My new favorite camera and old favorite lenses

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.

TheĀ  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.