the last word

Yesterday morning, I set out to make a series of pairs of images, letting the NEX-7 focus the first image in the pair, and manually focusing the second. The images did not turn out the way I expected. I expected to catch the NEX-7 making autofocus mistakes. Now that I understand the limitations of the… [Read More]

I’ve read a few complaints about the NEX-7’s autofocus performance when used with the Sony/Zeiss 24 mm f/1.8 lens. I don’t think it is that the NEX-7’s autofocus is deficient compared to similar cameras; I think the problem is that the camera body and the lens are both capable of such a high level of… [Read More]

The Zeiss 24mm E-mount lens acquitted itself excellently with a low-contrast subject. Let’s see how it does with a normal tone range. Here’s the overall image, made, like all the images in this post, at the lens’s best aperture of f/5.6 and ISO 100: The center, at two-pixel-for-one magnification, is commendably crisp: The upper left… [Read More]

In this and the next few posts I will give you an informal analysis of the performance of the Sony Zeiss 24 mm f/1.8 E-series lens. I will be comparing it to two other 24 mm lenses: the Leica 24 mm f/2.8 Elmarit ASPH, and the Leica 24 mm f/3.8 Elmar ASPH. I thought about… [Read More]