Jeff ... have you upped the Nex firmware to ver 03? Sony NEX firmware 03 first impressions: Digital Photography Review

Major improvement, and has made the Nex very friendly to photographers.

I had not. I assumed it had the latest version coming from Amazon the end of December but I should have checked.

I'm not sure if this is a problem across the board, but I've had more problems uploading to SmugMug than to Flickr through LR3. Whenever I try to upload to SmugMug, it would often timeout, making me repeat the process few times until all photos are updated. This doesn't result in other problems (e.g., duplicates, lost photos) but it's still rather annoying.

^^^ Not SmugMug, but I have had problems uploading to PhotoBucket from LR3. Same issue(s) ... sometimes works fine, sometimes times out after 1 or 2 photos exported. Only difference I see is that the SmugMug plugin comes with LR, but the PB one is 3rd party. Annoying, no?

I am finally getting around to using the Canon CPS Equipment Evaluation program. I should have two loaner lenses delivered by the end of the month just in time for a little vacation. This is pretty nice, you just e-mail them the gear you want, bodies, lenses, etc. and you get a quick reply telling you when it will be delivered.

More from Times Square

Weather Channel personality on location.

Father Duffy with a Snowhawk

City worker taking a break from sweeping up puddles of water.

Out of Towners?

Canon Fan

Nobody's playing Ping Pong in Bryant Park tonight.

Took some shots of the blizzard this afternoon, and a few more this evening.

The night photos could have come out better. After spending an hour outside shoveling and another hour taking pix, I wasn't interested in spending any more time trying to get the shots I wanted. Fun fact: The second and third photos were taken with the EF 75-300mm F/4-5.6 III USM, which is largely regarded as the worst zoom lens Canon makes. Perverse bastard that I am, I enjoy squeezing good shots out of it.

Jeez, Blizzard! It's going to be 73 degrees here in SoCal tomorrow. Took a few photo's tonight at warm dusk.

Nice shots, guys. My plan of going out there to get some shots went out the window after shoveling for over two hours and it didn't stop snowing sideways around here until 8pm. I tried cranking up the ISO and handholding a long-ish shutter speed, but it didn't work too well. I really need to get myself a tripod.

I'm really interested in the sony nex-5. What's the effective range of the 18-55?

I'm really interested in the sony nex-5. What's the effective range of the 18-55?

27-82,5 mm

Have you used one indra?

No not extensively. Handled them at work a couple of times, the panoramic mode works surprisingly well, the photos seem really nice but haven't been in any circumstances to test the low-light performances and such, i.e. which would make it interesting.

Dan, the 18-55 is a good lens for typical shooting. The 16 is nice for indoors but not as good of a lens. I have not tried the big lenses or the adapter so I cannot speak to how it would do with non-kit lenses. High ISO seems to be handled very, very well by the NEX 5.

I'm really interested in the sony nex-5. What's the effective range of the 18-55?

27-82,5 mm

Dan ... yes, 35mm full frame equivalent is 27 - 83mm for the 18-55 on the Nex (1.5 crop factor for APS C sensor).

I just shot a couple of sequences at 18, 28, 35, and 55mm from the 18-55 on the Nex 5 for you. That is like 27, 42, 52, and 82 on a ff. Note that there is nothing artistic or interesting - shot in terrible mid day sun just outside my place. All are @ iso 200, f/16, with shutters from 1/125 - 1/320.

Posted up on PhotoBucket here:

Thanks Gene! I just listed my (konica minolta) 7d on craigslist...

Dan ... note that you can use many legacy lenses from Minolta, Nikon, Canon, Leica, etc, etc with the Nex using appropriate adapters, so if you have any good Minolta glass, you may want to hold onto it. Manual focus only, but auto exposure in aperture priority mode. If using Sony/Minolta autofocus lenses, will autofocus too, but that adapter is pricey ($195 vs $25-50 for others).

Some shots from New Year's Eve:

That one is assembled as a triptych, but I had to resize and post it to Imgur to get an image of the width I wanted. Flickr is a little too clever for its own good sometimes. Click through any of the images (including the one hosted on imgur) to get to the Flickr page and see tags, EXIF, etc. Moar later, probably.

I'm really interested in the sony nex-5. What's the effective range of the 18-55?

It's a great little camera. The weak point is the lack of native lenses. As the others have noted, you can use many non-native lenses with adapters, but it still leaves you a bit lacking if you need AF or very wide angles.

If Sony had a series of small, fast, pancake primes, the Nex system would be a home run, and the best small cameras on the market by far. Instead, they have focused on larger zoom lenses, which somewhat defeat the point of having such a small camera body.

My Canon 85mm F/1.2L arrived. Just testing Bokeh (at F/2.2 though).

And it's as HEAVY as it looks, not to mention the weird AF slowness, slower than Canon's own 85mm F/1.8.

^ Probably has something to do with the need to move 2 pounds worth of glasses. The original 85/1.2 L was appearently even slower.

Yeah I thought the Sigma 85 was a bit slow but compared to the Canon it is an F1 race car.

but the 85 1.2 is a portrait lens. You're definitely giving up speed for image.

but the 85 1.2 is a portrait lens. You're definitely giving up speed for image.

I need to re-evaluate if I indeed "need" this lens at this price. It is indeed a bit too long for my usual shooting style on my 1.6x body, but it's perfect on my full frame film camera. Thus, I may need to look at Canon's 50 F/1.2L (which many say isn't nearly as stellar as 85 F/1.2L) or just get a used 5D mkii I must say the 85 F/1.2 images indeed have that special something, I think the combination of incredible sharpness and profoundly dreamy bokeh, that makes me want to keep it, or something like it...

BTW. For daylight landscape, would Canon 70-200mm F/4L set at 80mm say F6-8 be actually better than 85 F/1.2L set at same settings??