NEX 7 + Canon TS-E 17 f4 L
I left Canon lens at f4, as it is sharp even wide open and made couple of field shots.
My EF/NEX adapter has that stupid aperture closing ring, that is completely useless on wider lenses. As I was hunting for the light, I managed to move that aperture ring at the end of the session. That ruins otherwise nice effort to make a huge panorama shot hand held.
Well, it happens, not the first time to me. I should better tape that adapter, as its aperture ring is really useless.
Before that happened, I managed to take couple of shots, so you can see, what this lens on the NEX 7 body is capable of.
I might add in the future some panorama shots, using the tripod and shift function of the lens.
First a short look at the combo:
It’s looking weird and completely unbalanced (and it is). When I held the lens with a left hand placed on the focus ring, it was falling on the back. It is a real pain when you want to adjust shift, as than it is falling to the front. Tilt, being in the middle of the lens is somewhat easiest to set.
TS-E is however known to be very sharp and its non shift and Tilt position as a normal wide angle lens. This is true also when mounted on NEX 7.
No tilt, no shift:
And fully shifted, it gives that miniature kind of look.
To achieve better impression of the miniature look, I should choose different angle and composition, but you got an idea.
Here is another sample of the difference between shift and tilt.
Shifted to maximum (over shifted) to show the effect of the perspective correction.
And now tilted to the maximum:
I was curious to see flare resistance, and I think this combination worked pretty well. Despite some slight flaring, looking directly to the sun, contrast stays very nice, and fringing doesn’t seem to be an issue.
Using shift is very convenient when you need to correct perspective, but it is certainly not an easy job. I need much more time to spend with the lens to be able to come with better results, but here is a sample where I tried my best at the moment. The main problem is to focus properly, which I didn’t.
Here is another shot with a slight tilt wit a nice color and contrast IMO. This time I achieved good focus.
As I wrote above, the great feature of the tilt shift lens, is that is possible to make a panorama shot using the shift function and without worrying about parallax error. In a portrait orientation, by shifting the lens from a tripod, you might get seamless panorama of something like 10-12mpx x 4-5 Mpx. If anyone needs it.
I didn’t have tripod with me (it is just too cold right now), so I tried a simple hand hold panorama by turning my body, but the freaky adapter closed down, causing extreme vignetting. Damn. Please Conorus, fill the stock a.s.a.p
Also the visibility was really bad, so the final picture doesn’t seem that sharp.
Here is one of the 12 shots for the panorama (not needed that much) with a huge vignetting and nice effort from photoshop (but couldn’t make the miracle) to do something about it.
All in all, TS-E 17 f4 L is one of the best lenses I have. It is more expensive than NEX 7 body, and for most of NEX 7 owners it is just overmuch. But for someone who is interested to use NEX 7 for architecture, it is one of the best available solutions.
Thanks for your info about the Nex-7. Question: Is it possible to do exposures longer as 1 minute with the Nex? It seems that the camera has no attach for a remote cord.
Hi Thomas,
NEX 7 has a bulb mode for exposure longer than 30s, but it has only IR remote possibility, no cable socket.
If you want cable release with NEX, here is DIY instruction: http://www.gethypoxic.com/reviews-tests-hacks/hacks-and-mods/78-adding-a-wired-shutter-release-to-the-nex-5.html
Or you can try one of those 🙂
http://www.technikdirekt.de/main/de/898056/-/article-hama-drahtausloeser-f-digital-kameras-5345.html?t=1&referer=VKNR_442&campaign=Affilinet&language=de&landingCountry=de
There are also some intervalometers that you can buy or diy:
http://tempus.bymac.org/
Hope it helps
Thanks for the info.
Using the miniUSB port of the Nex-7 to attach the Strato II Wireless Trigger from Phottix would be the best solution. But Sony would have to enable the miniUSB port for a remote cord through the firmware.
Oh, and the good old “Drahtauslöser” is too old-style for the Nex. Nevertheless I still have one for my Wista 45RF. 🙂