Sony NEX-7 - Voigtlander 28mm f/2 Ultron

All images Sony NEX-7 Voigtlander 28mm f/2 Ultron

Following on from my piece on the m-mount problem, it seemed sensible to start my NEX-7 + lenses posts with the Voigtlander 28mm f/2 Ultron. The sun even came out for 10 minutes.

All of these images are uncorrected, and as you can see, in a real world situation its not that much of a problem. In fact there are many shots where it just won't be noticeable. Shots with lots of sky are more of a problem, as you can see above.

The 28mm performed very well. I was able to get very sharp results. I'm using the somewhat radical sharpening parameters that I developed for the Panasonic GX1, and they work rather well for NEX-7.

A few more observations on the camera. I said with regard to the NEX-5n, that the peaking function for focusing is the best method I've ever used for manually focused lenses. Since its in the NEX-7 also, it does make using MF lenses a breeze. Its better than the Leica rangefinder system, as far as I'm concerned, and of course allows a greater variety of lenses to be used. The Leica system is impossible for macro lenses, without adding on custom viewfinders and certainly lenses longer than 90mm are difficult, to put it mildly.

I can see an awful people who use m-mount lenses using the NEX-7 as either an additional or even replacement camera to a Leica M series, even allowing for the crop factor. Certainly its further confirmation that my decision to sell the M9 was a good one. I often miss it for what it is, but in actual use, the NEX-7 is going to be a far more useful camera, of that I'm sure.

I would also mention again the build quality of the NEX. Though small and light, it has a lovely metallic body. Somewhat in contrast to the somewhat plastic fragile feel of Panasonic m4/3 for example. However this isn't to say that its more sturdy, and certainly I've never had any problem with any m4/3 camera, it just seems that way. 

My trip out with it was very short-lived, as the dull weather descended again, but it was, as I imagined, a pleasure to use. Having the 5n's has certainly prepared me well, and I'm pretty comfortable with the Sony menu system now. I'm still not a great fan of it, but I've got all the buttons and dials set up as I want them and this will take care of the vast majority of setting alteration that I want to do.

Finally, in terms of the 28mm Voigtlander, I'm not sure about its future. The Zeiss 24mm is very close in terms of focal length and is a faster, auto focusing lens. The Voigtlander is a bit of a duplication and though it works very well on the 5n's. I'm not sure that its going to get used that much.