Minolta Rokkor-PG 1.4/50: Sony A7 vs. Nex-5N

[alex ph]

Having finally acquired an A7, I am very much pleased with the new capacity the FF offers. In some cases it seems to largely supersede the 10 years-old NEX in line clarity and colour rendition.

Something of the kind, under a nice sun (with Hexanon 1.7/50), after the colours have been boosted a bit more:



But what about a direct field comparison? I chose a dull day, having kept an idea that it gives a better occasion to see the details of lens rendition, instead of the subject niceness. I put a Rokkor-PG 1.4/50 on both A7 and Nex-5N and put the aperture at 2.8 which is good enough for this great lens for distances near to infinity.

#1 The same general test view, as above, but without the nice sun


#2 A crop without processing, direct out-of-camera jpg (the NEX's size is marginally reduced to fit the same size as from FF A7)


#3 A crop from another shot, focused closer in the same scene


From the first sight it's easy to say that A7 renders the shapes clearer, with better colours and generally in a more "noble" manner. And this is what seduces you when you have an already impressive shot directly of the camera jpg. Even though, you see that the difference in not drastic, as for pixel peeping.

And then I tried some simple brightness/contrast tweaks in order to make Nex-5N image closer to the immediate A7 look.

#4 Here it worked in part, seen that boosting contrast for the Nex shot brings to losing details. But I exaggerated a bit with contrast


#5 But here the difference is barely noticeable, maybe the lights lose the info faster


One can easily imagine that tweaking the entire image, you may dissimulate the difference even easier.

Conclusion: I really love the older A7 renders the visible world. It's also a pleasure to lift up ISO to 1600-3200 to discover that the detail lost is not that dramatic. I love colours and shapes it renders. Saying that, I would not make it a fetish in front of the much older Nex-5N which does not need to be fetished, as it is already one!

[calvin83]

I feel the same at the time when i upgrade my 5n to a7. You will find there will be significant boost when you upgrade to a7r2/3.

[alex ph]

Well, I should wait for a while, for the newer models got older and the prices shift down.

Meanwhile, I found only this opinion from 2014 about how A7 compares to Nex. And it's pretty close to ours saying that with an A7 "you'll get more micro-contrast, separation, sharpness ... Often, this may not be noticeable". To my surprise, there is no much of illustrated comparisons, while the question is obviously common and was even more relevant when Sony FF cameras only came to the market.

I am very curious about how the younger Sony A7 cameras are better compared to the Nex series.

Calvin, I am pretty sure you have a demonstration of that. Could you show a side by side shot of the same scenery with the same lens?

[stevemark]

[memetph]

alex ph,
the resolution of the Nex5N (16mpx on APS-C) is the equivalent of 38 Mpx FF. I understand that you used the same lens from the same distance and showed the same image . What do you expect ?
I made the same comparison with a modern performing lens between an A7 and an A5000/6000. The APS-C cameras were showing more details .
In your examples , I understand that the Rokkor at f2.8 does not take advantage of the higher resolution of the Nex.

[Antoine]

Stephan,

"Finally, it is obvious that the useful aperture range on the A7 is much broader than on the A7RII - best results require 1) very good lenses and 2) optimal..."

Yes, I had already seen this review on your website which led me to buy a brand new A7rii (the collapse in price helped) rather than a A7ii. (actually Thomas B advised me on this purchase...many thanks)

Trying to make sure I understand: do you mean that the range of aperture which can be used on the A7ii is wider than the range of aperture that can be used on the A7rii? And the explanation would be with A7rii imperfections of the lens become more apparent?

Also, I am not sure I undertsand why the 100% crop on A7ii is a larger angle than the 100% crop A7rii. What is the definition of 100% crop? (apologies ofr my ignorance...)

Generally speaking, do you think the Minolta MD legacy lenses do justice to the A7rii high resolution? If limited, what are the main drawbacks?

[sergun]

[quote="stevemark"]

[stevemark]

[tb_a]

[Antoine]

Hi Thomas

Thanks I did indeed google translate some time ago (despite learning it from 11 to 18, my German is very poor) but my questions this time are about the whole range and also specific about Stephan comments (maybe my English is not good enough either...).
Generally speaking, my first contact with A7Rii is a big step up on A 6000... let alone to get some real wide angle pictures without having to use the (good enough) Zhongi converter and Techart seems to work fine... for now.

Just a pity nobody issued an improved Techart also useful for Teleobjectives... It is actually a productivity improvement as you would need only one motor for as many lenses as one wishes.

[memetph]

[tb_a]

[alex ph]

Thank you, Steven, for broadening the range of comparison. Would it be correct to conclude that, sharing the same type of sensor, Nex-5N, A7, A7R and A7RII mainly differ in the level of detalization?

Memetph, your assumption on better details of an Sony APS-C as compared with an FF sounds quite paradoxical. The great advantage of this forum, and it specialty as for many others, is that we put forward shots to illustrate the idea. As long as you have side-by-side shots from an A7 and an A5000, that'll be really important to see them. That will perfectly match the core of this topic!

Folks, please share some of your shots showing the comparative difference between Alphas and Nexes of different generations.

[tb_a]

[alex ph]

Technically, your remark must be very precise. Looking at the results I posted above I was asking myself if the even bigger difference is not caused by the jpg algorythm, other than by the sensors difference.

Still, we normally use the cameras for real world shooting, so the general (and subjectively coloured) impression of the shots is something that plays its primary role. And as long as I personally use jpg in order not to mess myself with much longer procession of raws, such a comparison still makes sens for me.

[aidaho]

While everything said about FF vs crop at the close up level is true, nowadays for MF users the choice isn't that obvious.
I've spent last year shooting with Sony NEX-3N with Lens Turbo II and recently upgraded to A7R.
While, again, there is no contest once you go pixel-peeping, focal reducers do close the gap by a lot.
Original FOV and rendering for adapted MF FF lenses is now a reality on APS-C. And that counts for around 80% of "being there".

Considering how FF mirrorless bodies abandoned their claim to fame as lightweight FF, I can envision a possible reverse exodus to APS-C in the future.
And having commercially available focal reducers to back me up, this wouldn't be nearly as dramatic downgrade as it might have been otherwise.

[Antoine]

Adaho. Not quite, you are missing something.
You cannot use both focal reducer AND Techart AF. It is one or the other.
All my lenses (except the initial Sony a6000 16-50mm zoom) are manual focus lenses. A7rii solves the issue. I get the real focal length and the AF function... and my bag with 3 MF lenses is much lighter than with 2 AF lenses as I only have one focusing engine.

[aidaho]

[memetph]

[Lightshow]

[alex ph]

Aidaho, agreed with your reasoning. I did not make a comparison for the sake of some nostalgic "good-bye" to the NEX. On the contrary, I was asking myself in which situations it worth bringing with me a bulkier and more visible Alpha, and where the Nex still provides a clearly good service as compared to that.

Memetph, still did not get your point about the same lens and possibly better results with an A6000. Could you just post two shots?

Here is the unprocesed and unevened crop from the both cameras. The upper is A7 and the lower is Nex-5N.



The black zone is the real world difference due to the crop factor. And the length of the two original crops differs only 1.25 times and not 1.5 or more. That means A7's sensor resolves better and not worse or the same as compared to the Nex's one.

Cheers

[memetph]

[tb_a]

Out of curiosity I've compared pictures taken with both my NEX 16MP APS-C and my A7R II in 18MP APS-C mode taken with my best lens.
For a 100% fair comparison I've resized both pictures to max. 3800px on the long size to view them on my 32" 4K UHD monitor full screen. That would equal a final print out in the size of apprx. 70 x 47 cm.

If watched very closely the slightly better detail is visible in the A7R II pictures because there is no AA-filtering.
However, nobody would watch at a picture in that size from 10 cm viewing distance in real life.

If watched on a normal 24" HD screen resized to 2000px in 100% viewing mode (picture size apprx. 50 x 33 cm) you won't be able to spot any difference.

Verdict: In terms of picture quality on the final uncropped output any old APS-C camera such as my old NEX-C3 (16MP) will most probably beat even the newest A7 III in crop mode (10MP). The question is whether it will be visible under normal viewing circumstances at all. Most probably not.

Actually that was the reason why I invested in a new large high resolution screen (Eizo EV3237) when I acquired my A7R II as otherwise any advantage of the new high resolution camera would only be visible on large print-outs and not on screen.

Conclusion: If you're watching your pictures on a normal HD screen only most probably any smartphone will be good enough (apart from other limitations).

Edit: I've included pictures from my Ricoh GXR-M 12MP APS-C camera (without AA-filtering) in my comparison and it beats the filtered NEX 16MP camera as well. Actually it's better than any 24MP A7.

[aidaho]

[tb_a]