SONY NEX 7, SEL 55-210, WILDLIFE
This is not really a test of NEX 7 for Wildlife use. Just couple of thoughts.
I took it as a second camera to Canon 1D MIV with EF 70-200 f2.8 L IS II and EF 300 f2.8 L IS + TC’s 1.4 x II and 2 x III.
The main difference that anyone will recognize as soon as he lift the backpack with above mentioned equipment is the weight. While the NEX with tele-zoom sits in my pocket, ready to fire whenever I needed, my backs had a serious discussion with my brain about necessity to carry my Canon gear.
I resisted and I think it pays off.
While NEX is a great little camera to carry, its 55-210 f4.5/6.3 lens is just not good enough, mainly in terms of subject isolation.
I mostly shot with NEX at 210mm and wide open, but never felt to be close enough and even with the cropping abilities of 24 Mpx sensor, I was missing the smooth background or bokeh quality if you like. 6.3 is just not the aperture you want to use often at long distances. In the lighting conditions of the forest, I also had to push the ISO up to 1600 to get a reasonable shutter speeds.
I have to admit, that unlike with Canon, I didn’t use the tripod for NEX and all shots were taken hand-held, relying on the OSS of the lens.
AF was fast, but the problem was with its accuracy. When you are targeting subject’s eye, at the distance of some 20 meters, AF area, even when settled at smallest range, was still not precise enough.
All that being said, NEX 7 is still capable of producing nice shots, but you have to be careful when composing, searching for the uniform background that will help subject isolation. Shooting at high speed drive mode, also helps to get at least one sharp picture within series.
It is very good camera for the ZOO, but you should either carry extra 18-55 kit lens, or went with the 18-200, as in the ZOO, unlike in those conditions shown bellow, you might get closer to your subjects. For a more serious wildlife, I would not recommend it as a main body unless you have LA-E2 adapter and some Sony long and fast tele-zooms, preferably with TC’s.Here are couple of shots all at 210mm and ISO from 360 up to 1600 in the last two shots.
I took it as a second camera to Canon 1D MIV with EF 70-200 f2.8 L IS II and EF 300 f2.8 L IS + TC’s 1.4 x II and 2 x III.
The main difference that anyone will recognize as soon as he lift the backpack with above mentioned equipment is the weight. While the NEX with tele-zoom sits in my pocket, ready to fire whenever I needed, my backs had a serious discussion with my brain about necessity to carry my Canon gear.
I resisted and I think it pays off.
While NEX is a great little camera to carry, its 55-210 f4.5/6.3 lens is just not good enough, mainly in terms of subject isolation.
I mostly shot with NEX at 210mm and wide open, but never felt to be close enough and even with the cropping abilities of 24 Mpx sensor, I was missing the smooth background or bokeh quality if you like. 6.3 is just not the aperture you want to use often at long distances. In the lighting conditions of the forest, I also had to push the ISO up to 1600 to get a reasonable shutter speeds.
I have to admit, that unlike with Canon, I didn’t use the tripod for NEX and all shots were taken hand-held, relying on the OSS of the lens.
AF was fast, but the problem was with its accuracy. When you are targeting subject’s eye, at the distance of some 20 meters, AF area, even when settled at smallest range, was still not precise enough.
All that being said, NEX 7 is still capable of producing nice shots, but you have to be careful when composing, searching for the uniform background that will help subject isolation. Shooting at high speed drive mode, also helps to get at least one sharp picture within series.
It is very good camera for the ZOO, but you should either carry extra 18-55 kit lens, or went with the 18-200, as in the ZOO, unlike in those conditions shown bellow, you might get closer to your subjects. For a more serious wildlife, I would not recommend it as a main body unless you have LA-E2 adapter and some Sony long and fast tele-zooms, preferably with TC’s.Here are couple of shots all at 210mm and ISO from 360 up to 1600 in the last two shots.
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| Sony NEX 7 + SEL 55-210 at 210mm f6.3 ISO 360 |
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| Sony NEX 7 + SEL 55-210 at 210mm f6.3 ISO 640 |
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| Sony NEX 7 + SEL 55-210 at 210mm f6.3 ISO 1600 |
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| Sony NEX 7 + SEL 55-210 at 210mm f6.3 ISO 1600 |
For the comparison, here are two shots with Canon gear.
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| Canon 1D MIV + EF 70-200 f2.8 L IS II + TC 2 x III at 400mm F5.6 ISO 100 |
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| Canon 1D MIV + EF 300 f2.8 L IS + TC 1.4 x II at 420mm F4 ISO 800 |
…WOW!!
Wonderful photos!!
^_^
Thank you.
Great pictures with SEL 55-210. I am really impressive with what you made. I thought SEL 55-210 cannot make this. Do you remember what shutter speed you set for those pictures? And sorry for digging it up from 2012.
Hi Thanh,
sorry for the late reply. I used shutter speeds from 1/60s up to 1/125s in the shots above. The animals were static however…
Cheers,
Viktor