The 30mm macro f/3.5 will be announced on Wednesday but it seems that Sony France didn’t wait for the presentation and is already accepting preorders on the lens! Check here: https://shop.sony.fr/shop/Reflex-numerique/Macro/SEL30M35.AE. French Sony is a bit in hurry lol? This is the fourth lens ever made for the NEX system. I expect the next lenses to be announced in July (one of them should be the 24mm f/1.7 and maybe the 55-200mm zoom).
UPDATE (Wyldrage translated the french text…Thanks!). Those are the specs:
– Macro lens for large detailed photos of small subjects.
– Compact and light macro lens offering a superb image quality.
– Ideal for large photos of flowers, insects or any other small-size subjects and for a non-macro daily usage.
– 1:1 magnification ratio for large photos in full screen, with small subjects photographed in their real size by the camera’s sensor.
– Minimal distance of just 2.4cm between the front of the lens and the subject, and minimal focusing distance of 9.5cm [AF?]
– Quality lens optics with aspherical and glass ED elements for an exceptional sharpness and clarity with all apertures and focus points.
– Linear focusing system for a fluid, silent and fast focus while recording HD videos.
– The internal focusing mecanism maintains a constant distance between the front of the lens and the subject.
-Compact and elegant design with a refined metal finish to integrate with the camera’s body.
– Includes lens hood (allows fixing optional filters).
31 Responses
Approx. pricing?
349,-€
I can certainly see where the 24mm f/1.7 and 55-200mm zoom will have a place in the lineup, but the 30mm macro seems an odd lens to me. It’s pretty slow at f/3.5 and I’m guessing the macro isn’t 1:1. Other than being a prime what is the advantage over the 18-55 Kit lens? Am I missing something?
UPDATE: Now that WyldRage has translated the webpage and confirmed (thanks) that the macro is indeed 1:1 I can now see the point behind the lens.
It’s 1:1 (see my post below). If it is a good macro lens, it will have little distortion and be sharp even with its largest aperture, which admittedly is rather small, but acceptable for a macro.
Since most macro lenses are about 2.8, a 3.5 lens is not that much slower than average. I imagine that it’s either because a 2.8 lens would be too big, poor wide open or too costly for their target price.
Since I have some free time on my hands, I’ll translate the webpage.
– Macro lens for large detailed photos of small subjects.
– Compact and light macro lens offering a superb image quality.
– Ideal for large photos of flowers, insects or any other small-size subjects and for a non-macro daily usage.
– 1:1 magnification ratio for large photos in full screen, with small subjects photographed in their real size by the camera’s sensor.
– Minimal distance of just 2.4cm between the front of the lens and the subject, and minimal focusing distance of 9.5cm [AF?]
– Quality lens optics with aspherical and glass ED elements for an exceptional sharpness and clarity with all apertures and focus points.
– Linear focusing system for a fluid, silent and fast focus while recording HD videos.
– The internal focusing mecanism maintains a constant distance between the front of the lens and the subject.
-Compact and elegant design with a refined metal finish to integrate with the camera’s body.
– Includes lens hood (allows fixing optional filters).
good luck trying to take macro pictures at 2,4 cm (less than one inch) working distance..
fail sony.. fail again ^^
I already do that.
you’ll be surprised that some macro pictures work a lot better on a 30mm lens than on a 100mm or 200mm lens.
I am glad sony did the 30mm in alpha mount, it helps me tackle wide angle macro as well. I love the fact it drops a shadow, pictures in direct sunlight are seldom better than in shade. The only drawback is that you can’t really photograph insects that are shy and you can’t really use the lens on a tripod for macro work, well you can but it’s a big hassle.
> good luck trying to take macro pictures at 2,4 cm
> (less than one inch) working distance.
Actually, this is normal for a 30mm lens. If you need larger subject distances (for easier illumination or to take pictures of living animals) you will have to use larger focal lengths such as 100mm or 200mm. But they have other cons, of course.
Many high-end specialized lenses for micro photography have even shorter focal lengths and working distances. However, they also have tiny front elements and a conus-like shape so that it is still possible to illuminate the subject easily.
In general, I think, 30mm is quite a reasonable focal length with a multitude of uses. You don’t have to go down to 1:1 all of the time.
There’s a reason, why there are so many different lens designs out there, different lenses for different photographic applications.
Greetings,
Matthias
I’ve used extension tubes with lenses with an even wider angle of view. Not much working distance, but you can certainly take good photos if you have enough illumination.
Not for NEX obviously but I have the Delta DRF-14 ring-flash from eBay, dirt cheap and good results on my Minolta 100mm. Got it from the seller Foto-Tip.
It’s also branded as Marumi elsewhere and varies hugely in cost, but they are the same thing!
Of course working distance might be a problem with this on your lens.
Another plus for wider focal length macro is camera shake. 100mm macro requires far steadier hands/setup than 30mm macro.
The SEL-30M35 lens is also listed at Sony Germany and Sony Spain, see:
http://www.mi-fo.de/forum/index.php?showtopic=29696
Greetings,
Matthias
I assume it’s 2.4cm from the from of the lens or 9.5cm from the film plane. Subtract the 1.8cm flange-to-film distance and you end up with something like a lens length of 5.3cm which is 2 inches. 2 inches also seems to match the images (the mount is 1.8 inches wide).
I find it odd that they mention the focus system specifically. I wonder (actually I hope) that it’s good as a general purpose lens. I enjoy 30mm as a walk-around focal length. I just don’t want to watch it rack in and our from infinity to 1″ as it tries to find focus. ED glass should help with CA which is a big problem with the other e-mount lenses. I’m looking forward to it.
If they have any sense, there’ll be a focus limiter of some kind on it.
Hopefully this lens can focus faster than the SAL30mm macro then it will be a real killer macro and walkabout lens.
Hi
Can someone explain what 1:1 means in this context? I have seen these magnification numbers (like 0.42x) as well, which I guess means the same, but I don’t know what.
Thanks
1:1 means that the object is life-size. In other words the size of the object in real life takes up the same amount of space on the sensor.
1:2 means that the object is HALF life-size. It takes up half the size on the sensor.
If you compare a 1:1 image to a 1:2 image the object in the 1:1 image is “bigger/closer”.
This is 1:1 pure macro lens?
What you mean by “pure”?
It’s like any fixed focal length lens with very short minimal focus distance.
But it still can focus to infinity and so used to capture anything.
It’s common for real Macro designs to perform best at the minimum focus distance (close focus) and trade in just a little performance at infinity focus.
Also they tend to focus very slow (because the DOF is extremely narrow at 1:1).
Both are assumptions of existing (real) Macro lenses and not of having used this one…
It’s an odd choice; maybe Sony’s R&D got confused by all the horrible flower shots you see on forums , to believe macro is popular .
I only hope the poor sales figures for this lens won’t discourage Sony to release more usable lenses – soon .
Stick a 50mm f1.8 pancake on it and I’d buy a NEX.
You can’t make a 50mm 1.8 pancake for a mount that’s so close to the sensor.
Samsung make a 30mm f2. True the flange distance is 7.5mm longer so its easier to make the lens smaller, but 18mm should still be long enough to make a reasonably small 30mm f2. A f1.4 lens would have a diameter sqrt2 longer, that probably wouldn’t be possible using current technology, 50mm is telephoto on the crop sensor, so its v difficult to make a 50 1.8 pancake, but it should be possible to make it a lot smaller than the current prototype.
Well if there are so many shots it means that macro is popular.
And then they will sell a lot of this.
R&D done right.
If people takes bad images doe not affect the sales figures^^
This lens criticism really gets boring.
Another pencake would be nice.
(by another I mean that smaller than the 16mm is unlikely)
But I rather see good quality lenses coming for E-Mount.
NEX is about the sensor.
And that should not be crippled by bad lenses, or you can go buy a compact P&S camera.
E-mount and NEX is more than the still cameras.
On the Handycam and NXCAM models it does not matter that this lens is a bit bigger.
Same with the expected DSLR shaped still cameras.
pancake lens for a pancake camera please!
Shame that Sony R&D can’t hear you. It really is quite bizarre to have massive lenses on a NEX.
Wouldn’t call a lens that’s wider than the length of the barrel “massive” in this case.
That’s just a function of the crazily short flange distance. It’s a real challenge making a pancake with a rear nodal point far enough forward to avoid soft corners and colour shift.
So… no OSS for this lens? I do believe that still on 30mm it’s necessary to have OSS in order to go as slow as 1/15 and still achieving a sharp picture in low light conditions…yes, you can use a tripod, but what about the handheld casual user?