Would you buy a full frame NEX and why?

Of course. Assuming good picture quality, a small, light body (very small and very light, compared to a dSLR), the ability to adapt millions of 135-format lenses...I would go for it. As for the cost: years ago, the Nikon D700 came out at a relatively "reasonable" price, around $2,500 on the street. So maybe Sony can keep a full-frame NEX under $2,000 - but this probably is wishful thinking.

And no, I don't have to always look through a hole in the side of the camera, despite my admiration for rangefinder cameras as mechanical objects. 🙂
 
Emacs said:
To everything (except XPro-1, of course 😀) once you decided to look at edges and corners. It doesn't prevent from taking great photos, but this camera has too much flaws and looks more like a reject than a reliable tool.
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You are aware edge and corner performance has nothing to do with the camera body, right?
 
jsrockit said:
Are you sure this is correct with digital cameras?
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I've never seen anything to the contrary. Edge performance can be an issue with certain close registration lens mounts on digital (ala Leica M wideangles) and bad lenses will be bad lenses, but I've never seen or experienced any sensor related edge issues.
 
IMHO, for those having their own lens manufacturing/subcontraction it is unlikely to introduce a FF mirrorless with the M-mount; so neither Sony, nor Fujifilm or Nikon, Canon can deal with such an idea; it's not feasible at all. If there would be any FF mirrorless with the M-mount, then again this must be expected from Leica or Zeiss/Cosina. I'm afraid that Ricoh could probably not even amortize their former investment on the APS-C yet.
 
No, I wouldn't.
What would I need that for?
My four E-mount lenses are only usable on APS, I do not own a wide-angle M-mount lens, so my rangefinder lenses are "tele" lenses on my NEX anyway and for wide-angle shots I can use manual SLR lenses. Apart from that the "problems" of the APS sensor with RF wide-angle lenses are serious enough. 😉
I like my NEX-7 the way it is!

(And I could not use my Pentax-110 and my C-mount Fujian on a FF NEX. 😉)
 
No, I wouldn't buy one.

The corner performance with legacy lenses is already problematic at APS-C size, and to get good corner performance at FF size* you must resort to telecentric lens designs, which mean bulk — and the larger the image circle, the greater the bulk. APS-C lenses are alredy significantly bigger than micr 4/3. By the time you're at FF dimensions, you've pretty much ditched a major reason for going mirrorless.

And APS-C sensor performance is adequate for nearly all applications that require a smaller camera, as the superb performance of cameras like the Nikon D7000 and Fuji XPro1 — both of them essentially equal in performance to a FF D700 — demonstrate.

*The M9 uses a CCD with custom microlenses. No one has yet made a FF camera with a CMOS sensor that works well with non-telecentric lenses. Might happen, but hasn't yet. Note that the XPro1 has resolution at least as good as the M9 and high ISO performance that makes the M9 look like a toy. I do not anticipate that CCD sensors will catch up with CMOS sensors, especially at plausible price points.
 
The issue, as I see it, is simple: what does Sony get out of making a camera body that you can slap your Leica lenses on?

Camera bodies exist (to manufacturers) to sell lenses. The only reason Nikon and Canon went FF is to continue selling (or re-sell to those who went APS-C in the early digital days) their "legacy" lenses.

Full-frame NEX? Forget about it.
 
boomguy57 said:
The only reason Nikon and Canon went FF is to continue selling (or re-sell to those who went APS-C in the early digital days) their "legacy" lenses.
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IMO other reason was that they needed upper category dSLR's for pro's and enthusiast. and just these same enthusiasts keep on bringing this subject up, where's the full frame mirrorless system? 🙂
 
Lenses to sell bodies?

Lenses to sell bodies?

Funny,

I am a once and done type of person. I like to buy the right lenses once (I do not care who makes them) and the camera body is secondary to me, only something I slap a lens on and that records the image that I discard after a few years in favor of newer technology. Lenses are a much more long term investment if they are of the highest quality. Even if you have a Nikon or Canon, if you lets say bought top of the line lenses years ago, I am sure you would only be interested in buying a camera body once in a while, not changing entire lines of lenses to make the manufacturer happy.
 
Ken Ford said:
I've never seen anything to the contrary. Edge performance can be an issue with certain close registration lens mounts on digital (ala Leica M wideangles) and bad lenses will be bad lenses, but I've never seen or experienced any sensor related edge issues.
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You seem pretty self confident so I won't spoil your confidence. I would just advise you to do a little search on sensor glass cover thickness, AA filters, microlenses... etc. You may also want to search the difference in the corner performance with the same lenses between Nex 5N and 7, and add to that the GXR M module as an example for excellent performance. Let me know if you still believe the sensor has nothing to do with edge issues.
 
Sure, eleskin, but in buying lenses once, one probably shouldn't expect any maker to cater to that set of lenses, outside of the manufacturer of those lenses.

Also, Stuart, a 35mm mirrorless wouldn't necessarily need a larger registration distance than Nex. The manufacturer could just make the lenses longer, instead.
 
dito

dito

craygc said:
It'll happen once the APS-C mirrorless market plateaus off and manufacturers look for the next wave of generating enthusiasm in the must have crowd.

As much as I'll concur that APS-C is more than sufficient for image quality in the small format arena, it does nothing for my ability to use Leica glass for the AoV I purchased it for - and as much as I know the manufacturers couldn't care less, its my only criteria for consideration. I'll also guarantee when it does happen, the price will be an order of magnitude below the ridiculous prices Leica expects - yeah, I prefer the rangefinder for focusing but I can live without it for the current cost. One other point I'll make after some experience; I would always take the separate external electronic viewfinder that pivots over the build in one (ie. NEX 5n vs 7) any day. That range of adjustment for viewing is just invaluable in use.
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I agree with what CraigC wrote. Only addition is my hope that the external viewfinder attaches with a different mechanism than the current must-have-great-dexterity screw 🙁
 
I am less excited about a full frame mirrorless non-RF than I would be about a digital RF, full frame or not. To me, shooting an RF is all about -- for lack of a better term -- the "intimacy" of the RF experience.
 
rxmd said:
I don't know what "foreshortened" means, but if you mean that there is a difference in perspective, relative size and location of fore- and background etc. between a normal lens on a 24x36 sensor and the equivalent normal lens on a crop sensor, you're wrong.

This has been shown over and over again here and on other sites. You can try it yourself. Put a 50 on your full frame camera and take a picture, then put a 35 on the same full frame camera and take a picture, and then crop the 35 shot to the field of view of the 50 shot. Just do it.

And this is not why "medium format still thrives". Medium and large format thrives because of the detail and colour and/or grayscale rendition that you get from a large negative. This is also beginning to be true for full frame.

The only actual difference is depth of field behaviour, which is somewhat different, but not much. You can compensate for that by building faster lenses, which can be smaller due to the smaller image circle. The emergence of things like 25/f0.95 and 17/f0.95 lenses is evidence enough that full frame is being displaced.
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Edit : I have just done this and I have to eat humble pie. I can see where my thinking was incorrect. This is quite a revelation to me. Thanks for that. You just made me more likely to buy a camera!!

Why does a cropped 6x6 frame have less colour and/or greyscale rendition?

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something?

Pete
 
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