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Matsu
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2011-03-24, 18:24

The first NEX cameras follow a very Japanese consumer electronics design aesthetic, but the technologies they're using have a great deal of promise. When they decide utilize traditional camera ergos they can. Look at the full frame A900 and A850 bodies. Very nice.

The NEX is almost too small in the grip, height and depth, but it's been paired back (IMHO) less in an effort to make it unobtrusive and more so to highlight the "mirrorlessness" of it.

If a system like NEX comes along and gives us nothing more than a handful of fast AF primes and a large sensor on a fast operating camera. I'm sold.

If I were building it, I would start with a 35mm equivalent f/1.4 prime. This FOV gives about the same width in the frame as distance to the subject. I didn't know why I was getting so many good shots at this equivalent focal length until I stumbled on this tidbit, and it's opened up a world of shooting opportunities for me. It turns out that with the camera at 35mm (23-24 on DX) I was always standing in the right place, but with that little heuristic in mind, I got lots of angles in my head for 24, 28 and 50mm. A 28 gives about 1/4 more width, a 24, about a 1/2; a 50, about a 1/4 less width, etc Though its probably impractical to think of lengths past 70-75, which give about 1/2 the width in the frame as distance to the subject. But it's also useful if you're zooming with your feet. A big step back while zooming from 35-50 produces the same framing while changing the perspective.

It's not at all stuff you don't already know and experience just by looking through the viewfinder anyway, but I find it incredibly useful for anticipating shots, just to keep that in mind - using 35 (or it's equivalent) as a reference.

What does this have to do with something like NEX? Maybe nothing, except that it points in the right direction of a modern street camera, if they'd only get the right handful of lenses: a 24, 28, 35, and 50, all f/2 or faster.

I'm talking about a modern spiritual successor to a rangefinder, but not necessarily its physical shape or limitations. Something with autofocus, small, discrete, top quality lenses, and an EVF*

The market might be limited, but that's OK, because a modern EVF ILC can co-exist in an ecosystem with hybrid video zooms and consumer lenses for things like the NEX3/5

*of particular interest is the EVF. Once we can free ourselves from having to lift the camera to our eyes, we've got a whole other world of perspectives to explore in candid photography, not just tripod mounted static subject shots. Even just subtle stuff, waist level candids snapped on the go.

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