Sony E 30mm Macro

[Paul2660]

I looked at one of these the other day and took a few shots. The lens is 1:1, but I felt it didn't really have enough reach for me. I am tired of having to bend over for macro work these days. Clarity and sharpness were excellent however. I am assuming the 30mm is equivalent of 45mm in actual focal length.

What are other opinions on this lens.

Paul

[HeavyDuty]

Your point about it being too short for a comfortable working distance is the exact reason I passed on getting one. I'm holding out hope that Sigma will develop a 50-60mm macro in their DN lens line.

[Vivek]

I like short focal length lenses for close ups and macro for the following reasons:

1. Flowers and such subjects are not perturbed by the proximity of a lens.

2. Larger depth.

3. Most importantly, close ups (and macro) are like shooting with long tele lenses. Reduction of the WD reduces the shake induced problems.

4. Easy to light up with a small flash like the HVL-F20AM.

The other "macro" lens I use is an Olympus pen F macro 38/3.5 (goes to 1:2 on its own. With extensions, it goes higher). I also use a bunch of real macro lenses. All manual focusing lenses- works better than dealing with AF for me.

I just got back an old Vivitar S1 90/2.5 that I had loaned. It is a heavy beast compared to the NEX lenses. This is one superb lens, not just for closeups but all around.

[ustein]

Paul, I am not impressed by this lens and photozone.de neither.

Sony E 30mm f/3.5 macro (SEL-30M35) - Review / Test Report

[Vivek]

Originally Posted by ustein

..and photozone.de neither.

Sony E 30mm f/3.5 macro (SEL-30M35) - Review / Test Report

FWIW: There are no "macro" photos (or even close ups) in that test at all! It is not clear at what distance the test charts were snapped to arrive at the conclusions.

[Paul2660]

Uwe,

Thanks for the link, interesting study. Vivek, I agree, strange they didn't have any macro shots. With the shots I took, I found the DOF slices very thin. I am going to hold off and get the 50mm 1.8 as most seem to agree it's a winner.

I found out the other day, you can get pretty close with the Sony/Zeiss 16-80 on 80mm. Only issue I have so far with that lens is the zoom creep, which most seem to complain about.

Thanks
Paul

[alphaman]

I used to have this lens. While it made a reasonable "standard" lens, it was never really much good as a macro.

I struggled to get good depth of field because although being quite wide for a macro and therefore naturally having more depth of field than a 100mm, the fact that the camera to subject distance was necessarily so close canceled out this feature and even at f16, I wasn't as happy as I was with my 100mm used with the LA-EA2 adapter.

Some reviews have found this lens lacking, but I think it is a good enough lens for general purpose snaps. In the end I got rid of it because I didn't like the silver finish (petty, I know) and also because I wanted something a little faster than 3.5 - even if it only 2.8 (again, ... petty!). I suppose it just didn't sit well with my level of satisfaction and so i will replace it with something else.

[pegelli]

alphaman, it's probably off-topic for this discussion but it is a myth that a WA macro has more depth of field then a longer focal length macro. Depth of field is set by magnification so at 1:1 and the same aperture/sensor size the depth of field is exactly the same. Only with the WA you get more background in the shot, vs the longer focal length.

[alphaman]

Generally, you're right, of course if you assume that I was looking to make an exact copy at the same magnification using normal or telephoto lenses, wide angle lenses do have different characteristics in my experience.

I was talking in general terms and there is also the matter of lens to subject distance which has an effect on depth of field. Where the subject is very close the depth of field decreases and the depth of focus increases as we all know (regardless of focal length, but with differing effects depending on focal length in use).

So, what I'm saying is that we're both right depending on if we are using the same magnification at sensor plane and normal and telephoto lenses as the criteria or not.

I will post a sample taken with a 35mm and one with a 90mm later when time permits which will illustrate what I mean.

[alphaman]

Just a couple of very quick "snaps" to illustrate my earlier point.

Both shot on the same day, both shot at f2.8. I tried to keep the central gravestone roughly the same size in the viewfinder.





I think that pictures are worth more than a thousand words ... I think these pictures illustrate what I meant about depth of field fairly well.

[pegelli]

Interesting pictures alphaman and I clearly see the effect you described.
It's probably the lower magnification in the background that makes it look sharper and proves that the formulas for dof are a relatively subjective measure to the same "circle of confusion".

Using the dof calculator on the website of Michael Hohner I get almost the exact same dof for the two cases above:

0.369 meter for the 35 mm lens:


0.367 meter for the 90 mm lens with the same magnification of the main subject:


So the theory and practical use are quite far apart. Guess I'll stay with the practical use for the future

[alphaman]

When you look at the difference in sharpness in the background gravestones, it seems to me that the 90mm ones are quite blurred. I am assuming that this is a reflection of the differences in depth of field, but would be happy to learn of other factors that may have caused this affect.

Theory and practice never seem to quite meet as expected in my experience, probably because of other factors that haven't been taken into consideration.

In this case there is the question of circles of confusion (which I don't have the figures for on these lenses) and the distance between the subject and the camera.

I think the distance figures might have been something more like like 3m and 5m (rough estimate based on using a zoom as the Contax G lenses don't have a distance scale), which would give a depth of field of 1.289m (35mm) and 0.52m (90mm).

Even these revised figures, although quite different, seen rather conservative compared to the pictures above which seem to show a bigger difference.

Anyway, whatever proves to be correct, it's nice to have a good discussion and chew over something other that the latest NEX equipment!