Tom Cavanaugh’s comment: For now. For now. I was also wrong in not seeing how useful a large flange back distance is. But I suspect that Sony got bigger than me because they’re brighter than me. Methinks the result is an interim kludge and the problem will go away in NEX II (NEXT?)

Methinks NEX II will have a concave sensor. Same bodies, new lenses, much less CA, much less distortion. And hard corners from simpler lenses. Only the 500-pound gorilla could do that. It would do to photography what the pneumatic tyre did to land transport.

I don’t know when. Somebody said within five years.

Is it asking too much that they also come up with a non-Bayer microlens array that obviates AA filters?

The bad thing about the Sony NEX sseries is the thin body.

Having the short flange focal distance with the (relatively) large sensor means the lens has to bend light more, so it can project an image onto the entire sensor. This results in greater chromatic aberration and greater field curvature (softer corners.) As a result, any E-Mount lens performs less well and costs more than an equivalent A-Mount lens used on Sony’s Alpha series of cameras. This is a problem that can not go away.

The only solution is to go with lenses from other mounts, but that means having an autofocus, autoexposure camera, and only using manual focus and manual exposure. The only exceptions are Sony’s own A-Mount to E-Mount adapters which make a NEX camera bigger, heavier, and more expensive than an equivalent Alpha camera.

I think Sony Corporate decided what the NEX line would be, and Sony Digital Imaging came through the best way it could, but the result is a kludge.

I agree with all of what you said, but I was trying to point out that there is some controversy about what might be applied in raw data, not just in-camera jpg. As an OM-D shooter using the 12-35 as my go to lens, I plan on doing a bit of correction in raw. My concern is that all distortion and edge corrections come at a reduction in resolution. I want to decide when that happens in my work. I know a lot of people don’t care, though.

Roger

I’m sure a lot of people have mentioned this “factual correction” on any number of other blog postings where you have mentioned Micro 4/3rd, but I’ll mention it again. The m43 standard includes provision for geometry distortion characteristics to be stored in the lens firmware and to be communicated back to the body. So any lens with electrical connections (even those Sigma primes) on any body will correct for barrel/pincushion.

There is additional provision for individual manufacturers to store additional lens data in the lens firmware, and have the bodies use that data. So far it seems Olympus hasn’t used this part of the standard. Panasonic have – they store Lateral CA data in their lenses, and their bodies can use this to do in body Lateral CA correction for JPEGs and tag this info in the metadata of RAW files.

This seems to have lead Panasonic to compromise on how much Lateral CA their lenses create, since it won’t affect those lenses used on Panasonic bodies. This is causing one hell of a stink on the DPReview forums, mainly from EM-5 owners that have bought the 12-35mm X lens and find it fringes all over the place…

Though if there’s someone protecting analog mechanical era legacy that’s Canon and Nikon. Sure hope others will eat Canikon’s lunch, dinner and supper, that would serve them right for pulling parking brakes of technology for decade to lock people into SLR legacy systems dominated by them.
Nikon 1 is obvious case and overhyped Canon’s EOS-M is 650D’s electronics coupled to controls and ergonomics of IXUS serie, more precisely to lack of them which doesn’t need any innovation. Which shouldn’t be surprise considering Canon even lacked bridge/prosumer digicams before time of cheap DSLRs.

And Fuji’s claim to fame and hype around it is as fresh thinking as corpse of certain Joseph Vissarionovich.
I consider camera as utilitarian tool and X-Pro 1′s design is made around design limitations of analog mechanical tech and piece of plank form factor.
Why on Earth should camera’s design be fixated to limitations of single old tech?
That’s same as making cars according to blueprints of horse wagons!

Same really for Olympus putting excellent tech in sensor and stabilization into retro OM-D… Those positions of dials didn’t come from studies of best ergonomics but from getting around mechanical limitations of using film.
Also almost completely centered retro position for lens mount/viewfinder just makes nose hit to body/display.
Moving lens mount/viewfinder to body’s left edge like in those 2003-2004 era bridge/prosumers which were more innovative than any current mirrorless body would solve that and keep viewfinder lined with lens.

And Samsung… Their management seems fixated to photography meaning ability to send snapshots directly to Facebook.
Maybe they’ll make also that Android camera with all the problems of computers and smartphones so that you can play Angry Birds during sending of those snapshots.

Great minds think alike We’ve actually been looking into some subscription based models for those who just love trying everything.

I got shot down on my “Lens of the month club” idea, though.

Roger

I ditched my entire Nikon DSLR system after realizing that for my style of photography, mobility trumps a huge accessory lineup. Currently I’ve got a small Micro 4/3 system and I’m happy. But that’s now. The various mirrorless systems roughly are at parity right now in terms of overall picture quality — one a bit ahead here, another a bit ahead there — but as you alluded, within a year or two someone may open up a big lead on the pack. The problem is that we don’t know who!

This makes me very reluctant to invest much more in M4/3 lenses than I already have… and every other mirrorless user is basically in the same leaky boat. If the system you pick today becomes an also-ran, your lenses are going to be worth zilch on eBay. I don’t mind spending a thousand bucks every couple of years for a significantly better-performing camera… but if I have to write off several thousand dollars worth of lenses at the same time, that’s painful enough to make me think twice.

So, the next couple of years could be very good for Roger’s business! Maybe you should make it like Adobe Creative Cloud — we could just pay a monthly fee and you’d send us whatever lens we need at the moment for whatever camera we’re using right now…

Now look a Pentax and think Lieca of old. The Pentax body is big, it lets you mount the old lenses with the old lens formulas. But you can design new lenses that are either folding into the body for walking around (like many Lieca folding lenses) or you can design them to be in the body for when shooting as well. The Rear glass element can be designed really close to the sensor (made for APSC) and the overall lens is very small. Also your telephoto lenses that need to be further from the sensor to work, can now fold into the camera for pocketablity when walking around. I really hope Pentax (whom are excellent lens makers) will capitalize on this and make a very small telephoto system.

The other advantage that Pentax has you do comment on. They can toss a full 135 sensor in the camera and please people that want it. Then fold wide angle say 35mm lens into the body and now you have an amazing system that might shift sales away from the NEX full frame system rumored. Also it gives you clearance for Image stabilization that the Sony can’t offer.

One last thing, your thoughts and articles are so good. I do check this sight almost daily to see what up. Thank you for your thoughts.

I re-read “Autofocus Reality Part 3A: Canon Lenses”. As for the standard Canon 50mm f1.4 prime, you measured : LV SD = 9 and AF SD = 34. Ouch !!!

Well, I may be mistaken but I presume that OM-D EM-5 + Panasonic Leica 25mm f1.4 is better than 5D MArk III + Canon 50mm f1.4. I think this lens is in dire need of replacement…

For street photography for instance, what’s the point having a 5D Mark III if you misfocused so many shots. Unfortunately, I don’t do solely street photography otherwise I guess the OM-D EM-5 would be the right choice.

Can’t wait to see LV vs AF standard deviation of Nikon’s 50mm lenses That would just be a good reason for me to pick one camera over the other…

I wish I knew the answer to that, but I’m still doing the AF research right now. That’s a huge project, and I’m not sure even when it’s done if I’ll know the answer. But I’m going to try to figure that out.

Roger