After the A99 DxOmark (Click here) also published the list of best lenses for the Sony NEX-7. The best prime is the 50mm f/1.8 (it beats the Zeiss lenses too!) and the best zoom is the 10-18mm wide angle zoom. It’s interesting to read that conclusion from DxO:
“Designing lenses smaller than their retro-focus equivalents remains a challenging prospect, however, Sony has introduced a couple of ‘pancake’ type primes and compact zooms that perform well. The range also includes several high-performance primes, although image quality assessment based on the 24-Mpix Sony NEX-7 means that sharpness scores aren’t quite as expected. Whether that’s due to the limitations of current lens designs only time will tell.”
I hope more quality lenses will be announced along the next NEX-7 successor coming in late August!
43 Responses
If the Nex7 successor is coming in August, when do you think we will have an official announcement? Its only 6 weeks till late august now…?
It will be announced in August, so we’ve been told, but you might not be able to get one until later on, especially if supply is limited and demand is high.
5MP sharpness for 18-200LE? Ouch!
can you explain me what does 5mp sharpness mean? I really have no clue.
You should ask DXO. They score sharpness in MPx.
can you atleast give me a link or show me where to fkng look?
http://goo.gl/43PdD
explains why I can’t get sharp pictures with it
It doesn’t explain anything. According to DXO the 70-300G and A700 @ 300mm will produce very poor sharpness figures in the range of 1-2mp, no matter what aperture. Yet I can get sharp photos with this combo, especially when stopping down to f/8, and so can lots of other people apparently.
I don’t really have any idea what this Perceptual Mpix figure means, but I do know it is absolute bollocks.
Read reviews on websites that post actual photos from their tests.
Heh, that’s what they say the $7000 dollar and very sharp 300mm f2.8 II manages on the A580 too….. If we were to believe that.
How about E24 F1.8?
What about the original 18-55mm, the zeiss 24mm, and the 55-210mm?
strange they would leave out the 24mm which is the best but not by very much compared to the 35 30 and 50.
they have not yet tested it…
actually they have finally they tested it!
What a rush job. They didn’t even proofread their own article. So the best prime is the 50/1.8 followed by the 24/1.8 then Touit 32mm. Yet, the 24/1.8 and Touit aren’t even in the table above. If you didn’t read the paragraph, you’d think the Zeisses didn’t make the list.
It appears the admin didn’t read the paragraphs either since he didn’t catch this goof up by DXO.
Anyway, looks like I have no need for the Sony 35/1.8 or the Touit 32mm. Both my 50/1.8 and 24/1.8 scored higher. Plus my 10-18 doing pretty well.
I thought I didn’t need the 35 1.8 for the same reason. I was way wrong. It is an awesome lens. I use the 50, 35, 24 all the time based on situation. Many times I choose the 35 & I am happy that I did over the 24. It is all based on situation, the subject, & location. Of course you know your photo needs better than I do so please take my words lightly & with love.
No Zeiss glass ????? Weird
What makes a good lens can’t be measured in numbers. A 30-year-old Contax zoom may as well render far superior pictures (as percieved by the human eye) compared to modern Cosina Zeiss， but score much lower on a computer controled test.
MTFs, distortion, vignetting, fringing, they have very little to tell how good a lens really is， unless its a lens intended for industrial measurement, but that’s something else.
For people who think Sony cant produce good lenses, hoped they could eat this! Great job, DXO!!! But I am sure touit sales will more or less affect by this!
Score-wise seems like there’s no NEX lenses that would come even close to the best of A-mount lenses.
If you want to compare the NEX lenses with alfa, then make sure you compare the DT lenses.
Perceived sharpness is a weird score if you ask me. It actually seems that they simply divide the sharpness score with 1.5 when a lens is tested on APS-C. For example the Canon 40/2.8 score 15Mpx on the 5DIII, but only 9Mpx on the 7D…and the overall score goes from 29 to 18 (!!)
So if you want to compare then compare the same sensor size as the sharpness is a perceived score due to the field of view difference between sensor sizes on a given lens.
It is not perceived, it’s real. 50% is exactly what I’d expect to gain moving from crop- to full sensor.
Effectively it is perceived. It is not that the FF sensor magically makes the lens resolve better. The perceived sharpness as I understand it comes from the “zoomed-out” field of view compared to APS-C
Yes, it’s like SpeedBooster but better.
My point is, try comparing the SEL24/1.8 with for example the RX1 (optimally this had 36mm focal length) and you will hardly notice any difference when it comes to lens sharpness properties. Still the RX1 gets a much higher score in DXOMark.
So hypothetically, if the SEL24 would draw an imagecircle large enough for FF, then its sharpness score would be around 20Mpx just like the RX1 lens on DXOMark.
I’m sure you’d like to believe that Sky_walker, but I’m sure even you are not deluded enough to think that is really the case. Go have a look at the same Alpha lenses when they’re tested on APS-C cameras – see what I mean?
The problem is, DXO haven’t tested Alpha lenses on the A77 with the same 24mp sensor, so e-mount lenses on NEX-7 cannot be directly compared to A-mount lenses on APS-C.
Regardless, their testing is still flawed.
It is obvious that currently NEX’s have much poorer and less available choices than α’s. Maybe the plan for a FF NEX could change this? We’ll see soon.
Really.. just compare some for yourself with reviews and mostly ‘vs’ images. The primes and even the normal 18-55 are great qua sharpness, ca, color rendition etc. I would say the kitlens 18-55 is (much) better than the a variant. The 50 and 35mm really stand out, for sure when it’s about the money no-brainers. The sigma 30mm is a no no no-brainer for the money!
+1
Would be logical if they make it a bridge A-to-E camera that would feel at home with motorized A-mount primes, if they decide to go this route.
The lenses are tested on the nex7. Are they digitally corrected or not? because I don’t plan to use my 16-50 pz on any other camera so correction does make sense.
Dxo is a bit weird, don’t go with only their results.
But! I agree the sel50f18 is a very underrated lens. Many people say the Leica 50mm Summicron f/2.0 is the world’s reference for a 50mm photographic lens.
See for yourself if that’s true (because bokeh, color rendition etc are also a bit of taste) but the sel50f18 qualitywise is not thát different in many ways compared to the Summicron. Source: http://photocinenews.com/2013/04/23/sony-nex-portrait-lenses-sel-50-f1-8-compared-to-leica-summicron-50mm-f2/
It’s a shame too that they don’t have used the Zeiss 24mm, which is a nice lens (although maybe too expensive, buy better said not my budget 😉 )
+1 – people should start realizing that the NEX lenses optically are not inferior to other lenses. Especially SEL24, Touit32, SEL35, SEL50 are right up there with the best being unique in their own way.
The only thing I miss is a focussing scale and nicer MF feel when it comes to the non-Zeiss NEX lenses.
DXO Mark isn’t helping their credibility with lists like these. The omissions are very odd. I’m heartened to see the 10-18 scores highly, relatively speaking.
Compared to other similar listings of best lenses DxO made, results in absolute terms are quit low. Nex 7 is a 24mpix high resolution sensor…..
Lenses are no good = the Nex system is a poor system.
Did they not test the 16mm pancake? Also, no test with the wide angle adapter.
Also, sharpness is only one measure of the quality of a lens, color is just as important, but very difficult to quantify.
I’m skeptical of DxOmark too. It’s certainly nice to see the 50 score high, but I have a difficult time taking a test seriously when they don’t provide image samples. Photography and hence photographic lenses should be judged on the quality of photos they make.
I love the 50, the 35 and I have to say that the kit 18-55 is pretty good stopped down around f/8 for the wider angle stuff. Sure, it’s a little soft in the corners compared to some higher end glass, but I’m ok with it for what I do.
DXO scores are wrong, wrong, wrong.
My Sigma 19, Sigma 30 & Sony 18-200 (silver) blow all the high-end Canon glass I ever owned out of the water.
These lenses are sharper, punchier & truer to real life.
DXO testing lenses is like a bunch of monkeys f@&%ing footballs.
Oh, and for what it’s worth… DXO is actually paid by certain manufacturers (Nikon).
lol , now that is funny .The problem is that a certain type of idiot ( you know the type lol) works under a simple premise that any and all data that does not support their typically nonsense view is obviously biased lol. The bottom line with Nex lenses is that you can get very cheap crap or vey expensive mediocre .The lens quality or rather lack of is the single biggest weakness of the system.
As for DXO they are the best source of testing software available as can be attested to by their client list
http://www.dxo.com/intl/image-quality-evaluation/customers
http://www.dxo.com/intl/image-quality-evaluation/partners
So do we :
A trust delusional fanboys
B the markers of the best testing software currently available
Easy choice for any one with a brain
So the Sigma primes (which cost $140 for the old versions) score 21 and the Zeiss primes (which cost $1000) score 22. Of course the DXO test isn’t by any means the only way to evaluate these lenses, but really, 1 extra point (or 4.5% difference) for 7 times the cost?