Well I did my second wedding yesterday with the EA50 and the kit lens is way too slow - It was in Allerton Castle in North Yorkshire which is lovely but extremely dark with lots of dark oak panelling!

The result was f3.5 @ 30db gain! not ideal at all. I don't want to use a prime lens as I do have a few favourite zoom shots during a ceremony - hopefully one of these new lenses may do the trick

http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr5-samyang-will-release-nex-lenses-with-autofocus/

hey peter,

why don't you want to use primes? while its cool that they are releasing zooms at Rokinon (samyang) soon, primes can zoom on the EA50, thats one of its biggest features. also just because they announced zooms, there is no guarantee that it will be a power zoom that works with the zoom rocker.

why not instead get a Canon Rokinon Cine 35mm f/1.4 with a speed booster? with the digital zoom that would give you roughly a 37mm-75mm zoom with constant aperture

Hi Chris - I've read about quality issues with the digital zoom - is this something you've experienced? Sigma produce this canon mount 1.4 that might do the trick. I'm looking for something really just for the ceremony and maybe speeches

http://www.simplyelectronics.net/mainproduct.php?pid=1254&setcurrency=gbp

hi peter,

i don't actually own the camera, i am saving for it. but i've been reading LOTS and lots and lots anywhere i can find anything about it. i have heard people say theres a tiny bit of quality loss and then i've also heard that they see no quality loss. that tells me its subjective as not one person has brought forth a single shred of proof that the quality is variable.

but if someone is willing to test it, perhaps they could post here and we can know for sure. problem is when people do that typically they post a quick 3 second test. we need a real exhaustive video in mulitple lighting situations before we can know for sure how much quality, if any, is being lost.

The result was f3.5 @ 30db gain! not ideal at all. I don't want to use a prime lens as I do have a few favourite zoom shots during a ceremony - hopefully one of these new lenses may do the trick


I just spent the last half hour going thorough an exhaustive list of lenses (36 pages!) on B&H's website to confirm my thoughts before I open my big mouth.

In their entire list of SLR lenses, there are a total of 449 lenses rated f2.8 or faster.

Of those 449, many are primes.

Out of that list, there are a total of TWO zoom lenses that are faster than f2.8.

They are both Olympus 4/3 mounts worth @2300 and $2500 respectively. f2.0

Frankly, f2.8 is as fast as a zoom lens goes, excepting a handful of dedicated ciné zooms.

And f2.8 is less than a stop faster than the f3.5 you are currently forced to shoot at.

So you would be able to use 24dB of gain instead of 30dB.

To quote Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott of the Starship Enterprise: "ya kin'nae change the laws of physics".

i did that research once. you're right the last time i found a zoom faster than that was a single canon zoom that was a PL mount, not much use here. (not counting cine zooms. but who has $5000 for a lens?!) granted there are those that can afford that and if you can, that's awesome.

the zooms that seem to be best are Tamron's 24-70mm f/2.8 and Tokina's 16-28mm f/2.8. these are full frame lenses though so if you use a speed booster you can get more out of the lens and 1 stop faster light. (what is that, f/2?). if you really don't wanna get a prime, that may be your best bet, and it still won't be a power zoom :-/

there are other awesome zooms out there, but these seem to be quite awesome in themselves and highly respected for what they can achieve

iso if you use a speed booster you can get more out of the lens and 1 stop faster light. (what is that, f/2?).

1 stop better light performance than f2.8 is in fact f2.0 but don't assume the other lens artifacts such as Depth of Field will follow. The language is getting particularly confusing and misleading... much like crop factor confusing folks about what it does to focal length (which is nothing - field of view changes, Depth of Field does not).

that tells me its subjective as not one person has brought forth a single shred of proof that the quality is variable.

Here you go, that was on the stocklens which isn't the sharpest but start looking from 00:23, just look at the trees in the distance or the edge of the roof how the detail is turned into mush.
The digital zoom does make the image softer and it will increase moire and aliasing, if that is present, significantly.


Sony nex ea50 moire and aliasing on Vimeo

i stand corrected :-)
but for the record this is the first i've seen before this

I was planning to do a new short movie this week but decided to do more testing instead to know where the limitations of the camera are so I know when I put it in a paid production.

What I plan to test is how the digital zoom performs with Samyang primes, I also want to know what preset is best to blend in with my sony cx730 and what would be the best preset to match with my t2i and I want to check what effect decreasing the sharpness in camera and adding sharpness in post has on moire and aliasing (instead of increasing sharpness in camera).

This is important for me to know asap as beginning April it's starting to get quite busy and I need to know before that time. I will post the results here and on my blog.

thanks noa,
also please keep sharing your vids like this it helps us newbie's make informed choices! :-D

I saw no mention of a Samyang zoom lens, only that they where releasing lenses with auto focus. But they would still be prime lenses, as I understood it, or did I miss something?

I wish they skipped the autofocus and added antishake to their cine lenses instead!

yea, cine lenses don't need autofocus anyways.

Hi Chris - I've read about quality issues with the digital zoom



Just as Noa's test; digital zoom = unacceptable use.

JC

do you think if the digital zoom is that bad that perhaps its best to wait for an upgrade? what are the odds of a update being announced at NAB when this camera was technically only released about 3 to 4 months ago?

A firmware update? That would be nice but I seriously doubt any type of update for a $3.5K camera from sony.... You should be purchasing this camera for more than just the supposed "zoom through primes" digital zoom feature.

JC

I wish they skipped the autofocus and added antishake to their cine lenses instead!

Yeah, that would be much more usable, I guess adding a autofocus feature is something electronically while adding antishake mechanically and could be they don't have the knowledge or possibilities to do that, I also guess that such a change would mean a serious increase in price. The reason why Samyang is so popular is because of their price which is due to the simple design.

Just as Noa's test; digital zoom = unacceptable use.

It does depend on what you shoot though, if you shoot more close up with shallow dof and then use the DZ you do see a decrease in image quality but it doesn't notice that much, especially when you look at it from a distance on tv, you just need to be careful when to use it and double check in the viewfinder to see if there are no artifacts. When I check with all my lenses I hope to see more how far I can push it before it becomes unacceptable.

do you think if the digital zoom is that bad that perhaps its best to wait for an upgrade?
I think the only way we might see an improvement is when Sony would use another sensor, it is what it is right now, depending on the situation it can be usable with maybe some post treatment. As far as I know Sony has the only camera that has the possibility to manually zoom with a prime during a recording which already is very unique, but not perfect.

Agreed, Noa, the beauty of the Samyang lenses are their simplicity. They have quality where it counts and nothing else. That's what makes them so affordable.
If they added antishake and autofocus the price would get them close to other lenses and much more competition...

The digital zoom is made possible because the EA50 uses a sensor that really has too high resolution for video. I guess an improved algorithm could enhance the quality of the digital zoom, but I feel the DZ is more of a novelty anyway.

An EA50 with a true Super 35 sensor would have been great.