Sony accessories & lenses

Finally, Sony told us some about the future of the Alpha line of D-SLR cameras. Unfortunately, it does not mean that we will see new cameras soon. The discontinued Alpha 700 will receive a replacement (who is surprised, really?) and it will come with a wide-angle lens Zeiss Distagon T* 24 mm f/2 ZA SSM and a big 500 mm f/4 G. And notice the prominent HD marking on the top of the mock-ups: HD video is coming now.

There also will be a new ultra-compact camera with interchangeable lenses. The presented mock-ups are quite small indeed:

When you use an expensive SLR camera you are often tempted to purchase a specialty lens like a ultra-wide angle (fish eye) lens.

But, apart from the rare occasions when you really need it, it’s too expensive for you and me. Why not build it yourself? Instructables does the demonstration with a Nikon D90, but it could be done with any other camera.

How to make a fish eye lens for a Nikon D-90 Digital SLR for $16

Since Sony took over the photo activities of Minolta, we observed a considerable evolution on the lens range. There were only lenses from the Minolta original range (mainly on the second-hand market), but Sony associated with Zeiss to build a full-spectrum offer covering more and more and providing a good answer to the needs from entry-level to pro (going through the expert/enthusiast amateur).

Alpha-Numérique has a good and clear summary panorama of this young but rich product line in a French post: La gamme optique Sony / Zeiss.

I just got a Sony Carl Zeiss 16-35mm f/2.8 ZA SSM zoom (Mfr# SAL1635Z) and I wanted to share with you my first impressions.

Sony Carl Zeiss 16-35mm f/2.8 ZA SSM

Obviously, this is a pro-level mechanical design. You immediately notice the weight of this zoom lens (at no less than 1.9 lbs (860g), this is not a cheap plastic lens). Some photographers may even find it too heavy for ease, but if you tend to use your wide-angle zoom on a tripod, you won’t notice it and it will bring some additional stability to the SLR Alpha-series camera body.

The bulk of the objective is in relation, but it offers several noticeable advantages:

1. The lens length does not change when you zoom
2. The front lens does not rotate when zooming or focusing (since you need very fine polarizers on such a wide-angle, it’s better that way)
3. the focus and zoom rings are wide, well located and easy to reach
4. The AF-lock button on the side is well located
5. The depth-of-field window is large and quite readable

Now, if you start playing with the lens, as I did on a Sony Alpha 700, the operation is very smooth. Obviously, the presence of the SSM motor is helping a lot and AF operation is nearly totally silent, while very fast.

Now, I could not yet evaluate the image quality (the lens is announced as having a high IQ), and I will provide some more info when I will be able to play with it (probably during my trip to Nepal next week).

Tamron rewrote its web site. This was the occasion to move the Lens Comparison Tool but it is still useful to compare a 400mm with a 500mm (or a 35mm with a 50mm).

Tamron - Lens Comparison Tool (based on focal length)

But you can also find a similar tool at Olympus (and it takes into account the specificities of 4/3 sensor format, of course): Perfect Lens finder.

Olympus Perfect Lens Finder

PhotoRumors is telling us about an anonymous leak describing a possible new Sony Alpha 800 with the following features:

• 16.2 MP full frame sensor EXMOR R (new technology)
• 100-25600 ISO
• 8 frame/sec
• SSI, same a900 OVF, new AF system,
• GPS and WiFi built-in
• 3.5″ LCD display
• Pop-up flash
• Flash sync: 1/500s
• Camera level
• 23 AF sensors
• Quick Live View
• Video Full HD
• Dust/splashes sealed
• Aluminum-magnesium alloy body
• Released early September 2009

It seems that everybody is now expecting Sony too announce/launch at least one more SLR camera (after the Sony Alpha 230, Alpha 330 and Alpha 380).

I am not sure this leak is real (it looks too much like the wet dream of a techno-geek maniac), but it’s worth waiting for a new SLR photo camera to go and replace or complement the existing Sony Alpha 700.

What seems certain: Sony promised to present two more high-end lenses in 2009 (one super-tele-photo, maybe a 500mm f/4.5, and a beautiful 28-75mm f/2.8 zoom); We expect both lenses and new body to be announced simultaneously.

The PMA 2009 fair in Las Vegas is opening its doors and it is time to confirm or correct the rumours.

• Nikon is concentrating on existing SLR products: Nikon D700 is king.
• Sony is not introducing any new SLR camera.
• Panasonic is advertising strongly the existing Lumix DMC-G1

So, where are the news? Here are some of the notable items:

• Samsung offers new compact point-and-shoot cameras (NX series) with an APS-C imaging sensor. Direct competitors for the SLR cameras, in the “Image Quality” category.
• Olympus E-620
• 6 new lenses for the Sony SLR cameras (one undisclosed Sony G Super Telephoto, 28-75mm f/2.8, DT 30mm f/2.8 Macro, DT 50mm f/1.8, DT 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6, DT 55-200mm f/4-5.6)
• A new Panasonic Lumix GH1 (improvement over the G1 in 12MP with 1080p video)
• 2 new lenses for the Lumix cameras (14-140mm & 7-14mm)

We will certainly conclude that this issue of the world photo event is going to be tagged as “consumer-oriented” or “entry-level sensitive”.

Sony lens - 'Hiding' by Scoobay

I recommend reading a nice little post titled “All lens tests are wrong” that concludes that the only good test for a lens is to use it during a full year.

Not wrong, but I still recommend to also check my list of web sites with photo lens reviews.

Jean-Marie Sépulchre made a test of the Sony 70-400 mm f/4-5.6 G SSM on a Sony Alpha 900 (24 MP Full frame camera). As this is a serious chunk of nice glass impatiently awaited by many (incl. wildlife photogrpahers like me), it was worth seeing.

The 70-400mm lens test draws the interesting conclusion that “this large very well-built telezoom lens provides high-quality images, and the slight decrease in definition above 300 mm will be compensated by a slight accentuation increase.” JM Sépulchre also points to the serious competition that the 70-300 mm f/4.5-5.6 gives it from inside the Sony lens range, for 30% less money.

Sony 70-400mm

Lovers of Sony digital SLR cameras (Alpha 700 et Alpha 900, in particular) were awaiting eagerly to see Chasseur d’Images magazine testing fully the most recent additions to the Sony lens range. So, they will be delighted to discover in the March 2009 issue that the Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 Apo G SSM scores 5 stars on the Alpha 900 as well as the all-new and superb Sony 70-400mm f/4-5.6 Apo G SSM on the Alpha 700. This grey lens even gets the flattering comments of “nice surprise” (”belle surprise“) and of “bargain to get” (”coup à réaliser“). On the Alpha 900, about sharpness, CdI tells “this is certainly the best lens in its category” (”c’est assurément le meilleur de sa catgorie“).

Also tested on the Alpha 700 and Alpha 900 are the Sony 16-35mm f/2.8 ZA T* SSM and the Sony 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G SSM. No score is below 4 stars!

Fifteen other lenses from Canon (on a EOS 5D MkII), Nikon, Olympus and Tamron are tested in detail by Chasseur d’Images. 5 stars are also attributed to the Canon EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II USM, to the Olympus Zuiko Digital 9-18mm f/4-5.6 and the Olympus Zuiko Digital 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 ED II.

I got a nice little Sony GPS CS1 to track my photos. So, I decided to have look at the detailled operation. These are my first impressions.

Sony GPS-CS1

Operation

When you switch the unit on, it starts looking for GPS satelites. This is visibly the difficult part. My experience is that this takes a long time when you are in a city. In Paris downtown, I had a first one-hour trip where it took more than 15 minutes to get a first position and another 40-mn trip where the unit did not start tracking at all despite my walking into completely empty space like the Seine border. A bit disappointing.

But, if the initial point of a trip seems to be quite off-the-location (some 75m error), most of the recorded positions are precise enough (in a city, you can’t be sure which side of the street you were walking, but there is no doubt on the street itself). The main issue is that the device is subject to a lot of log breaks (suddenly no geo data is available and it needs to wait until some additional satellite data is tracked again, leaving long un-tracked paths).

However, during an open-air test of several hours, I as positively surprised by the precision of the positionning. Probably, the more satellites it can see/see and the best precision, even while driving fast.

Data storage

One of the interesting features of the Sony GPS-CS1 is that it uses a completely open data record. You may not recognize it immediately, but data is stored in clear text under the NEMA 0183 Data Format. The log files looks something like:

@Sonygps/ver1.0/wgs-84
$GPGGA,114941,4850.8962,N,00217.0071,E,1,03,05.4,00000.0,M,047.7,M,,*42
$GPGSA,A,2,16,21,22,,,,,,,,,,05.5,05.4,01.0*07
$GPGSV,2,1,08,03,78,296,00,13,,,27,17,,,27,16,40,177,33*75
$GPGSV,2,2,08,08,,,30,21,27,061,39,22,47,130,45,29,,,27*7F
$GPRMC,114941,A,4850.8962,N,00217.0071,E,000.0,113.7,291208,,,A*72


This may not seem readable to you, but it means that the future is protected, even if Sony fails to develop the right applications to exploit such a unit.

Photo-tagging

Speaking of applications provided by Sony, there are two of them:

• GPS image tracker
• Picture Motion Browser

GPS image tracker will allow to import data from the GPS-CS1 and apply geo-tagging (geographic information) to your photos. It is supposed to target the Sony cameras, but can be applied to virtually any kind of digital camera allowing EXIF tags (nearly all cameras producing JPEG files).

The application is objectively easy to use. It will automatically detect when you connect the GPS-CS1 to the computer, offer to import geo-data. On your part of the job, you have to drag-and-drop the images that you want to geo-tag. The software will locate them on a Google map. Then, you just have to press the button to tag the JPEG images. It couldn’t much easier than that.

Picture Motion Browser is supposed to provide a way to sort and organize movies and pictures (multimedia files). However, it is probably less able than many and its interface is clearly confusing until you understood its intents. The most unpleasant aspect seems to be that it tries to “import” many things before acting and you would probably not want to have it operate at the same time as another similar program like Adobe Bridge, for example.

Where to use it?

Obviously, this is not a product to track your walks in a city. This is feasible, but not its strongest point. However, I am fairly positive that using such a device to track open-air in-the-wild photography is great (Did you say “photo safari”?). Since it is very light and does not draw too much energy from its AA battery, you can use it when hiking as well as from a car (just don’t drop it at the bottom of the trunk if you want the device to see the satellites).

A neat technology gadget.

Additional references

• Mapping with a GPS and VB.NET
• Linux GPS Daemon

Thanks to Tamron, it is possible to easily compare photo lenses of different focal length and their effect on the size of an image.

Tamron focal length comparison (click on the image)

Tamron focal length comparison

DPreview has a good comparison of 4 zoom lenses opening at f/2.8 for SLR cameras:

• Canon 70-200mm F2.8 L IS USM
• Nikon AF-S VR 70-200mm F2.8 G
• Sigma 70-200mm 1:2.8 EX DG Apo Macro HSM II
• Tamron 70-200mm 1:2.8 Di LD (IF) Macro

Since they are one of the most coveted segment of the SLR lens market, it was worth mentionning despite the absence of some serious participants like the Sony SAL-70200G – 70-200mm f/2.8 G-Series offering (originating back into the days of the great white lenses from Minolta) or the Pentax SMC-FA* 80-200mm f/2.8 [IF] ED.

Canon lenses, which one is best?

It is often difficult but manageable to group lens reviews in order to compare/evaluate a little more than their mere physical characteristics (focal length, aperture/diaphragm, or even number of individual lenses). But how would you evaluate/review optical quality? When I see the difference really impressive between two lenses, I would be prepared to judge from their price, but a cheap wide-angle lens is not always worse than a slightly more expensive one (well… if the price difference is really large, it’s not only an accident and quality explains a lot).

So, where to?

I collected a few web sites appearing quite able to provide this kind of quality reviews/comparisons/evaluations/tests.

From here, I invite you to an orgy of lens reviews, lens tests, lens comparisons, lens evaluations. And remember to shoot some photos, too. It’s not only the lens which does the photo. Some are shot by telephones, if the photographer is an artist.

Obviously, the most recent announces from the lens front for Sony SLR cameras are going to hit a soft spot for the lovers of the orange camera brand.

Sony 70-400mm f/4-5.6 G SSM

Sony 70-400mm

This long tele-zoom is going to attract a lot of enthusiasts loving long focal lenses when they do not want to loose the flexibility of a zoom lens. We will have to wait for January 2009, but Canon, Nikon and Sigma are no longer alone on this kind of field.

Amateurs of sports photo, wildlife photo (if they can gt enough light to use shutter high-speeds) will appreciate the pleasure of such a lens which will be at ease on all the Sony dSLR (and also on some of the older Minolta and Konica-Minolta).

Carl Zeiss 16-35mm f/2.8

Carl Zeiss 16-35mm

It was already seen on some images stolen and left on the Internet forums. This wide angle zoom is undisputably ideal for a Sony Alpha 900 which will so receive a great wide angle with a constant aperture. This is very nice, this will certainly be very expensive, but…

We were waiting for it, we were speaking about it, we were murmuring. Here it comes. Sony just let some information leak about their new super-tele-lens to complete an already rather rich list of good quality lenses:

All the details about the Sony 70-400mm f/4-5.6 G SSM are in the original post on Roumazeilles.net.