the story about the changing needs is longer but i'm not a pro, but only entusiast in travel and nature photography so i needed something not so heavy like the before reflex).

So i'm coming to the important question...i would be happy to find a lens among 12-16mm effective on this camera..so it should be a 8-10mm lens.

I'm considering the sony sel 16mm with wide angle adapter but i cannot find good reviews about this one, but consider i need a good wide for nature, panoramas, but sometimes architecture and interior..so the wide angle is very important.

Other option i was thinking about could be the new sony adapter with translucent and a sigma for alpha 8-16mm or 10-20mm...but this would be expensive and i do not know if it would work good for me..maybe the difference in weight is a huge difference too!

I've read in the forum a bout a voigtlander 15mm...but i cannot find where to buy an adapter here in italy...
so any suggestion would be very good accepted..thanks a lot
marco
 
I would also buy the Voigtlander, you can find adapters on eBay like the Kipon for example or Novoflex Pro.

I would buy the Hawks helicoid adapter, but it's 130 euros.
 
runningamok said:
Hi everybody,

i recently bought a new nex5N with th 18-200 sel lens. Now i'm wondering wich good wide angle lens i could purchase.

I'm coming from a canon mark 2 with 16 mm lens experience before selling everything for smaller and compact gear with this sony(the story about the changing needs is longer but i'm not a pro, but only entusiast in travel and nature photography so i needed something not so heavy like the before reflex).

So i'm coming to the important question...i would be happy to find a lens among 12-16mm effective on this camera..so it should be a 8-10mm lens.

I'm considering the sony sel 16mm with wide angle adapter but i cannot find good reviews about this one, but consider i need a good wide for nature, panoramas, but sometimes architecture and interior..so the wide angle is very important.

Other option i was thinking about could be the new sony adapter with translucent and a sigma for alpha 8-16mm or 10-20mm...but this would be expensive and i do not know if it would work good for me..maybe the difference in weight is a huge difference too!

I've read in the forum a bout a voigtlander 15mm...but i cannot find where to buy an adapter here in italy...
so any suggestion would be very good accepted..thanks a lot
Click to expand...
Hi marco,

You are talking about an UWA, not a WA.

I think the Voigtländer 12mm lens could be an option for you. Slow but generally very good. A Leica M or M39 --> Nex adapter should be easy to find using eBay. If you can't do eBay for some reason check what places like Rainbowimaging, fotodiox (both USA) or perhaps enjoyyourcamera (Germany) or... may have for you.

The 15mm lens you mention will give you the same FOV as a 23mm lens on a "Canon Mark 2" (if the mentioned Canon is a FF camera??) while the 12mm will give you a FOV corresponding to the FOV of an 18mm lens on a FF camera.

regards,

Jonas
 
Your only choice is the Voigtlander 12/5.6 if you consider only small lenses. It is in M mount, manual focus so you need to adapt it.

And for big lens, any lens designed for APS-C sensor is fine. Though it will be big. If you want metadata, aperture control, (slow) AF, then Sony Alpha mount lenses are the choice. But you would loss the size advantage of the system.
runningamok said:
Hi everybody,

i recently bought a new nex5N with th 18-200 sel lens. Now i'm wondering wich good wide angle lens i could purchase.

I'm coming from a canon mark 2 with 16 mm lens experience before selling everything for smaller and compact gear with this sony(the story about the changing needs is longer but i'm not a pro, but only entusiast in travel and nature photography so i needed something not so heavy like the before reflex).

So i'm coming to the important question...i would be happy to find a lens among 12-16mm effective on this camera..so it should be a 8-10mm lens.

I'm considering the sony sel 16mm with wide angle adapter but i cannot find good reviews about this one, but consider i need a good wide for nature, panoramas, but sometimes architecture and interior..so the wide angle is very important.

Other option i was thinking about could be the new sony adapter with translucent and a sigma for alpha 8-16mm or 10-20mm...but this would be expensive and i do not know if it would work good for me..maybe the difference in weight is a huge difference too!

I've read in the forum a bout a voigtlander 15mm...but i cannot find where to buy an adapter here in italy...
so any suggestion would be very good accepted..thanks a lot
marco
Click to expand...
 
Kolen said:
Your only choice is the Voigtlander 12/5.6 if you consider only small lenses. It is in M mount, manual focus so you need to adapt it.
Click to expand...
agree that this seems to be the best (only realistic) option, but it is slow and relatively expensive. Depending on subject and PP experience, a 10mm or so fisheye (with defish option in software) could be an alternative, not sure about the current options on NEX platform. Despite defishing the image quality could be a bit better than Sony 16mm + WA adapter. But none of these will rival the image quality of a good SWA lens on Canon fullframe ...
 
The easy solution here is the 16mm, plus the wide adapter. I have both, and they're quite good. By f/4.5, I doubt the Voigtlander 15 is substantially better.
 
I think a lot of people are wanting what you want. In the meantime I bought the 16mm as well as the fisheye converter and am having a lot of fun with it. Someone said that f8 the 16 is sharp and I find mine is okay as well. I think Sony will come out with an ultra-wide next year but in my eyes what I bought will be fine till then as I still have my canon dslr and lenses if I need it. Good luck with your decision.
--
fredyr
 
I am using the Nex 5N + 16mm 2.8 + wide angle convertor.
It gives great images, superwide, fast lens.
F 4.0 is the minimum for sharp pictures.
For the price, it can't be beaten!!
I love it.
 
Thanks a lot for the more suggestions..for the moment i was considering the 16mm..the voigt with 15mm..(maybe the 12 would be better) is not far away from the 18 i already have and for that price...if the ea2 sony adapter would not be so expansive..maybe i would try the 8-16 by sigma...does anyone know if it will have the autofocus or not? I wrote to sigma to ask but they answered that for the moment sigma alpha lenses do not support sony nex system...but the 16mm with converter would give me a 18mm real for 300 euros..other solutions are really expensive if they do not work fine...lets see if sony will produce other good lenses for the new system...for the moment i'm really happy about image quality...not far away from the mark2.....ok..no game with the lenses..:-))
 
runningamok said:
maybe i would try the 8-16 by sigma...does anyone know if it will have the autofocus or not?
Click to expand...
no autofocus for sure, and depending on the mount that you use there are other issues (e.g. with Canon EF version you cannot even set the aperture). It will be fully manual, but optically it is an excellent lens. Iif you don't object to the huge size compared to NEX it may be the best choice. Someone on the forum has posted NEX images with this lens some time ago.

If size/weight is no issue and you consider buying a DSLR lens as temporary solution, have a look at the Samyang/Rokinon 2.8/14. This is a fullframe lens, but despite that it will smoke the SEL 2.8/16 for image quality (and the price is not much higher!). The only other downside is strong distortion, but you can correct that in PP with programs like PTLens.
 
Smiert Spionam said:
The easy solution here is the 16mm, plus the wide adapter. I have both, and they're quite good. By f/4.5, I doubt the Voigtlander 15 is substantially better.
Click to expand...
they may be 'quite good' for average NEX users, but I'm sure that for someone coming from a fullframe Canon with good SWA glass, image quality of the 16mm will be a huge disappointment.

From the examples that I have seen on this forum, the Voigtlander 15 is clearly better until at least f/5.6, but I agree that the difference may be too small for the huge price difference. Maybe on the 5N the comparison is a bit different, but the info about improved corner performance on the new sensors is very conflicting.

The Sony 16mm + WA adapter does pretty well for such an extreme and relatively compact / cheap SWA combo, but I can easily spot the optical flaws even in 2x downsampled (4 MP) images. I have no doubt the CV12 mm has better corner sharpness and less CA. But in this case as well, there is a huge premium for the extra optical quality (and it is a dim, totally manual lens - for a small audience).

Sad that in the (S)WA range NEX has no lens available with good optical quality, and nothing on the immediate horizon either; otherwise I would buy a NEX5n right away.
 
Fredy Ross said:
I think a lot of people are wanting what you want. In the meantime I bought the 16mm as well as the fisheye converter and am having a lot of fun with it. Someone said that f8 the 16 is sharp and I find mine is okay as well. I think Sony will come out with an ultra-wide next year but in my eyes what I bought will be fine till then as I still have my canon dslr and lenses if I need it. Good luck with your decision.
--
fredyr
Click to expand...
Depends whether you mean centre or corners for sharpness - on the NEX 3/5 it was sharpest in centre at f4, best [centre + edges] compromise f5.6, best overall inc. extreme corners at f8.



Even corrected on the 5N I presume it is still best in centre at f4 & 5.6? It's still a fun & capable lens despite limitations!
NEX-5 & f5.6:





Alan
 
Voigtlander 15/3.5
--
A-900, SAL70200G, SALF8/500, Nex-5N, 16 mm and 18-200. SAL28M50, SAL 1.4/50,
Sigma 105, Peleng, KM 2.8/28 ,KM 28-105, KM 70-200/F4, HVLM-36, HVLM-58
Leica Digilux-2, Dlux-4, X1, V-lux-20, Z2X, IIIf, M3
 
Here's a picture of the NEX 5N with the Sigma 8-16 via an adapter where I can set the aperture (Kipon for $70). I really can't see any Canon, full frame or otherwise, doing any better. Autofocus is almost irrelevant on these UWAs' as almost everything is in focus across a very wide range.

 
Personally I want a sharp small 12mm prime.

My 16mm lens was decent shooting jpeg.

Very sharp in the center.
Extreme corners always soft.

That said looking at a raw file was disappointing because of the massive amount of CA.

Not many options to go SWA.

NEX 16MM LENS #1

CTR EDGE COR
F2.8 78 45 28
F4 78 56 56
F5.6 78 64 64
F8 78 71 71UR, 78LL
F9 78 71 71
F11 78 64 64

--
http://www.troyammons.com
http://www.pbase.com/tammons
 
technic said:
they may be 'quite good' for average NEX users, but I'm sure that for someone coming from a fullframe Canon with good SWA glass, image quality of the 16mm will be a huge disappointment.

From the examples that I have seen on this forum, the Voigtlander 15 is clearly better until at least f/5.6, but I agree that the difference may be too small for the huge price difference. Maybe on the 5N the comparison is a bit different, but the info about improved corner performance on the new sensors is very conflicting.

The Sony 16mm + WA adapter does pretty well for such an extreme and relatively compact / cheap SWA combo, but I can easily spot the optical flaws even in 2x downsampled (4 MP) images. I have no doubt the CV12 mm has better corner sharpness and less CA. But in this case as well, there is a huge premium for the extra optical quality (and it is a dim, totally manual lens - for a small audience).

Sad that in the (S)WA range NEX has no lens available with good optical quality, and nothing on the immediate horizon either; otherwise I would buy a NEX5n right away.
Click to expand...
You're making some big assumptions. I shoot Nikon full frame with a lot of premium wide glass. No, the 16/2.8 isn't as good as the best wide lenses on a full frame DSLR -- the 14-24/2.8 and 24/1.4 Nikkors, the 21/2.8 Zeiss, etc. It's easily competitive, however, both with older primes (20/2.8, 24/2.8, etc.) on full frame cameras, and more importantly with the wide options for crop frame cameras -- the various 10-20/10-22/10-24/12-24/etc. zooms from Canon, Nikon, Sigma, and Tokina. F/2.8 on the 16/2.8 is weak, but it's not even available on most DX wides -- only the Tokina 11-16/2.8. From f/4 on, the little Sony 16 is very much in the running. The fact that the entire camera with the 16mm and wide adapter weighs less than any crop frame wide zoom alone is stunning.

You don't own the camera or the lens, but you seem to know it would be a "huge disappointment." The kindest thing I can say is that you don't know what you're talking about.
 
Smiert Spionam said:
You don't own the camera or the lens, but you seem to know it would be a "huge disappointment." The kindest thing I can say is that you don't know what you're talking about.
Click to expand...
the typical NEX fanboy dribble. I haven't seen ONE convincing image from the 2.8/16 despite hundreds of posts that claim the images are 'near perfect' (usually using some 600-800 pixel image as proof of 'how sharp' it is). Contrary to what you suggest, most current APS-C SWA zooms will eat the 2.8/16 for lunch in the f/3.5-f/8 range (at least on Canon, but I guess that is not different from Nikon and other platforms). Oh yes, these zooms don't have f/2.8 - big deal!

I'm not even going to discuss current SWA primes on FF (e.g. Canon 1.4/24ii and 3.5/24TS) against the 2.8/16, any suggestion that the difference is small is ridiculous. And comparing with FF legacy primes from 20 years ago or so seems a bit invalid to me ...
 
ok, now i've a lot of more infos..very interesting...maybe quality of a little pancake could not be like a ff or good apsc lens...i have still some doubts about the sigma lenses: sigma produces all lense for canon, nikon but for sony A mount too...so i was thinking that getting an a mount sigma lens with the translucent adapter for alfa lens by sony it would preserv the autofocus...or is it a software issue among lens and camera?

If all alpha lenses with amount preserve the autofocus with this new adapter and the 5N, the alpha mount from sigma shoul too...or not? Here i could be wrong...someone says somewhere that this lenses would preserve the optical stabilisation too...talking about zoom OS from sigma..

If this would be true...the best choice seems to be the 8-16 or 10-20 f3.5 from sigma with sony alpha mount...and maybe in the future a good 150-500 stabilized? He,he...a lense with a camera attached!:-)
 
tsammyc said:
Here's a picture of the NEX 5N with the Sigma 8-16 via an adapter where I can set the aperture (Kipon for $70). I really can't see any Canon, full frame or otherwise, doing any better. Autofocus is almost irrelevant on these UWAs' as almost everything is in focus across a very wide range.
Click to expand...
the 8-16 is an excellent lens, probably the sharpest SWA on APS-C, so not surprising that you are happy with the image quality. But how does it handle on NEX regarding size/weight? From the pictures I have seen it seems an awkward combination (ergonomically). Setting the aperture on the adapter, does that apply to Canon mount version of the Sigma?

Although the Sigma 8-16 is great, I think good FF primes like the Canon 3.5/24TS and the 1.4/24ii (stopped down 2-3 stops) are significantly better.
 
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