Bubbles

Bubbles | NEX-C3 & SEL30F35 Macro | 30mm, 1/4s, f/9, JPEG

Well, I've not posted for a while. Unfortuantely, it's not because I've been too busy taking photos. We had a 4-day weekend as part of the latter half of "Golden Week", but I spent the first 3 days with a fever, stuck inside the apartment, mostly in bed. I took the camera with me on the one day I made it out, and I just didn't see anything/feel inspired in any way.

I'm still not 100%, but I'm well enough to make it to work, and well enough to start fiddling around with cameras. My NEX-7 is with Sony, but I'll explain more on that another time. It's time to have some fun with the C3, and remind myself why I got into the entire NEX system in the first place!

Pollen

Pollen | NEX-7 & SEL30F35 Macro| 30mm, 1/160s, f/13.0, ISO100, RAW

These lilies really are getting a lot of airtime! They've been going strong for over two weeks now, and thrived during our trip to Hiroshima. There are only two flowers remaining now, as we prune off the stragglers. Anyway, the above-shot is a montage of 1 capture. On the left, the original image, slightly cropped at the sides. The black square denotes the area taken of the right image, which is a 100%, i.e. sensor-level (1:1), crop. I'm quite amazed! The pollen looks like little grains of brown rice, or 玄米 genmai, in Japanese.

I really wasn't expecting to get this level of detail, but I am seriously impressed! Luckily, we don't suffer from hayfever, so we are instead just treated to the welcoming fresh scent of these lilies each time we walk through the door.

Should I get another lens?

Should I get another lens? │ NEX-C3 & SEL30MF35 │ 30mm, ISO 1600, f/3.5, -1.3EV, Lightroom 4.2 Still debating the Sigma 30mm f/2.8. It's not super-fast, so no razor-thin depth of field. It's cheap (good for price) but also cheap (bad for build). It's just ¥16k (£125), which is an absolute steal for a brand new lens... and one with quite a reputation. It's got something of a cult following due to its impressive sharpness relative to the price of the lens. The kit lens is just fine (in my opinion). Zooms have a place in photography, and that place is convenience photography. I can go out all day with a zoom and never have to change lens. Wide angle to telephoto; it's all covered. However, there are obvious compromises when it comes to optical quality. Due to the increased number of parts and other artefacts (such as barrel distortion as a function of focal length); fixed length lenses (primes) tend to offer a better optical quality as they're optimised for only one focal length.

The Sony E mount Zeiss 24mm F1.8 lens is a thing of beauty. Optical quality is excellent. However, it's extremely expensive (¥92k; ~£700GBP). That's all well and good, but I won't be purchasing it on a whim. Its purchase will be a much more informed decision. Not so with the aforementioned Sigma. It's a bargain. I have almost enough loyalty points at the local camera shop to purchase this lens for the price of an evening meal... and the sharpness is extremely good.

I have a couple of manual focus lenses, which I love dearly. The first is my Voigtländer Nokton Classic 35mm F1.4 (shown in the picture attached to my NEX-7). I love this little lens. It's fully manual, beautifully made and exquisitely designed. I also have a very good condition Canon FDn 50mm F1.4, which is also a fantastic manual lens and I recommend it entirely (especially as used prices are so low). However, though manual focussing on the NEX cameras is a joy... sometimes it's nice to have a break and let the camera have a stab at focussing. It's always possible to add a micro adjustment or two, manually, should the situation arise. However, I don't have a lens with a super strong resolving power between my 16mm kit lens (which constantly gets slated online, though I like it a lot) and the Voigtländer at 35mm. The Sigma 19mm is also sharp, but I feel might be just a tad too wide for general out and about shooting - I could always just crop the 16mm shots a tad. I have two zoom lenses which both start at 18mm, but they are zooms and are best optically mid-range.

Now I've gone from sounding convinced I'll get the sigma to wondering if I can just make do with the zooms and their image stabilisation (great for low-light handheld shots). But then, the sigma isn't much money at all. I hardly use the macro lens with which I took the above picture; it needs to be restrictively close to the subject in order for it to fill the frame (thus hard to take pictures of animals/insects/anything not a tree). Any, I forget what I was rambling about now. I'll probably get the Sigma as it's not so much money and seems to have some rather impressive detail available.

However good a lens or imaging sensor is, though - the most important role in photography will always remain behind the camera.