Category Archives: Cameras

My new favorite camera and old favorite lenses

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A Sony NEX-7 recently came to live with me. I am about to leave on a trip to Europe and wanted a very compact, light, but high quality travel camera. One of the significant attributes of this camera is the ability to fit and use hundreds of lenses from different makers and with few restrictions. I happen to have a variety of lenses from Zeiss that I keep around for their wonderful image quality. I use them on my Canons and now they have a home on this Sony.

Below is the 35mm Zeiss Planar made for a Contax G rangefinder camera. I purchased this about 12 years ago as a part of my last film camera system. Because of the popularity of retrofitting these lenses on Sonys and other compact cameras, the value of this lens actually exceeds what I paid for it new. How often does that happen?

The Zeiss 85mm f/2.8 T* Sonnar is another that I have from the Contax SLR film days. It even has “Made in West Germany” engraved on the barrel. This cost about $125 used a decade ago, and I will not part with it until something better comes along for less than a $1000. It will be a long wait.

The  portrait below was made with the Sony and the 85mm Zeiss.

Here are a couple of details at full resolution.When a camera that has a 24 megapixel sensor like the Sony NEX-7 (6000 x 4000) is combined with a lens of this quality, other factors now come into play that can limit image quality. The only way to assure that this level of resolution can be rendered is to make sure that camera does not move during the exposure. Here is a professional photographer’s secret tip that most amateurs ignore: use a tripod.

This camera along with a selection of Zeiss lenses are set to travel to Wales and Paris next week. Plus a tripod.

The perfect camera is the one I have in my hands

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The discussion of the “perfect camera” will be debated forever, by every photographer who has ever had access to a camera. There are elitists, reverse-snobs, pragmatists, brand loyalists, agnostics, evangelists, geeks, and every shade in between. Over time, I have embraced about all those points of view.

If I could wave my magic wand and make every option available simultaneously for my students, I would have them use every camera and make the same images over and over again until the novelty work its way through their brain. And then everyone would find out which system, camera, method that they feel most fluid with, and then go make photos.

For the record, I definitely have favorite lenses and simply attach them to any camera that fits. (more on that later)

But what struck me today was the contrast between these two photos of my Irish Water Spaniel, Cooper. On the left is a studio shot made with a medium format camera and digital back that cost in the neighborhood of $30K. The image on the right was made yesterday with my cell phone. Cost? Free, if you don’t count the monthly charges from Verizon. (It is an iPhone 4)

The value of the iPhone is that it is the one in my pocket, all the time, and is available for times like this. It is limited in speed, resolution, color, dynamic range, focal length, aperture controls, etc., etc. But it is convenient and if it captures that moment in time otherwise missed, then it is the perfect camera.