Comments on: Using the Zeiss Sonnar 50mm f/1.5 on a NEX.

By: Brian Toward

Brian Toward — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 22:38:45 +0000

It’s also now on the Official Zeiss lens group on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/groups/carlzeisslenses/discuss/72157628147189651/

Very interesting…..

By: Jakob Røjel

Jakob Røjel — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 16:45:49 +0000

Congrats link to this from the Carl Zeiss facebook page

By: Froo

Froo — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 16:17:31 +0000

Actually a slightly inferior lens design, meaning less corrected for spherical aberration, will have better bokeh and look better with portraits SOOC.

By: Björn Utpott

Björn Utpott — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 15:24:47 +0000

If I could only get one good lens for the NEX system, I would opt for something in the 35-50mm equivalent range. As far as I’m concerned,those are good focal lengths for a versatile, general purpose lens. That’s the focal length I take most of my photos at, so it makes sense to get the best lens I can afford in this range.

The next most used focal lengths in my case are both a wide angle and a short telephoto/portrait. So if I had some more money, I could get both an M-mount wide angle and a lens like the Zeiss 50/1.5.

The only thing is, in my hypothetical kit of 3 primes, I would like one lens with autofocus capability. Since focusing wide angle lenses manually is less critical (due to large DOF), that should be the 50mm lens. The Sony 50/1.8 makes a strong case for itself as it also features image stabilization as well as being reasonably priced. It may not end up having the character of the Zeiss, but it offers advantages that the Zeiss can’t.

I can put the money I save by not getting an expensive 50mm lens into acquiring an M-mount wide angle prime. If money was no object, I’d gladly pick up the Zeiss 50/1.5 as well.

By: Steve Jones

Steve Jones — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 11:47:07 +0000

I don’t think the difference between 75 & 80mm is going to make that much difference – the amount of cropping you need to do to get the same FoV is very minor and the loss of resolution won’t be that significant.

Also it depends what type of portrait you are doing. Full length and 50mm on APS-C is plenty. However, if you want a head-and-shoulders then it’s too short which is you need something more like 70-85mm on APS-C. There is simply no single perfect portrait lens if the idea is to fill the frame.

However, I’d certainly agree keep your distance – indeed a metre is far too close in my view. I’d at least double that distance, and 3 metres is better. Indeed if you want a full length portrait shot on APS-C in “portrait mode” then the camera will have to be 3.5-4 metres from the subject.