Sony NEX3 zoom lens options

mickger844posts

Picked up the Sony NEX 3 with the 18-55 lens kit in Harvey Norman for the missus before Christmas. Lovely camera and she is pleased with the quality of pics so far. The only grip she has with it is that there is no digital zoom when the 18-55 lens is connected. So this means she now wants a decent telephoto zoom lens. Would anyone have any recommendations for a decent quality zoom lens that would not cost the earth??? Any advice would be much appreciated.

JayEnnis

Could you be more specific? What do you mean by digital zoom? My understanding of digital zoom is the cropping of the image.

mickger844posts

JayEnnis wrote: »

Could you be more specific? What do you mean by digital zoom? My understanding of digital zoom is the cropping of the image.

Standard cameras normally have a digital zoom feature or precision digital zoom as its called with the NEX3. This feature is disabled with the 18-55mm lens connected. I understand this would crop the image anyway. I'm looking for a recommendation for a decent telephoto zoom lens for the NEX3.

JayEnnis

mickger844posts wrote: »

Picked up the Sony NEX 3 with the 18-55 lens kit in Harvey Norman for the missus before Christmas. Lovely camera and she is pleased with the quality of pics so far. The only grip she has with it is that there is no digital zoom when the 18-55 lens is connected. So this means she now wants a decent telephoto zoom lens. Would anyone have any recommendations for a decent quality zoom lens that would not cost the earth??? Any advice would be much appreciated.

I'm not familiar with Sony or its lens range but you can get an adaptor to use their slr lens's. This opens up all the older minolta lens's which I presume could be quite cheap and good quality.

mickger844posts

With a Minolta MD to NEX adapter would i be able to fit the Optomax 400mm lens Minolta MD to the NEX. Sorry for my ignorance but there are so many lens standards its fairly confusing what i can and can't get for the Sony NEX3.

woody_2000

Instead of a digital zoom, maybe you could just crop and maybe resample/upsample your images in a photo editing program as required (similar to what a digital zoom does in-camera). It may not be as convenient, but it's a workaround. You have 14MP images, so depending on your required output - and quality of images, there may be good scope for just cropping - e.g. 14MP cropped down to 7MP could have a similar effect to a 2x zoom, depending on your output requirement. That's one of the things high resolution sensors are good for anyway - cropping. If you only need up to, say, a 10" x 8" print then 7MP is as much as you would need - as any higher resolution would only be wasted. This is because up to 300 ppi (pixels per inch) is as much as the human eye can apparently see, and 7MP happens to yield about 300 ppi on a 10 x 8 print. Depending on various factors, even a lower resolution might do - and it could even be debated as to what lower resolution might do. So, it depends on what your output requirements might be -- with maybe some experimentation, and trial and error. Another example, might be output to a 1080 HD resolution display - which is "only" approx. 2MP. In the HD aspect ratio of 16:9 the Sony appears to output a 12MP resolution - which allows for cropping to an effective 6x zoom to a 2MP 16:9 image. 720 HD is only 1MP resolution, which could allow for cropping for an effective 12x zoom. Apparently you can upsample/upsize an image by approx. 50% with fairly minimal loss of quality (as the more an image is upsampled the more "guesswork" is involved in adding extra pixels) -- so a 4MP image, for example, could possibly be upsampled to 6MP with fairly minimal loss in image quality - to possibly give an acceptable 275 ppi 10 x 8 print (yielding an effective 3x zoom). Even upsampling by up to 100% could possibly yield acceptable results depending on output requirements. A 1MP 720 HD image, for example, could possibly be upsampled to a 2MP 1080 HD image for an acceptable TV output at normal viewing distances. This could give an effective 12x zoom. In fact, a 1MP image could even be sufficient to work with for an acceptable 6 x 4 print - again, yielding an effective 12x to 14x zoom. So, again, in summary, depending on your output requirements, there may be sufficient scope and latitude to crop and maybe resample images as required as a post processing function - however, it may be a bit slower and less convenient than a digital or optical zoom. If you're post processing your images anyway, then it may be less of an inconvenience. There are, of course various possible permutations and combinations within these broader parameters - subject to trial and error -- and RAW images may be required for best results...

Just a slightly more lateral perspective on the matter, which may be viable and worth considering...

hopelessOne

The only longer E-mount lens is the 18-200 but it's expensive and pretty big (as you'd expect) but at least you retain AF ability and it covers all the focal range you'll need. It's also optically stabilised to help prevent camera shake.

You could also get the official Sony A-mount to E-mount adapter which will give you AF ability with any Sony SAM lens (albeit, *much* slower than with native E-mount lenses). SAM lenses are the newer Sony lenses that use an internal motor in the lens rather than the traditional A-mount screw drive (see here for options). I can't stress enough that the AF will be very slow (in the order of seconds) and mostly useful for static subjects.

Alternatively, you can grab a much cheaper adapter from ebay (e.g. these) so you can mount just about lens on the NEX (manual focus only). You mentioned an old Minolta MD lens: any one of these adapters should work.

Apart from these options, cropping on the computer or printer is the only other option (and is equivalent to the way digital zoom works).

* Note that I haven't tried these adapters as I'm happy with the 18-55 on my NEX-5

** I use Warehouse Express just for illustration purposes. You might find the items cheaper elsewhere.

mickger844posts

hopelessOne wrote: »

The only longer E-mount lens is the 18-200 but it's expensive and pretty big (as you'd expect) but at least you retain AF ability and it covers all the focal range you'll need. It's also optically stabilised to help prevent camera shake.

You could also get the official Sony A-mount to E-mount adapter which will give you AF ability with any Sony SAM lens (albeit, *much* slower than with native E-mount lenses). SAM lenses are the newer Sony lenses that use an internal motor in the lens rather than the traditional A-mount screw drive (see here for options). I can't stress enough that the AF will be very slow (in the order of seconds) and mostly useful for static subjects.

Alternatively, you can grab a much cheaper adapter from ebay (e.g. these) so you can mount just about lens on the NEX (manual focus only). You mentioned an old Minolta MD lens: any one of these adapters should work.

Apart from these options, cropping on the computer or printer is the only other option (and is equivalent to the way digital zoom works).

* Note that I haven't tried these adapters as I'm happy with the 18-55 on my NEX-5

** I use Warehouse Express just for illustration purposes. You might find the items cheaper elsewhere.

Cheers for the advice. I ordered the MD to NEX adapter and also a Minolta Md 70-210mm lens from ebay for about 40 euros. Its worth a try to see the results and if it doesn't work out can always get one of the more expensive sony alpha lenses. Looking at some of the sony photography forums the NEX can certainly take some amazing shots. I guess its just getting used to the camera and what settings to use in different circumstances.