This is me prcticing my manual focusing skills. At least winter has something going for it, and if you haven't guessed it yet I just don't like winter (although it's not too bad if we get snow which is rare where I live). As you can see I do sometimes nail the focusing with these manual focus lenses, and when I do, I'm quite impressed with what can be achieved in terms of dynamic range and lens rendition. Sharpness is also very good and the Nokton 35 f1.2 II is sharp wide open but only at close focusing. I would not recommend this lens for anything nearing infinty. Well, I don't use it for that anyway.

I must admit I'm having problems with manual focusing on the Sony Alpha A7 and A7R cameras. I find it much easier on the Nex family and evn on the M43 cameras. It must be the FF sensor thing. The Zebra function the cameras offer is great in my opinion and once I figured out how it actually works I never switched it off again. To get the best possible use out of it, ensure that you see some Zebra stripes in the viewfinder. If you don't then you're underexposing the frame. The way I set it is to use EC to back off the expsure (if required) until I don't see any stipes in the viewfinder and the bring the EC back up until I do see some. This gives me my required exposure for the shot; and it works.

Theproblem I'm having is nailing the focus on the exact spot where I want it. On the Nex and M43 cameras I was able to do this quite quickly and I could be pretty certain the focusing was correct. I'm not able to fo that with these Alpha cameras, my focusing is just off what should be in focus. Sometimes I've got backfocus and sometimes front focusing, caused by myself of course and not the camera because it's me that's focusing the lens.

I'm going to try the following methos for awhile to see if things get better. Set the cameras to raw + jpg and set the jpg for B&W. Turn down the peaking setting to low and colour to red which seems best for me in this config. You might prefer yellow because it's really a personal thing. Hopefully this will help me focus on the correct point.

As you can see in the image above, take wide open at f1.2, I don't think I nailed focus correctly on the bench, but it hard to see in my opinion. Anyone out there have any more tips to help me get better at this. One point though, I do not like using the magnified view, maybe that's my problem but I really have trouble with this function and I don't intend using it in the future.

Having purchased this lens specially for the Sony Alpha series, I can say that I'm not disappointed by it's performance. It has it's own special signature and very close to the classic Leica look; something I can see in an image but find it extremely hard to put down on paper. This image was taken while panning as the floating hotel went up the main river. Converted to B&W using a gradient map.

Another image with the above combination that I like, pretty simple but I still like it. Shows some good tones and a little vignetting which was not introduced in PP. Vignetting adds to the image at times and this is one of them. As you see the lock gate is open slightly as a huge barge was just heading in. This technology isn't new, but I'm still fascinated at how it works. I guess I am a gear freak after all.

This is me trying to practice my A7R conversion method using a gradient map. If you don't know how to do this just google it and you'll get a plethora of answers and tutorials on the method. I can actually recommend this methos as I seem to be getting much better results using this method, rather than using Nik SFXII. One of the main benefits I see is no posterisation or colouring in sky areas. I used to get this regularly when using the Nik plug-in, probably because of the was I used it, but that's how I did it. With this methos I get the same results except the files lok a lot better (to me anyway).

What drew my attention in the above image was how the water at the lock was being drawn into the sluices, and directing the water to the generators. Yes, electricity is also generated in this lock and I find it an extremely efficient method of production. The lock was built in 1932 but has over the years been renovated and updated with new technology.

Notice also there is no colouring in the water at the top and on the right, the tones being even across the image. Detail in the waves (bottom right) is also just amazing. I haven't seen such detail in any images from any camera I have owned, but then again I haven't owned a camera like the Sony A7R before either.

This the second of a few images I would like to post about the Sony A7r and Zeiss Tessar 85 f4 combination. Plenty of detail in this image and do believe I get sharper images from the A7R than from the A7. However, like others have mentioned on the Internet, the shutter is loud and I think it does bother me right now. Maybe it's because I have some problems with longer focal length lenses in getting sharp images. It may be that I have to get used to the camera first which means I'll be shooting a lot with it.

These images were taken when I was practicing hitting the target with manual focus lenses. I think I'm getting better but I do have a long way to go. That doesn't bother me one little bit because I just love being out there with my cameras. It really doesn't matter what I'm photographing, the main thing is the actual act of photographing.

I've come to the conclusion these Zeiss lenses work excellently on the Sony Alpha cameras. I now have two of these wonderful lenses and I can't fault either of them. Both the Planar 50 f2 and the Tessar 85 f4 are very well built, focus rings are nice and smooth and don't have a long throw like a lot of the Voigtländer lenses. Both of these lenses produce stunning image quality on the A7R so assume that the quality will be the same on the A7.

These are two lenses I can certainly recommend for the A7R (and A7) and will be a part of my prime kit for those cameras. I will not be purchasing any other FE lenses (I have the kit 28-70) because these primes produce what I'm after from these cameras. I don't shoot sport and I take my time when manually focusing, although I have noticed it's much harder on these full frame sensors. I will be practicing a lot more to get proficient because I just love the look of the files. The two lenses mentioned above do not cost a fortune and are readily available with many retailers. Now I just need good 35mm and 135mm lenses and I'll be all set. I've just seen some excellent images from the Voigtländer 15 f4.5 so that will be my ultra-wide for this system. That will probably be used on the A7 because of the colour shift problems on the A7R, or it will be used on both when going for some monochrome images.

If you're wondering what you are looking at in the above image, it's water flowing over the top of a lock near where I live. You're looking down at the water from the top of the lock.

What a great combination these two make. The Zeiss Planar 50 f2 ZM T* is a very sharp lens and the A7R doesn't have a AA filter remember so it's going to bring out a little more sharpness from the lens. Just to show what this combination is capable of I just reduced these images to 1200px wide and did NOT apply any sharpening to the files. The B&W was converted using a gradient map this time (I didn't use my favourite converter from Nik, SFXII) because I find it does a better job of these files that SFXII. Files from the Fujifilm X cameras are a different thing but that is a photoblog post for another time.

I just couldn't resist this Sony Alpha A7, it's perfect for my type of photography. I love using older (and newer) legacy manual focus lenses on modern digital cameras. And this is principly the reason I purchased the A7. A bonus for the camera is the E mount which allows you to use all the native E mount lenses on the market today, albeit at a lower resolution. By lower resolution I mean 15MP files which is about the same as the best M43 camera on the market today, and with those you can safely print a 45cm x 30cm size but how often do you print at those sizes? So any smaller prints are going to be exceptional. Sony are planning on bringing out their FE lenses for the Alpha system but I'm not planning on aquiring any of those except the 28-70 I bought with the camera. I like at least one native lens for each system just to see how it actually performs with those lenses mounted.

Be careful when using rangefinder lenses on these Alpha models, just as you had to be careful what you used on the Nex-7. Colour shift will hapen with these lenses at focal lengths of 35mm ond wider. SLR lenses don't cause this problem and you have a lot of lenses to chose from. Everyone has their favourites and mine are C/Y and Pentax which have proved to be excellent on other systems.

However, that doesn't mean these lenses will perform well on the Alpha cameras because they are of course full frame. With the other systems the sensors used are either APS-C or M43 and using the sweet spots of the lenses, the central portion. Problems normally occur at the edges where smearing can be seen and testing each lens before use is a must on these cameras. I like using a 50mm lens, hence my purchase of the Zeiss Planar 50 f2 which performs very well on the A7. I thought I would pay a little more for one lens which I could use for years to come and no further purchases would be necessary. I will report back with some images from this lens when I have the time.

I think one thing should be said here about the Sony Nex family of cameras and that is the name Nex has been retired and no more Nex cameras will be brought to market. The Nex cameras have only be renamed Alpha cameras so we may see another Nex camera come to market only it will be called an Alpha.