more variety in lenses

At least there are a lot of adapters.

 

I read Mike Johnston's piece on TOP last night and it made me feel a little uneasy. Basically it said that Sony are good at designing and making good, innovative cameras, but suck when it comes to making lenses. I think (hope) NEX's saving grace is, as Alexandru has pointed out, you can attach pretty much any lens using an adaptor. That is why I am hoping Sigma, Tamron and Voigtlander (who announced their intention to release E-mount lenses some time ago) have been busily beavering away behind the scenes and are going to release the fruits of their labours soon. I would be particularly interested to see what Voigtlander have to offer.

I had a thought the other day; will the forthcoming 24/1.8 CZ lens be optimised for use on the NEX-7 only?

 

I think Sony is taking a reasonable approach to the development of the NEX system. In other areas, Sony has a history of putting a lot of money behind an expensive, unsatisfying, non-competitive product. It is reasonable that they wouldn't leap too strongly into a product line without knowing how their customer base would respond first. With NEX, they launched with strong products that have fortunately done well. I agree that Johnston's point is absolutely correct - Sony will have to have a full line of lenses to support the system's growth and be fully competitive. One thing I think we as consumers might take into consideration is that with NEX Sony is developing a convergent system: a set of lenses and sensors that perform well for both still cameras and the NEX system of video cameras. Therefore, the NEX system has to take a different competitive approach than they would with their Alpha SLR system, which already has a full set of competitive lenses.

 

In one of my nerd moments I did a little bit of research using DPReview's news archive. Here's what I found.

The NEX system was launched in May 2010. Three new lenses are being launched in a few days. Allowing a few months for these to appear in the shops that will mean that eighteen months after launch the NEX system will have a total of 7 lenses available.

The Panasonic M43 system was launched in September 2008. Eighteen months later there were 6 lenses available. The Olympus M43 system was launched in June 2009. Eighteen months later there were 6 lenses available. Generally the Panasonic lenses and the Olympus lenses covered the same area with the exception of the Olympus 75-300.

Given this I think Mike Johnson's claim doesn't stand up. Of course, it can be argued that they aren't the 'right' 7 lenses. We can all look at the lens line up and see gaps that we would like filled, but the same was true of the M43 systems at the same stage of development.

Now switching out of nerd mode. Thank you.

 

Good research, Olli. That really puts things in perspective. I can say from my own experience that when I bought my GF-1 back in Decmember of last year, there was no wide-angle prime available for the system, nor was there an affordable portrait lens. Now, 8 months latter, there are 2 wide-angle primes, an affordable portrait lens and fast normal. A lot can change in a year.

 

It's really just waiting. The question is not will there be more lenses (they are coming), but how do they perform, and are they the "right" ones (either right for the general market, or right for you). Meanwhile, it seems the C3 has improved the sensor micro lenses to work even better with legacy glass.

 

What I'd like to know about is this; apart from the Zeiss 24mm lens and the Sony lenses, what other E mount lenses are available from other manufacturers and are there any third party manufacturers set to produce E lens mount lenses soon? Yes, I know I could use a mount and fit the Alpha lenses but I'd like to miss out the mount if I can.
PS. I've seen a unboxing video and I haven't seen any body caps or rear lens caps, surely they have them for storage etc?


Cheers, Macjim.

 

There are no other E-mount lenses available from any other manufacturer besides Sony and Zeiss although Tamron, Sigma and Voigtlander have all been give the mount specification in order to produce them. I have only seen a prototype from Sigma, but I really do believe that we will see something from most if not all of these manufacturers soon.

As for the rear lens cap and the body cap, Sony did not include them in the NEX-3 or NEX-5 and despite the protests of many that they should be included, I guess they did not change their policy. You can buy a rear lens and body lens combo from RainbowImaging for around $12.00.