I had no intentions of picking up a lens today, but given the lazy Sunday and nothing really going on shopping seemed the only legitimate way of killing time. I met up with my friend Ephraim who’s visiting from Tokyo (but soon to be transplanted) and tried to hit up the usual used/legacy lens dealers. This included Shogun (closed) as well as the sketchy little mall beside The One. Most of the stores inside that mall were closed but we popped into the lone store that was open. I usually go to the ends researching stuff before buying. Call it force of habit, or just a general knack for getting as much info as possible, it was a bit weird as I started running through a series of 50mm lenses that I had never really looked into. The Voigtlander 35mm f/1.4 Nokton is a great lens and all given what I use it for, but I was getting a little bored of the focal length.

Aside from the eventual Minolta MC Rokkor 50mm f/1.4 I settled on, I gave several Olympus and Ricoh lenses a spin. I eventually settled on the Minolta cause of construction (it’s a tank!) and I felt that the overall center sharpness at f/1.4 was better than most of the other ones (not all were 50mm f/1.4s). Some were a lot cheaper as well as but the condition of the lenses were reflective that with pretty hazy glass. The numbers on the focus/aperture ring are a bit grimey but the overall glass is in pretty pristine order. The hood is just a cheap screw-in one I bought on my way home at Ap Lei Street in Sham Shui Po. Asthetically I’d prefer the cut-out style hood as seen on the Voigtlander but they are unavailable after the 52mm filter size.

While I lose the compact factor of the 35mm by a substantial amount, the shorter minimum focusing distance makes the lens much more usable in many circumstances (a.k.a. Taking pics of food haha). The MD – NEX adapter is actually quite long and effectively doubles the size of the set-up. The virtually useless OEM flash looks ridiculous in this context as well, and I’ll probably take it off since I rarely use it.

Another thing I’ll talk about is the newly updated Sony NEX firmware v4’s focus peaking. It’s essentially the ONLY new function I cared about with the update. The video above details what exactly it encompasses. It’s a new feature that is a huge boost for manual lens users. As you begin finding focus, areas that are sharp will turn a certain color. The color is user chosen between white/red/yellow with three different levels of peaking including low/mid/high. As I’m sure many predicted, you don’t need to use MF (Manual Focus) Assist as much anymore. The focus peaking isn’t 100%, and I have had a few shots where I’ve missed focus (instances where virtually the WHOLE screen is marked and I assumed I was good to go) but generally if you see something change it’s almost guaranteed. Some images have a greater propensity for more obvious peaking and others maybe just a sliver. But overall, the NEX series with focus peaking is a powerhouse platform for digital meets legacy lens set-ups.

-Eugene