For my 56th birthday my wonderful wife Cheryl surprised me with a long time desired Sony Carl Zeiss 24mm 1.8 lens and a tabletop lighting setup. Woohoo!!!
The 24mm Zeiss lens will have a 35mm equiv. of 36mm due to the 1.5 crop factor. This is a good focal length for an “all purpose” lens. The 24mb files of the Sony Nex 7 will allow me plenty of cropping room if needed. I waited an entire year since purchasing the Nex 7 for a high quality mid length zoom to come out but it never happened. I’ve put the 18-55 kit lens through the paces. For a $150.00 lens I must say it’s not that bad. It’s all I ever used this past year on the Nex 7, (except for the rare times I used my Rokinon 8mm fisheye), for everything from portraits to landscapes. With some post processing the pictures are acceptable.
However, Sony recently introduced a sharp, good quality 10-18mm ultra wide zoom. Great lens I hear but not the mid focal length I was looking for. I desperately wanted better IQ (image quality) so the Zeiss is now going on my Nex 7 full time. The next lens I want to purchase, (Christmas is coming), will be the Sony 10-18mm.
I haven’t shot with the lens yet but Memorial Day is two days away and I’ll give the test a good workout photographing the home town parade. According to reviews it’s supposed to be very fast and quiet focusing. In addition render sharp images with good color and contrast. I’ll be the first to know for sure come Monday.
I was very pleased with the table top set up. I have two heavy duty light stands each with 169 LED Gisteq video lights. The power of the lights is fully adjustable from high to low and produces a nice soft output. At some point in the near future, using the shoe mount I will affix one of them to my Nex 7 for video of my granddaughter.
For the photo shown above I placed my Carl Zeiss 24mm on top of it’s lens hood and tested the table top set up. I was quite pleased with the results.
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