The Online Photographer

Reviewed by Bruce Haley

I'm a film guy. Everything that you see on my website was shot on film. With manual exposure and manual focus, besides. Oh, and no cropping. However, lest one think otherwise, I am definitely not vying for any sort of "purist" badge of honor—this is simply how I have always worked, and what makes me comfortable. Nothing more, nothing less.

However, sometimes age can prompt a change in working methods—or a desire for that change, where none existed previously. I'm 56, and have been doing this for over a quarter-century. I've worked in 35mm, medium format, large format, and panoramic; I've lugged equipment all over the world, in extremely demanding conditions. I still keep in good shape, I still hike and climb, I still do rigorous photographic assignments—but did I mention that I'm 56? No matter how much I would like to think so, my body is not what it was when I was 31 and in the Hindu Kush mountains, running with the Afghan mujahideen (and believe me, it was very difficult to keep up with them even then!). Oh, and the "fuzzy 50s" are here too—my vision is no longer 20/20. And I won't even go into what it's like transporting film around the world these days.

So from the back of my Luddite cave I've seen change a-comin', and contemplated it for quite some time. In 2012 I exhibited my most recent long-term project at a museum in California and a gallery in Manhattan—and all of this work was shot with a big, boxy, clunky old metal panoramic camera that I customized, modified, drilled and hammered upon, etc., and then perched atop a huge, heavy tripod. I joked that I was going backwards, in some sort of meaningless protest against modernity. And while I love the results from that huge panoramic negative, I had to admit that I was tired of hauling that big outfit up and down a bunch of mountains, and that I could use at least a short break from it. But how could I complain when my photographic idol, Josef Sudek, lugged his big Kodak Panoram around with only one arm...?

Well, there’s only one Sudek, and I’m not him. And after years of digital avoidance, I pulled the trigger on a Sony RX1. What I had read made it sound perfect for me, like some faint beam of light finally penetrated to the back of my aforementioned Luddite cave. Then the package arrived, and I stared at the box. Then one day I opened the box, picked up the camera for a minute or so, and immediately put it back into the box. It sat in the closet for another week before I took it out and handled it again. I still didn’t shoot it, though. I didn't want to just snap a few shots around the house—I was waiting for a day when I had the time to give it a proper test run. I was sort of excited by the prospect, until one day when I took the RX1 out of the box again and really began trying to get the feel of it—and my hands just seemed to swallow the poor little thing. I have large hands and long fingers, and the teeny beastie just seemed lost in there. I didn’t like what I felt, and I seriously wondered if I had made an expensive mistake....

Mato Nanji by Bruce Haley, Sony RX1

But I wanted to like it...so I decided to damn the torpedoes and use it for an upcoming shoot with Mato Nanji, the phenomenal guitar player from the band Indigenous. A quick Google search will tell you about Mato—his name, pronounced "mah-TOE non-GEE," translates to "Standing Bear," and he was born and raised and still lives on the Yankton Sioux reservation in South Dakota. He is held in extremely high regard as a blues/rock guitarist, and besides his band and his many recordings, he has been part of the "Experience Hendrix" tour for years, and has shared the stage with other guitar wizards from Buddy Guy to Carlos Santana.

Mato was on tour in support of a newly-released record and was making a north-south run down the West Coast. Normally he plays every night, but he had one day open between his San Francisco and Los Angeles gigs, and arrangements were made for me to shoot some promo stuff with him on that day. As I am a huge blues fan, I had already been listening to him for years, so I was excited for the shoot.

Mato is very quiet, very reserved, and very humble about his incredible skills—there's no ego, no rock-star attitude, nothing of the sort. However, along those same lines, he's also not crazy about posing for photographs. Two days prior to the shoot, I had met him backstage after a gig. I had just watched him blow away the audience with his fretwork, but backstage he was quiet and a bit shy, with body language to match. I said to him, "I bet you hate getting your picture taken," and he replied, "Yeah," with a bit of a grin and a little chuckle.

Two days after that, we met for the shoot (which I dubbed the "New Record / New Camera" shoot). We loaded Mato's Stratocaster and his Fender head amp into the back of my Jeep and took off. Since much of my work is considered somewhat post-apocalyptic, and Mato's new record is titled "Vanishing Americans," I took him to some abandoned areas where there were no people (we saw no one else during the course of the shoot). It was just Mato and me and Jerry (Mato's tour booker, who helped lug that heavy amp around—thanks, Jerry!), so we could travel light and fast. Over a period of three hours we drove to four different locations and set up and shot in eight different areas. No hair, no make-up, no wardrobe, no artificial lighting, no umbrellas, no reflectors, no creatives, no managers, no publicists—just a fun, whirlwind shoot. And Mato was a real trooper—he squeezed into a derelict building past big rusty exposed nails, sat among broken glass, climbed onto a big concrete cube at a construction site and balanced on its narrow edge (the inside was hollow), climbed down into an empty swimming pool full of garbage and discarded furniture, and so on.

In describing this shoot you may have noticed that, despite this being something of a camera review, I never mentioned the RX1—and really, that's the point of this entire article: it's like the camera wasn't even there! I'm no techie, I'm no gearhead. I fully live by the famous Don McCullin saying, "I only use a camera like I use a toothbrush. It does the job." And boy, did that little Sony do the job! I went against everything I've done in the past: I set it for Aperture Priority, I let it do its autofocus thing, and then we packed as much into those three hours as possible. For the most part I forgot all about the fact that this was a new and unfamiliar camera—I just shot.

There are a lot of in-depth feature-by-feature reviews of this camera, and I don't need to add to those. I'm coming at this from a different perspective, and one that is decidedly non-tech. The bottom line is that this camera just sort of melted into me during the shoot, and I was able to concentrate entirely on getting a great deal of work done. My earlier trepidation about the way it felt in my hands went away very quickly. It was so light and unobtrusive that I left it around my neck even when we were driving between locations.

What are the downsides to the RX1...? Many people say that it is too expensive for what you get—but I think it's worth every penny. Great full-frame sensor, fabulous Zeiss glass, and so small and light you could carry and shoot with it all day and all night. The files are spectacular, and I haven't even gone into the RAW versions yet. Many people also don't like the fact that it's a fixed lens, but I love the 35mm prime, and in this format I would use it for over 90% of my shots anyway. So the fact that the camera was engineered around that amazing piece of fixed glass is just fine with me.

There are, however, a few things that I should add before I start sounding like a shill for Sony. I really would not want the RX1, and certainly would never use it in any sort of professional capacity, without the electronic viewfinder (EVF)— but perhaps that says as much about my shooting style as it does about the camera. The EVF itself is a wonderful design, it blends right into the effortless operation of this camera, but it’s also not cheap and thus adds to the initial purchase expense.

And then my biggest complaint: the location of the "Movie Button." Come on, it's on the right-hand grip, for pity's sake! In the short time I've spent using this camera, I've accidentally tripped this thing four or five times. The first time it happened I glanced at my display and wondered how and why in the hell I was shooting video of the ground. Seriously, what were they thinking? It's such a well-designed camera that the placement of this button just baffles me. I'm hoping that there will soon be a firmware update that allows me to disable that blasted button (something I believe Sony has done with other models).

So there you have it—my non-techie initial impression of using the RX1 in a real-world pro shoot situation, with almost no time under the hood of the camera prior to the shoot. As you can tell, I'm sold on this little beastie, and am singing its praises. Of course I'll still be using my film cameras and my big heavy rigs too, but for right now I'm psyched about that "light, unfettered" feeling I get while shooting the RX1. Mato and his manager were very happy with the results as well, so it was a good three hours all the way around. And I got to hear great blues stories from Mato over dinner, after the shoot.

Oh, and I'm no longer at the very back of my Luddite cave—I've now officially scooted a few yards toward the entrance....

Bruce

(P.S. For those interested in Mato's music, I would recommend these to start with: "Indigenous Featuring Mato Nanji" from 2012; "Vanishing Americans"—the new record, 2013; and "Indigenous Live at Pachyderm Studio 1998.")

Sony RX1 at Amazon

EVF

OVF

Sony RX1 at B&H Photo

EVF

OVF

[Ed. Note: A new variant of the RX1 has just been announced, the RX1R, which has no anti-aliasing filter. The two cameras are otherwise identical and are priced the same.] 

Bruce Haley by Bill Jay, 2006

In 1992, when he was at Black Star, Bruce Haley was nominated by The Baltimore Sun for a Pulitzer Prize for helping to break the story of the famine in Somalia. His clients include Time, LIFE, U.S. News and World Report, The London Sunday Times Magazine, Stern, Paris Match, GEO, Aperture, Esquire, Georgia-Pacific, and the Chevron Corporation, and his work has been profiled in American Photo, (French) Photo, B&W magazine, Artworks, and Arts & Living. He received the prestigious Robert Capa Gold Medal for his coverage of the Burmese civil war.

Text and pictures ©2013 by Bruce Haley, all rights reserved

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

GH: "Hi, Bruce. Great shots and review. I wanted to mention that you can disable the movie button on the RX1, so that it only activates when the mode dial is set to movie mode. This function is there in the menus. I also wanted to mention just how great using an OVF is with this camera (I use a Voigtlander, rather than the official Zeiss.)

"I expected to primarily use the EVF, but I also got an OVF for fun, and I like using the OVF so much more that, surprisingly, I got rid of the EVF altogether. The OVF stays permanently on the camera. You'd think that a "dumb" OVF wouldn't be useful, but, since the AF and metering of the camera is so accurate, and there is no horizontal parallax, my hit rate is very good. I occasionally use the rear LCD, if it looks like a particularly difficult AF or metering situation, but it's rare. In fact, I find that I'm at least as accurate as I am with my X100's hybrid OVF, since the Fuji has to deal with more parallax."

Bruce Haley replies: Many thanks, GH, for your comment regarding the movie button.  I found what you were referring to, and disabled the button—quite easily, I might add.  And I certainly should have discovered this option on my own, but the light is rather dim in my Luddite cave, and for now I still find in-camera menus and massive 300-page user manuals to be somewhat daunting (to be honest, I don't even know how to use most of the features on my cheap cell phone). I did look through the RX1's menus and manuals, apparently (and not surprisingly) missing this entirely, and even did a quick Google search, where I found the notion that it needed a firmware update to accomplish the task. Ignorance on my part collided with ignorance on the 'Net, giving birth to misinformation. At any rate, I'm quite pleased to have been wrong in this instance, so thanks once again for leading me out of the darkness.

Rob: "I have had my RX1 for nearly six months, and I am still astonished when I see its RAW files open up on my monitor. How could such a small gadget produce such excellent images? Some users have complained about slow autofocus, but I have rarely found this to be a problem, even in low light. Furthermore, focusing in dead-on accurate. I have the EVF, which is better than I expected, but in bright sunny conditions it is no match for an OVF. At such times, I just use it to frame the image and depend on the camera to deliver the goods, which it always does."

Sony NEX-6 and Zeiss 24mm ƒ/1.8 Sonnar E-series lens

...Or, the conclusion of the conclusion. (Sigh.)

Our earlier articles about the Sony NEX-6, in order, are:

Day 1: Sony and Zeiss, Up In a Tree
NEX-6 Review, Day 2: Exposure and Flare
Saying Goodbye to the NEX-6
Sony NEX-6 Review: Conclusion, Part I

Seeing the world: the viewfinders
Mirrorless cameras suffer from viewfinder problems, pretty much universally. They're just not as good as DSLRs in this respect. As long as the light level is reasonably low, looking at the viewing screen is a joy, and works fine; but when the light gets bright, you have to do something else. With my old Panasonic GF1 (I never invested in the EVF for it), it was basically worse than a point-and-shoot in outdoor daylight. It was a point-and-pray.

The NEX-6 gives you a much refined and greatly more workable system. The viewing screen is much better and more resistant to reflection and glare than than GF1's. And, when the light overwhelms the viewing screen and you have to switch to the EVF, it's right there, built in, at the correct position on the camera for easy use, with a very good eye-control switchover—block the EVF and the viewing screen turns off and the EVF turns on. It happened a few times that I blanked my viewing screen by holding the eyepiece too close to my body, but it's a very minor inconvenience. Generally it works great.

The EVF itself is supposedly "better" than older ones. That's like saying the Tax Code is friendlier than it used to be. It still largely sucks as a way of engaging with the world visually. The EVF on a mirrorless camera—every mirrorless I'm familiar with, anyway—is a workaround for those inevitable occasions when the viewing screen becomes inadequate. [UPDATE: I forgot to mention that several readers have sent in the same tip given here by Daniel: "To reduce the contrast of the EVF, switch to Portrait style and crank the contrast to its minimum. It doesn't affect the basic RAW file but does give a viewfinder image with greater dynamic range." I didn't discover (or try) this in my five days with the camera, as I shot mostly with the viewing screen, but it's definitely worth trying to open up the shadows of the EVF view. —Ed.]

That said, it's good by today's standards. I adapted to the viewing system quickly and without any angst. I love flip-up viewing screens, and the Sony's works just the way I want it to. The EVF stepped in capably when needed. For really engaging with fast-action subjects in a dynamic way, nothing beats an FF SLR viewfinder. But for my style of shooting, the two finders built into the NEX-6 worked well.

Desperate testing
You know, I'm just relaxing about cameras these days. When I first used a digital camera, it was the mid-1990s and the word "megapixel" was still in the future...and I distinctly remember thinking "this is really a lot of fun...too bad the image quality is so atrocious." Digital image quality these days is certainly better than good enough, although it has a clinical, sometimes hyper-real, too-sharp, too-clean look that I just get tired of. I long for a bit of character, the kind you often couldn't avoid with film and film cameras even when you wanted to. But I digress. The point I wanted to make was that so many cameras are just so good that good cameras are good enough. If ya follow. In the early aughts, were were naturally consumed with better-better-better, but that was mainly because the cameras weren't good enough. They've been good enough for a while now.

Pink car at sunset. NEX-6 and Zeiss Sonnar 24mm.

If it's getting less important to optimize your IQ, then things like the usability, convenience, control arrangement, how the camera feels to you, and how well you're able to understand it come that much more to the fore. First and foremost, you need to be able to trust your camera—even if they're too complicated now to truly master for many of us, you have to get to the point where you have sufficient mastery that you feel confident.

In this regard, some cameras tend to fight you, some are demanding, and some you just can't quite get used to because they're not what you've been used to in the past. And others—the ones we're all looking for, at least as our second cameras—are enablers; they help you do what you want to do. They come to feel friendly and familiar. They give you what you want without a lot of fuss.

But, for the most part, frankly, I'm getting over the rabid comparo-fest we all engorged ourselves with for ten years or more. I don't worry about sharpening routines any more; who looks at digital pictures and thinks they're not sharp enough? I don't worry about noise at all. I kinda like a little noise, and a little is all we get these days. You might say it makes more difference if you're a printmaker, and that's right, but the limits of many cameras' quality is expanding outwards; Ctein demonstrated quite convincingly with his Big Print sale from a year ago that a 12-MP Micro 4/3 file is fully capable of superb print quality at a size most people would be more than happy with. Even dynamic range is getting pretty good; I actually like the B&W I came up with using this camera.

It seems to me that the NEX-6 extends these attitudes and advantages a little further. It's a pretty straightforward device as digicams go: fairly easy to set up, easy to master, and ergonomical. With a little time to practice, I'm fairly certain most people will be able to quickly and easily make the camera do what they want it to in the field.

I also had a blast with it. It's just fun to use. Makes you want to go out and take pictures. Begs to be used. Or at least that's the way it was with me.

Conclusion (of the conclusion of the conclusion)
So here's the upshot of my experience with the NEX-6 and the Zeiss 24mm:

• It's quite a fun little camera to use.
• Results are consistently very good to great.
• The lens can be lovely, and actually has a little of the traditional Zeiss magic.
• The camera takes it easy on you. Doesn't fight you with its menus and buttons; tends more to enable you.
• It's fast and responsive, and focus is for the most part accurate.
• It tended to crush the torture tests I threw at it, from dogs in semi-darkness to B&W conversions to tough-to-expose scenes to using the lens wide open. The only exception is that flare resistance is more towards average.
• Auto-exposure and highlight protection are outstanding, making you look like a better technical photographer than you might actually be.
• Handles quite nicely...it handles better than it looks.
• It's a good size, about as small as it can be without becoming too small, although some people will still want a more compact lens.

It's main problem at this point in time might be that the NEX-7 is not that much more money...that, and the fact that the NEX-6 gives off a sort of stalwart, utilitarian vibe—it's unspecial; it doesn't impart any bragging rights. It's just a good solid workhorse little mirrorless camera, good in all ways, horrible in none, but at the same time not the bestest or the mostest in any way I can identify. It like that about it. Some people might not find it appealing.

At this point I've owned four mirrorless cameras and have used five others, most recently Ken's RX1 at the Milwaukee Art Museum of the other day. Much as I admired the RX1—it's a joy to use—and much as I'd have been completely over the moon about it in, say, 2006, I don't think it tempts me excessively now, given its price (although I do think it's worth its price). And I'm pretty committed to the Micro 4/3 system, which offers far and away the best choice of cameras and especially lenses for the enthusiast.

But I'm very impressed with my first exposure to the NEX system. In fact, I have to be perfectly honest: the Sony NEX-6 and Zeiss 24mm, taken as a pair, is my favorite out of all the mirrorless cameras I've used so far.

Mike

Current products mentioned in this whole series of posts:

Sony NEX-6 body ($748—the price has dropped $100 since the first post in this series)

Zeiss Sonnar T* E 24mm ƒ/1.8 ZA lens ($1,098)

Sony NEX-7 (body only, $998)

Nikon D800 ($2,797)

Nikon AF-S Nikkor 28mm ƒ/1.8G ($697)

Panasonic GX1 (a steal right now at $275)

Panasonic DMW-LVF2 accessory electronic viewfinder ($161)

Sony NEX-3N (with 16–50mm lens for $498)

Sony NEX-5R (body only, $548)

Olympus OM-D E-M5 ($930)

Ricoh GXR (modular system)

Fujifilm X-E1 ($999)

Nikon Coolpix A ($1,097)

Zeiss Makro Planar T* 100mm F/2 ZE for Canon SLRs ($1,843)

Zeiss Macro Planar T* 100mm ƒ/2 ZF.2 for Nikon SLRs ($1,843)

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

GH: "Something to keep in mind about the NEX-6 vs. NEX-7, is that the NEX-6 has on-sensor PDAF, an improved EVF (despite the stats being the same,) and a regular hotshoe. The NEX-6 also deals with wide angle rangefinder lenses better in the corners."

Eduardo Cervantes: "If the NEX-6 had a full swivel screen I'd have ordered one right at announcement. With the exception of the Canon G1X (wonderful IQ but slow as a turtle), no manufacturer offers a 'full swivel' screen outside of the DSLRs. I truly beats me why. Keep on waiting and waiting!"

Recently, I rented a Sony NEX-6 camera and Carl Zeiss ZA 24mm ƒ/1.8 Sonnar E lens for five days, from Lensrentals. These are my impressions of the camera from that experience.

Five days is not long enough to really get to know a camera. It's long enough to get enamored of a camera (as we shall see), but not long enough for all of its "warts," so to speak, to fully emerge. When I used to write reviews for Camera & Darkroom my personal standard was to use the review camera for "real work" for no less than three months. I was an outlier among camera reviewers in that respect I'm sure. Five days falls far short of that exalted standard.

So this is a report, not a review per se. (The title says "review" because nobody's going to Google "Sony NEX-6 report.") So before we start, here are a few real limitations you should know about:

• I'm a still photographer. The NEX-6 does videos; it's me who doesn't.
• I shoot RAW* and then process my pictures in Photoshop, so I'm not interested in the camera's onboard JPEG conversion and processing features. I did shoot RAW+JPEG during my five days with the camera, but if I owned it I'd set it on RAW only.
• The camera has Wi-Fi and apps. Didn't check out these features; wasn't interested. Your mileage may vary (YMMV).
• I don't shoot with on-camera flash. I tried it, yes, and it worked, but I just hate the look and always have. If I need flash I use off-camera studio-type strobes (I prefer monoblocks); otherwise, I use available light.

Onward, Rocinante!
My general conclusion about it now that it's been gone for a few days: The Sony NEX-6 is an unusually sweet camera—even by today's high stardards, and even considering the stiff competition in the mirrorless camera category. I really enjoyed using it, and I liked it a lot.

There's no "but" to add to that. I liked it a lot, full stop.

It's a better camera than its category would imply too. I snitched this idea from Kirk, who wrote privately to me that the NEX cameras (he's got a NEX-7) reveal their capabilities in layers, "like peeling an onion." That is, the more seriously you use them, the more they rise to the challenge. We tend to think of little mirrorless cameras as happy snappers—high quality ones, but less than completely serious. But the bigger NEXes, the 6 and 7, are not just portable have-it-with-you pocketable digicam replacements, useful only for quick handheld snapshots. They are serious cameras capable of top-quality results.

When I use my Nikon D800, I love the results but I'm not so happy with the weight, bulk, and the imposing presence of the camera (although I understand how that last can come in handy sometimes, for instance when impressing clients), and my unhappiness with the expense is persisting. When I use my Panasonic GX1, I love the handy form factor, lightness, and egonomics, but I'm not as often completely happy with the image quality. The NEX-6 achieves a sweet spot nicely in the middle—I got uncommonly good results with it, and it was also easy to use and friendly to handle.

Looks and handling
Looks: Several people have requested that I opine on the NEX-6's controversial looks with the biggish 24mm on it—mainly the ungainly, unbalanced-looking, undersized body / oversized lens look.

Well, there's a lot of history there. You might remember the Sony F-717 and its brethren:

So if you think about it that way, the tiny-body/big-lens vibe is hardly a new thing for Sony. The NEX-6 differs considerably in the way it's set up, of course: on the old F-xxx series the entire body swiveled up and down, and the lens was fixed; on the NEX-6, just the viewing screen flips up and down, and you can interchange lenses.

I owned an F-717, in what now seems, in camera eras, almost like prehistory. Eons ago. It was an uncommonly fun and comfortable camera to use. And I got lots of good shots with it, despite its oversaturated reds and visible noise at ISO 400.

I didn't try any of the much smaller pancakes and other lenses on the NEX-6, which would change the look'n'feel of the overall package considerably. Partly that's because, given the way I think, the 24mm Zeiss lens is the killer app. All my life I've tended to use cameras in order to use certain lenses, not the other way around. I would personally be getting a NEX, if I got one, in order to use the Zeiss lens; I wouldn't get a NEX and then be casting about for a smaller lens that didn't look so dorky on the camera. I've never understood people who buy nice cameras and then cheap out on a less than good lens as an afterthought. This lens is one of the big reasons to shoot NEX, and certainly should be a part of any decision to switch to Sony.

Handling: the body/lens combo can be a bit awkward in all the non-shooting aspects: hanging from your shoulder, carrying it around (although it still fits in the glovebox of the Toyota). But that downside is decidedly mild. When shooting, with the combo in hand, it feels very comfortable and natural, easy to hold and (given the lightness of the lens) well-balanced, even. What? Well, it just doesn't look well-balanced, is all; but it's quite friendly to hold when you're shooting.

Note that the NEX-6 and NEX-7 are different beasts than the little NEX-3's and NEX-5's, which are considerably smaller and have a lighter, cheaper feel.

The camera itself is sort of plain-jane but stout and no-nonsense, a look I prefer above most others. Aptly judged and quite handsome as far as it goes, in my opinion. It seems "well sorted," to use one of dpreview's favorite phrases. I mentioned that my first impression of the body was that the placement of the shutter button was too close-in, but I found I adapted to that completely in short order. As an issue, it disappeared.

Anyway, pretty is as pretty does. I liked the handing fine; I wasn't bothered by the way the combo looks. In fact I kinda liked it. YMMV.

Results
I was quite impressed with the camera/lens combo's overall competence. It doesn't fluster easily at all. The hybrid contrast detect / phase detect autofocus is fast and sure, and actually does nail the correct focus properly almost all the time, something I can't even say of the D800 /28mmG.

I didn't track down the exact ISO that I would consider an upper limit for good-quality files, but it's comfortably high—my longtime personal standard has been that a camera needs to give me a no-reservations ISO 1600 and a usable 3200, and, in the limited tryout I was able to give it, the NEX-6 passes muster.

ISO 1000. The camera no doubt has upper limits for ISO, but (unlike the GF1!) they exceed my own.

100% out-of-camera detail from the above. What noise I see from the NEX-6 looks grainlike and didn't bother me at all; again, YMMV.

I also didn't explore the upper boundary of print size, mainly because I don't have a printer set up right now. My historical preferred print sizes for 3:2 were 6x9 inches, 7x10.5 inches, and 8x12 inches, depending on the image; with digital I print bigger, up to maybe 15 or 16 inches in the long dimension. Somewhere above that, the NEX-6 sensor would begin to yield ground to bigger ones—bigger ones, I mean, both in pixel count and physical size. I'm confident from what I see onscreen that I'd personally be happy this camera's sensor. People who print big will need to explore this area on their own more carefully.

As I mentioned the other day, the camera is very good at hitting the right exposure and protecting the highlights. My old Mazda Miata makes me look like a better driver than I really am; the NEX-6 will make its users look like better technical photographers than they really are.

Controls
Never cracked the manual. Doubtless there are still a few surprises awaiting me. (Every surprise within my short trial period was a good one, however.)

I keep yammering about how I never cottoned to the Olympus OM-D E-M5's controls (henceforth, OM-D), and I feel guilty about that. The damn thing just confuses me, I'll admit it. I know I could sort it all out if I had to, and it's embarrassing that I haven't bothered, but I just can't seem to get to grips with the task. I'm sorry. I don't think like it thinks, or vice-versa. Really, I'm just lazy.

The Sony, on the other hand, sorted itself out nicely, and sort of naturally. Every time I wanted it to do something, I poked around a bit and there it was. Everything was pretty straightforward, at least to my brain. A day or two and I felt I knew the camera, felt like I was using the controls surely and confidently. Nothing frustrated me. Nothing bit me in the arse. Everything worked fine.

It's like an anti-OM-D in that respect. The buttons fell to hand much more readily (the review button on the OM-D is hard to reach with my ham hands, and what's with that crazy button on the side of the fake prism housing? That's wack), and once I figured something out I remembered it.

I'm not saying I mastered it; but I was having no issues. Inside of 48 hours, the NEX-6 felt like an old friend. And it was giving me results that stoked my enthusiasm.

Addressing a specific failure of the OM-D: I almost always felt confident I knew what the NEX-6 was doing at any given time, and that it was dutifully doing what I told it to. It's trustworthy. I never know with 100% certainty quite what the OM-D is up to. Well, maybe I do, but I'm not confident about it. There have been numerous occasions when I thought it was doing one thing only to find later that it was doing another. Rude.

To be honest, part of my problem with the Olympus is that it just pisses me off. I don't feel the designers did a good job on its controls and menus, and I resent being victimized by their incompetence every time I use my expensive device. I love the results the camera gives me, which are stellar for Micro 4/3, but I feel like there's a price to pay. (As I admitted above, this is all partly my own fault.)

The best description of the OM-D's menus I've heard came from a reader—I think he was a pro, I don't remember—who said it normally takes him three hours to set up and completely learn the menus on a new camera, but with the OM-D it took him three days. That's about right. The NEX-6's menus by comparison are clearly designed to be simplified and user-friendly, and, even when they're not immediately understandable, they're at least reasonably easy to figure out. You can easily get going with no problem well within three hours, and by three days you feel like you're getting pretty close to the bottom of the well. I'm much happier with the usability, handling, and especially the controls and menus of the NEX-6. Much.

[Continued in Part II]

Mike

*We here at TOP—and be "we" I mean me—just made a site style change, to write "raw" in all caps. This is non-consistent, because the term isn't an acronym, and doesn't need capitalization any more than when you're talking about feeding tigers RAW meat. However, common usage exerts its hegemony, and we are acceding to it. The world writes it "RAW," so, henceforth, TOP will too.

Current products mentioned in this post:

Sony NEX-6 body ($748—the price has dropped $100 since last week)

Zeiss Sonnar T* E 24mm ƒ/1.8 ZA lens ($1,098)

Nikon D800 ($2,797)

Nikon AF-S Nikkor 28mm ƒ/1.8G ($697)

Panasonic GX1 (a steal right now at $275)

Sony NEX-3N (with 16–50mm lens for $498)**

Sony NEX-5R (body only $548)

Sony NEX-7 (body only $998)

Olympus OM-D E-M5 ($930)

**Whoops, I originally said this was "on end-of-life closeout." That's wrong. Sorry! Can't keep up with the alphanumeric onslaught.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

jim: "For once you cant agitate me into buying a camera with your review because I allready own a NEX-6! Unfortunately I don't own the Zeiss 24mm so I really wish you'd quit being so eloquently pleased with it!"

Andreas: "Funny, I feel similar about the OM-D (which I borrowed from a friend for a few weeks now). On the one hand it is greatly customizable—more than a 5D Mark III, but on the other hand there are weird dependencies between settings that shouldn't be related. I don't have an example at the moment, probably because these things twist my brain so I prefer not to remember them.

"But then, picking up the OM-D feels really good; it fits me like a glove and it feels very reliable. What I also like is the EVF, the first I saw that works for me, somehow. They got the brightness and contrast right, and—very importantly—the refresh-rate, which is still good at low light!

"This bothered me with the GX1 and its EVF, which is decent in good light, but breaks apart in low light, especially in the refresh department. I never ever read about such things in reviews, but these aspects are very important IMHO. Because due to the EVF, the OM-D feels like a real camera compared the GX1, which would be quite perfect if it only had a proper viewfinder, a better dial and smoother shutter sound.

"So, Mike, I would be very happy if you speak about the Sony's EVF (in low light). Thanks."

Mike replies: I will, in Part II.

Kirk Tuck: "I actually have a NEX-6 and three NEX-7's. Since I bought these little Sonys I've never had a moment of camera lust for any other small camera. I play with friends' EM-5's, say something nice about the sweet sound the shutter makes and then hand 'em back. I've never had the compulsion to push through to the transaction and actually own one.

"Why three NEX-7's? I've learned that as soon as I find a camera I like it gets discontinued and whatever replaces it generally sounds like the next coming on paper but falls short of the model I liked because of one 'improvement' or another. I found the NEX-7 so alluring to shoot with I wanted to make sure I always had two working bodies.

"When I go out to shoot a job I put a different lens on each body and set them all the same. Just like we used to do in the film days.

"I know I am an anomaly because I am the one person who gets along well with the strap.

"So, with three NEX-7's why did I bother to get a NEX-6? Simple, I wanted a camera I could use a small, cheap, conventional flash on. At least that was my rationale. I've never put a flash on the top but I do use it when I want smaller (but still very, very good) raw files to play with.

"These two NEX cameras are my favorite cameras of the digital age so far. I own the Sony a99 but my brain always seems to direct my hands to pick up the NEX cameras first.

"I've never been disappointed."

Sony NEX-6, Zeiss ZA Sonnar E 24mm ƒ/1.8

To begin with, apropos of nothing, here's Daisy. She belongs to a neighbor I encounter occasionally on walks around the neighborhood.

At the close of our chat (with the neighbor, I mean, not the dog), I turned around and saw I was near the shadow of a tree.

Now, when I try out lenses, I have a whole range of semi-standard "information-gathering" shots I take. Just to put the lens through its paces and see how it does. These don't rise to the level of "tests," really; I just want to see. I've been doing this for a long time now, and I can deconstruct a lens's basic performance pretty rapidly without trying too hard.

Then, when I see an area of weakness or strength, I do some more shooting to "provoke" those qualities, to further suss out what's going on. It's not rocket science.

I need to digress and mention that these days, you aren't testing just a lens when you try it out this way. You're testing a lens/sensor combination. There are ways to evaluate lenses without connecting them to sensors, but I'm not sure why you would; what you want to know is how the lens performs on a camera, not how it performs without a camera attached (i.e., on the optical bench). I mean, the latter might be interesting, in a detached sort of way, and it might be good for future reference, but it's not terribly practical. What you want to know is how the sensor performs with the lens and the lens with the sensor.

So, anyway, one trial I do is to put the sun behind a tree trunk and make a series of shots with more and more of the sun in the frame. It gives me a quick read on the rendering of ghosts and veiling glare (both are types of flare), and...damn, I can't remember the word for it—the "rays" that appear to come from a bright light source. [UPDATE: Sun stars. Thanks, Dave. —Ed.]

Then I'll do a few shots with the full sun up in the corner of the frame, because with some lenses that provokes ghosts more readily. (Ghosts are the localized anomalies created on the image by flare. These are ghosts.)

So anyway, yesterday I shot this:

Fig. 1. Flare trial, frame 1

Then a series of three more shots moving slightly to my left, each one showing a bit more sun peeking out from behind the tree trunk, the last of which had the sun fully visible and not obscured by the tree at all:

Fig. 2. Flare trial, frame 4

Here's the same file as in figure 2, but with the exposure cranked down so you can clearly see the exact position of the sun:

Fig. 3. Sun position

Now, if you look at those two shots, figure 1 and figure 2, you can clearly see the effect of flare: there's a distinct 14-point starburst, a distinct ghost (close to the sun at about 5 o'clock), and, if you'll let your eyes go back and forth from one frame to the other in the areas away from the sun, you'll distinctly see the effects of veiling glare (the overall, contrast-reducing type of flare).

SNAFU!
Then I though, "Oh, crap, I screwed up." I had left the camera on Program Mode as I made the four successive flare trial exposures.

Obviously, when you're doing a test like this, you don't want the exposure changing as you go from frame to frame. You want any visual differences to be the effect of flare, not exposure change. So I changed the camera to Manual Mode, set the exposure based on the blue sky away from the sun, and repeated the four exposures.

It wasn't until I got back to the computer that I discovered something very strange. Take a look at figures 1 and 2 again. Both of those exposures were made on Program Mode. Figure 1 is ƒ/11 at 1/160th and figure 2 is ƒ/11 at 1/200th.

Huh? Left to its own devices, the camera only adjusted a third of a stop between the exposure with the sun hidden behind the tree and the sun in full view? Normally that will change the AE reading pretty radically.

Then I noticed something else. In my second series, I deliberately metered the open blue sky looking East, that is, opposite the sun...and came up with ƒ/8 at 1/32oth. Exactly the same exposure as the camera set for itself in figure 1!

So I learned a little bit about flare, yes. But I also inadvertently got thumped on the noggin with a clue about how the camera meters and exposes.

So then I went over all the rest of my exposures from that walk. Granted, the sun was low in the sky, but we're under an intense high pressure system and the sunlight was still very bright. And sure enough, in frame after frame, left to its own devices on Program Mode with Auto ISO, I notice two very definite tendencies:

1. The camera seems to be exceptionally good at holding highlights; and
2. It seems to be exceptionally good at nailing the proper exposure, even with predominantly bright image-objects (e.g., mounds of snow) or predominantly darker image-objects (e.g., spruce trees)  dominating the frame.

That's just preliminary. Right now, with the sun high in the sky and the high pressure system still in full force, I'm heading out to deliberately torture the NEX-6 a bit and see how well those assumptions hold up.

Coda
Before I close for now, here's the last trial shot, with the full sun up in the corner of the frame:

Fig. 4. The sun in the corner of the frame

There's really only one faint ghost, just where the branches start on the bare tree near the middle of the frame. And it's not extreme.

Tentative conclusion: flare performance is only so-so by today's standards, meaning good by historical standards, but, on the other hand, the lens/sensor is pretty good at resisting ghosting with the sun in the corner of the frame. Good to know.

And here's friendly Daisy suffering the fortunately harmless effects of late-night experimentation with Nik Silver Efex Pro 2...an old-fashioned-y 1950s-ish Verichrome-Pan sort of vibe. Good doggie!

Mike

UPDATE, 9 p.m.: Well, I went out this afternoon with the best of intentions, but, as often happens, I got interested in photographing and forgot what I was supposed to be testing. I specifically meant to do some demo shots for CA, for instance, and I neglected to.

I think a confident verdict on my "two tendencies" listed above will have to await lots more accumulated shooting. But most of the "torture testing" I did today supported rather than contradicted the conclusion that the NEX-6 is particularly good at getting the exposure right and especially at protecting the highlights (the latter long a bugbear of mine with digital).

This shot, for example, naturally needed a bit of correction, but the exposure the camera chose by itself was, surprisingly, just about what I would have picked.

Maintaining usable detail in both the highlights and the shadows at the same time is the perennial challenge of outdoor natural light photography. This shot from yesterday, with a largish area of brightness away from the center of the frame, is an example of one of the kinds of pictures camera metering systems tend to have a hard time with, which is why it's so necessary to keep an eye on them. Here the tonality is quite good throughout the frame; the tan sunlit wall (which was visually far brighter than it looks here) has clipped just a bit, but only in the red channel. Our eyes get sensitive to the look of clipping, and a seasoned digital photographer might look at that area of the file with a touch of suspicion, but a civilian would never notice.

The detail in this shot is nice. It wouldn't surprise me if people lucky enough to own the NEX-7 are also liking the 24mm ƒ/1.8 Sonnar, because I would guess that this lens is even more rewarding with more resolution on tap.

I'm liking the combo's way with B&W quite a bit, too. (This looks a lot better bigger, but oh well.) The combination of lens contrast (not the same thing as contrast) and the camera's way with highlights is a nice one-two combination for B&W.

This idea that the Sony NEX-6 is unusually good at exposure—and with highlights—is something to keep in mind. It might prove to make it an excellent recommendation for the type of photographer who doesn't care to continually tweak (or worry about tweaking!) exposure, but just wants to set the camera on P and go.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

John McMillin: "I can confirm what you're saying here. Both my Sonys, an a700 and a850, have shown excellent dynamic range. The highlight recovery capabilties of my a850 are especially good. Sony's DRO feature does the rest of the task, lifting the shadows as well as Lightroom, or better. Every time I try a different camera brand in harsh Western sunlight or high-DR interior shots, I miss that. When I use HDR, it's for an effect, not to extend dynamic range. That's rarely a problem.

"I'm looking hard for an alternative system, because I don't like EVFs and other recent Sony design directions. I just love the results from their sweet sensors. The closest I've come to the Sonys' long, forgiving tonal range was with my Fuji X10, whose EXR sensor does its own magic. Maybe I'll give the Pentax K-5 a try, as its prices fall. Isn't it rumored to pack a Sony sensor...like the OM-D, the first Olympus to garner praise for tonal range?

"Like 'em or not, Sony has some secret sauce. Now if their cameras didn't get in the way between those sensors and the Minolta lens collection, like some lump in the bed."

Andy Kochanowski: "Mike, I can spare you any suspense on this one, though you probably know it by now. For wandering-around photography, the Sony is pretty well perfect. I've been using the NEX-7 with the two Sigma lenses and the 18–55mm kit for the past six months, and sold all my Micro 4/3 stuff, including the GX1 which I also loved, because I wasn't using it at all. Balance, haptics, remarkably good sensor, fast enough AF, fine VF, cheap lenses (except the one you're testing), decent battery life—this thing's da bomb.

"About all that menu carping that the Interweb does: at least on the NEX-7 once you set it up you literally never look at the menu again. Every control you need can be hard-wired. Once I had it for a few days I got why Kirk Tuck's been all over this thing for the past year."

Sarge (partial comment—for the rest of Sarge's comment, please see the Comments section): "My first authoritative reading about flare was William Schneider's TOP article, 'One Photographer's Take on Flare,' which includes a link to Mike's LL article, 'The Filter Flare Factor.' I love sunstars captured without aid of special effects filters mainly because it isn't alien to our experience (as in 'seeing stars'). Likewise, 'sunstars' off a tulip glass or a polished car fender. I've always thought that the number of rays in a sunstar is determined by the number of aperture blades in a lens' diaphragm. How does the 7-blade Sonnar E 24mm ƒ/1.8 produce 14-ray sunstars? (Is it software?)"

Hugh Crawford replies to Sarge: "No, it's not software. Every blade of the aperture produces a 'ray' that crosses the light source. An even number of aperture blades makes rays that overlap, so an eight blade aperture makes 16 rays at intervals of 45 degrees which means that they overlap and you only see eight rays. An odd number of blades make rays that don't overlap, so a nine-blade aperture produces 18 rays, one every 40 degrees.

"Some people seem to like 'sun stars' but I think they are one of the most annoying things about automatic aperture SLRs which is about the only application where they (and the ugly polygons) can't be easily designed out of the lens."

Today (Wednesday, as I write) is the last day of Winter, so of course spring is about as much in evidence as Jimmy Hoffa down at Karl Ratzsch's having a second helping of Wiener Schnitzel. The mercury pegged a measly 7 on Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit's scale this morning (that's –14°C for you enlightened ones) and warmed to a relatively balmy 17° (–8°C) by the afternoon. But it was windy. Wisconsin is doing a darned good imitation of the dead of winter. The whole world is frozen solid.

Willing to brave anything for my beloved readers, and manly to the core, I girded for warmth, assembled the newly arrived Sony NEX-6 and Zeiss 24mm ƒ/1.8 Sonnar E, and headed out into the howling cold. I laugh at frostbite when your entertainment is at stake.

Okay, I am lying.

What really happened is that I headed out in the SUV, and my bravery mainly consisted of lowering the window every now and then, making a few snaps, and then hastily putting the window up again. But hey, it was colder than a cootie's patootie out there, people. Whaddaya want from me? At least I was out there filling the little buckets with photons.

Normally the first thing I would do with a new camera is to give you my first impressions, but I think I'm going to wait a few days for that*. Above is the NEX-6 and its match-made-in-Oberkochen next to my nearly-new Panasonic GX1 which I love. (I've committed to add the words "which I love" every time I write "Panasonic GX1" as part of the effort to fend off temptation.)

Note that in the illustration, the Panasonic GX1 which I love has a Really Right Stuff tripod plate on the bottom of it.

The biggest difference between the two cameras in the picture above—besides the fairly radical difference in the relative size of their lenses, which is obvious—is that the GX1 which I love has a tilting electronic viewfinder (EVF) and a viewing screen on the back of the camera that doesn't tilt, and the Sony is the opposite.

Which is best? I'll be darned if I know. I like both, need neither, and, when it gets right down to it, don't know which I'd rather have. At the same time, I don't hanker to have both, although I might not mind.

Romance
So actually, you know what? I really love small cameras with big sensors. I do. I loved using the Ricoh GXR despite the monumental quirkiness of its concept, I sorta even kinda hafta love the OM-D even though its control system annoys me every single time, I loved the GF1 I used for three years. I even love the idea of DMD's I haven't even used yet, like the Fuji X-E1 and the Nikon Coolpix A.

I like the whole idea of them. They're just all really neat little things, and using them is as close to play as I need to get. They're just fun.

I'd probably own all of them if I could. Well, not all. Many. Six or seven, even.

I like the category so much I hardly think you can go all that wrong. Get a mirrorless, play, have fun, be happy.

And since the evolving theme of this post seems to be love, I have another lurid confession to make along those lines: I love Carl Zeiss lenses. I truly do. I always have. And still do. Yes, of course Zeiss makes (and labels) a wide variety of lenses, and not all of them are to the manor born. And yes, there is less difference between lenses now than there used to be. And lenses make somewhat less difference with digital pictures, which are more malleable. We're not so stuck with what the lenses give us as we were when the lens image got burned on to the transparency.

But—and I don't have any demonstrations of this yet, give me a day or three—Zeiss lenses just do it for me. They might not be the "sharpest" lenses in the world in terms of absolute ultimate resolution (although they ain't chopped liver in that department either), but the "Zeiss Look" has an overall integrity I really appreciate. The best Zeisses all share a common house characteristic that I can best describe with the words "microcolor" and "microcontrast." They discriminate very well between very close shades of color on a minute level, and they have very good large-structure (5 lp/mm or 10 lp/mm) contrast. They tend to even their sharpness out across the image height (i.e. the whole frame) and tend to be balanced for consistency up and down the aperture range. Add very good flare and veiling glare resistance and a warm bias, and you get an image morphology that goes far beyond simpleminded notions of sharpness.

It's very tempting to say something like "Zeiss looks at every image quality, not just sharpness." But that's over the top and kind of absurd, because of course other lensmakers look at other qualities too. But I get a bit sick of all the sharpness talk. Sharpness is like crack to photo enthusiasts. They just want more more more without limit and never mind that there are sixty other considerations that go into the integrity of a lens image. And once they're on that crack, in true addict fashion, they let everything else in their photographic lives fall by the wayside.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Part of the reason I love Zeiss lenses is simply personal attachment. The very first camera I got really attached to was a Zeiss Contaflex Super BC with a fixed 50mm ƒ/2.8 Tessar. The Tessar cross-section is part of TOP's new logo. (The picture shows an original Contaflex Super c. 1957, an earlier version of "my" camera. The Super BC, which got stolen, actually belonged to my father.)

Then, when I was in photo school, I used a Contax 139Q with a few Zeiss lenses. Naturally, all the lenses I coveted during those formative years were Zeiss Contax lenses.

Naturally I'm not blind about it. I've used many great lenses from many makers, and not every lens Zeiss ever put Carl's name on is a standout. But you can see the buttons they push for me: history, youthful aspirations, etc. Naturally I've used and tested and written about a broad spectrum of the marque's offerings over the years.

If you want to get a visual idea of the "Zeiss look," go to this page and poke around. It's not possible to really "see" a lens on the Web, but with that particular lens the look comes through pretty well even on the Web. Let the page load, then scroll down. Every now and then, when a picture grabs you, click on it, and look at it a little longer. Don't pixel peep; gaze upon it. Let it soak into your eyes. As you look, try to relax all your anxious "governors"—the voices of your inner gear nerd—that are telling you what you ought to be looking for and how you ought to be feeling about it. Look at the pictures holistically. Just take in an overall impression of their optical nature. Look for "quality, not qualities." Does the whole image have integrity? Coherence, cohesiveness, consistency? Does it have a good look or a bad look to you? What's your feeling about the whole picture you're seeing? Not just its isolated, compartmentalized "image qualities." You're always seeing more than you're aware that you're seeing.

(And please, not just "sharpness." Sharpness is actually well down on the list of things I look for in a lens. It's been a long time since I've used a lens that wasn't adequately sharp. And since you can modulate the impression of sharpness in software.... Get off that crack.)

I'm going to resist going on and on about this, unless it's already too late. Suffice to say that even after only a couple of hundred exposures, it's pretty clear to me that the 24mm ƒ/1.8 E-series Sonnar ZA is a true Zeiss. With everything that very loaded statement implies. At least, implies in my mind.

Exotic trio (for size comparison): Konica collapsible 50mm ƒ/2.4 in Leica thread mount (LTM) (this one has an M adaptor on it); Nikon PC Micro-Nikkor 85mm ƒ/2.8D; and the Zeiss 24mm E lens.

So, is it too big? Well, handling-wise, the biggest issue for me is the shutter-button placement on the NEX-6. Although the grip is generous and deep, the shutter is a bit too close-in for perfect comfort, with my man-hands. (Whoops, another Seinfeld reference.) It depends on whether you depress the shutter with the tip of your index finger or with the inside of the first knuckle on your index finger. In the latter case it's a bit more comfortable.

Both the NEX-6 as well as the Panasonic GX1 which I love are right on the verge of being too small for me. Neither crosses that line, but both of them come up right against it.

I don't think I mind the size of the lens in the least. But then, I don't carry my cameras in pockets, and...well, you can tell from the mass of verbiage above that I might be justifyin' a tad. I do notice that the camera is more awkward to carry than the Panasonic GX1 which I love, but in the hand it feels fine (the lens isn't heavy).

Scarecrow, presently unemployed. I actually got out of the car to take this. See what I do for you? Okay, not for very long.

So the big takeaway from Day 1 is I think I like this lens, with a lot of verbiage as exclamation points. Hopefully I'll be able to demonstrate why halfway adequately in the days to come. I'll give it a shot.

More soon, maybe after the weekend.

Mike
(Thanks to John Camp for the loan of the PC Micro-Nikkor)

*Which brings up an existential riddle. Will they still be first impressions?

Current products mentioned in this post:

Sony NEX-6 ($848)

Zeiss Sonnar T* E 24mm ƒ/1.8 ZA lens ($1,098)

Panasonic GX1 which I love (a steal right now at $279)

Panasonic DMW-LVF2 accessory electronic viewfinder ($161)

Ricoh GXR (modular system)

Olympus OM-D E-M5 ($949)

Fujifilm X-E1 ($999)

Nikon Coolpix A ($1,097)

Zeiss Makro Planar T* 100mm F/2 ZE for Canon SLRs ($1,843)

Zeiss Macro Planar T* 100mm ƒ/2 ZF.2 for Nikon SLRs ($1,843)

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Manuel: "I'll never get to grips with those NEX-system lenses. Not just because they're big, but they look completely out of proportion on that tiny body. Like a well-endowed dwarf...."

Dennis Ng: "You should write Zeiss lens advertisements. Got a Hassey but try to resist adding Zeiss lens on my Sonys (A77 and NEX-5N). Please, no diabolic suggestion."

Drew: "The NEX-5R has the same sensor and imaging properties as the NEX-6. Unlike the NEX-6, it has an articulated touchscreen LCD. This is immensely practical for tripod work. Just tap on the screen where you want to focus and proceed to giterdone. It is slicker than butter on hot toast. Furthermore, the accessory EVF for the NEX-5R is articulated. These are two extremely practical benefits of the NEX-5R over the NEX-6, yet the former camera is somehow considered more professional. By the way, the accessory EVF for the NEX cameras is on sale for $218.49 until the end of the month at B&H."

Ken Ford: "I'm going to live vicariously through you on this one, Mike. I've come very close to buying a Zeiss 24mm ƒ/1.8 for my NEX-7 several times, but I keep chickening out with worries of Sony pulling a Minidisc on the whole NEX mount and leaving me with an exceptional $1,000 paperweight. I'll keep soldiering on with my Sigma 30mm and a few OM and Nikkor manual focus lenses instead. (The OM 24mm ƒ/2.8 and 50mm ƒ/1.8 MIJ are particularly nice on an NEX-7.) But, I’d be lying if I said that I didn't want the Zeiss...."

Adam Maas: "For those complaining about the size of the NEX lenses, be aware that the only two large primes are in fact the ZA E 24mm ƒ/1.8 and the 50mm ƒ/1.8 OSS. The 35mm ƒ/1.8 OSS for example is just about exactly the same size as the Panasonic/Leica DG Summilux 25mm ƒ/1.4 for Micro 4/3rds, the 30mm ƒ/3.5 Macro is about the same size, and the 16mm and 20mm pancakes are diminutive.

"As a practical matter, the two large primes are just about exactly the same size as a a compact 35mm lens of comparable focal length on an adapter. That is to a great extent because that is exactly what they are. The 24mm ƒ/1.8 design is very much a retrofocus design with the rear element around 2 cm from the mount; the 50mm ƒ/1.8 combines unusual close focusing (0.39m for a 50mm), OSS and a very telecentric design for the large size.

"On the zoom side, the large lenses are the 18–200mm's (big for range reasons; the original and the PZ are also optically excellent designs, which increases size) and the 10–18mm ƒ/4. The 16–50mm is tiny and the 18–55mm and 55–210mm are in the middle, large but not abnormally so.

"Much hay has been made about the size of the NEX lenses, especially in comparison to the Micro 4/3 lenses. Micro 4/3 continues to retain a size advantage due to coverage and focal length choices, particularly in the normal and wide ranges, but the real matter is that NEX bodies are diminutive with average sized lenses while Micro 4/3 offers large (GH3) through tiny (GF5) bodies so that you can better match your body to your lens selection."

Barry Reid: "An ode to Zeiss indeed, Mike, but why not...I'm a relatively recent convert after picking up a Contax / Yashica (C/Y) 50mm ƒ/1.7 for £10 in a charity shop (U.S. translation: thrift store) a few years back. Before that I was aware of Zeiss but didn't really imagine their lenses could be so addictive. Since then I've gone through buying and selling a bunch of different Zeiss lenses and am also completely smitten with the rendering of some. Particularly the 18mm Distagon, which is flawed in modern terms but has a really special character about it.

"Ironically, I sold my Zeiss glass a few weeks back to fund my NEX-6, a camera chosen in the basis that there will shortly be a useful range of 'native' Zeiss lenses to choose from.... When I can afford them! In the mean time I've just picked up a bargain 45mm ƒ/2.8 Tessar to play with and await my C/Y > NEX adapter."