50 mm lenses on Sony Nex 6

Over time I have compared the performance of the Sony 16-50  kit lens supplied with the NEX 6 to that of old manual focus prime lenses that I have in my collection.

Is this a fair comparison, an image stabilised zoom against a manual focus prime? Well the zoom was designed and manufactured in the 21st century and the old primes in the 1960s. Possibly 50 years between them.

Judge for yourself.

The overall view taken at a focal length of 50mm 

Below are 100% crops of the sign to the right of the lion.

Sony 16-50 at  f5.6

Zuiko 50mm f1.8 at  f5.6

Sony 16-50

Zuiko 50mm

Further testing - to investigate the influence of auto focus error on the results of the tests I conducted further experiments with the following parameters. Manual exposure, camera on tripod with 2 sec shutter delay. 3 shots for each situation, best chosen for comparison.

1) Sony at f8 autofocus 

2) Sony at f8 manual focus at f5.6 ( wide open)

3) Zuiko at f8 manual focus at f5.6 ( to match Sony)

Default processing in LR and PS. No adjustments made. Actual pixel crops from top left hand corner of image.

Sony f8 - manual focus (137kb)

Sony f8 Autofocus (137 kb)

Zuiko f8 (196 kb)

The manually focused Sony result is slightly better than that achieved by autofocus, but the Zuiko is clearly superior, both in terms of the JPG size, but also visually. Actually you don't need to do any of this testing as the Zuiko looks far better in the EVF!

More comparisons, Sony 16-50, Canon 24-105 and Pentax 50mm f1.7. Default conversions in LR and PS, no adjustments. Forget the colour temperatures, they can be adjusted easily enough, this is a test of sharpness and contrast.

Overall view ( Canon 24-105 on 5DII)

Actual pixel crops of top left corner. (Click for full size)

Pentax 50mm on NEX  (JPG size 187 KB)

Sony 16-50 on NEX (JPG size 142 KB)

Canon 24-105 on 5DII (JPG size 179 KB)

My pecking order would be Pentax 50mm f1,7, followed by Canon 24-105 with the Sony a poor third, but judge for yourself.

This test demonstrates quite nicely why I prefer to carry a lightweight Sony NEX 6 rather than have the Albatross of a Canon 5D11 around my neck!

Sunderland Steam Spectacular

Billed as Sunderland Steam Spectular, this event is taking place in Herrington Country Park, just over the road from Penshaw Monument. The photo below is a stiched panorama taken from the monument. Click for an enlarged view.

I can count five full sized steam vehicles, not what I would call Spectacular, but I guess that they have to start somewhere. This was taken at the start of play on Sunday morning, so it is possible that more steamers arrived during the day. 

Having peered in from above I elected not to spend the £6 entrance fee, or £15 for a family. I suspect, but don't know for sure, that the various fairground rides would incur a further charge, so a pretty expensive outing for a family for what is a fairly limited display.

Beamish steam weekend, by contrast, is on a far greater scale and easily worth the annual membership.

I can only hope that, if they do this again, it will be more truly "spectacular".

Sony NEX 6 Pentax 200mm f4

Consett To Broom Park - Cycle Ride

Later this year the people who volunteer for the sustainable transport charity Sustrans in the north east are getting together for a weekend away. This "Festivol" will include a number of organised cycle rides. My wife, Carol, is the coordinator of the local Coast to Coast (C2C)  group of Sustrans rangers, and we agreed to lead one of the rides.

Prior to any organised Sustrans event you have to recce the route and note any possible hazards, before completing a risk assessment.

Accordingly, this weekend we rode the proposed route, from Consett towards Langley Park along the Lanchester Valley path, over the ridge there and down onto the Deerness Valley path to Broompark, near Durham, and so back along the Lanchester path to Consett.

The route, designed by fellow Sustrans Ranger Doug Ridgway, can be seen here

Coffee stop at a recently opened and very nice cafe in Langley Park - a place coming up in the world

The route climbs high above Langley Park and this photo shows a view across the town, with new houses in the foreground. Carol's uncle was a miner at the pit in Langley Park, he would be very surprised to see what has happened here, were he able to return.

The route follows the Deerness Valley path to beyond Broompark, where there was a complex railway intersection, Relly Mill Junction. Traffic free paths now occupy most of the old lines, but the East Coast Main Line still passes through near to this point.

We had come down the Deerness Valley from the rear centre of this photo, and would be continuing along towards Lanchester. The path off to the left goes to Bishop Auckland, while that to the right leads through a car park and into Durham City via Neville's Cross. Later on there is a better traffic free route into the city. 

The disused railway lines in north east England  provide a wonderful network of safe cycle paths.

The scenery along the Lanchester Valley path looks lovely when the sun shines. Not everyone likes the strong yellow colour of oil seed rape, but I think it makes an attractive picture.

Lanchester is the place to live in these parts, never a pit village and with an adjacent Roman Fort, it is one of the nicer spots in Co. Durham. 

We returned along the Lanchester Valley path to Lygett's Junction ( another old railway intersection), just outside Consett.

Nothing now remains of the once extensive steelworks at Consett, save two old bogie ladle wagons.

Terris Novalis a stainless steel sculpture depicting a level and theodolite, complete with obliging resting cyclist, Consett.

Sony NEX 6 16-50 Sony lens

Great North Steam Fair - Beamish Museum 2014

I try to get along to this annual event every year, and look out for new things to photograph, so not many steam machine shots this time!

Four different varieties of steam wagon.

Tried my hand at panning - need to use a slightly lower shutter speed - despite choosing ISO 100 and f8, the background blur is not as pronounced as I would have liked. Probably needs to be sub 1/100th for these relatively slow vehicles. I believe that this is a 1903 Ariel motorcycle.

Hold on to your hat, 1927 Star Motors car

Smiling lady cyclist on vintage bicycle, my favourite shot of the day.

Meccano models of the locos that competed in the Rainhill Trials by Fred Thompson

Sony NEX 6, probably Pentax 28mm f3.5 K and (Samsung) 35mm f2

Steam Train Specials

Why is it that there are very rarely any special steam trains running in the north east, but when they do arrive, like buses, there are two of them?  Yesterday saw "The Wansbeck" topped and tailed by two locos, 62005 and 61264, and "The Hadrian" hauled by 46115 Scots Guardsman.

The weather was horrible, totally unsuitable for photography, with mist, dullness, mizzle and not at all very warm. I stood for an age perched precariously on a wall in Chester-le-Street to capture the Wansbeck crossing the viaduct, and it arrived 30 mins late. By that time I had just about lost the feeling in my fingers, but managed to press the shutter. Having got the excuses out of the way, here are a couple of shots.

K1 2-6-0 62005 heads the train

B1 4-6-0 61264 brings up the rear

And so to Hexham to catch the Hadrian. The light was very slightly better and the train arrived a bit early, which meant that it was stopped in Hexham station to allow a local passenger service to get through. Unfortunately this meant that power was cut off before the station so my vision of a dramatic exhaust filled sky shot evaporated with the steam. However...

(Zuiko 50mm f1.8)

Royal Scot class 4-6-0 46115 Scots Guardsman

I enjoyed watching this powerful loco accelerate its heavy train away from the platform, sure footed without a trace of wheelspin,  from the viewpoint of the footbridge.  

Sony NEX 6 Pentax 28mm K f3.5 and Zuiko 50mm f1.8

Newcastle upon Tyne Panorama

I had seen the opportunity for this shot earlier in the year, but then the sun was too low in the sky to illuminate enough of the middle distance.

I had taken a few test shots and decided that the best strategy was to stitch a series of vertical format images together. I have a good solid Manfrotto tripod with both pistol grip ball and pan and tilt heads, but this journey was by bicycle and I selected instead my aged and lightweight Velbon unit. I normally use it to support a flashgun for product shots, it's not in the same league as the Manfrotto, but neither is it too heavy to carry on a bike!

As always with panoramas, I used manual exposure to help ensure even tones across the image and, on this occasion, shot using a 2 second time delay. From memory I think 5 photos were stitched together to produce the panorama.

I would have liked to have included more of the High Level bridge, to the left, but it is obscured by trees from this viewpoint.

The original is 9642 x 4953 pixels, giving a print 32 inches long at the optimum 300 dpi printing  resolution, but, for practical purposes and sensible viewing distance, it would print probably more than double that size.

Actual pixels crop, just a touch of CA but good definition

Sony NEX 6 Samsung Schneider D-Xenogon (Pentax) 35mm f2

Tyneside Bike Ride

Trying to shake off a persistent cold, I decided to go on a circular bike ride, from Washington to North Shields, across the Tyne ferry to South Shields and along the coast to Sunderland, and so home along the Wear valley. The first part of the journey to Gateshead and across the Millennium footbridge passed without notable incident.

This is St Peter's basin, a modern marina on the north  bank of the river Tyne to the east of Newcastle that occupies the site of the former Hawthorn Leslie engineering works where I was once employed. Coincidentally I met an ex colleague here, and agreed to share e-mail addresses.

An offshore structure being constructed at the Hadrian yard of Offshore Group Newcastle.

Men working perilously high on the structure.

Pentax 75-150 f4 M

I believe that the cylindrical things attached to the main structure are sacrificial anodes, designed to reduce corrosion of the steel work.

The observation tower at the Roman site Segedumun at Wallsend. (Roman or Hadrian's wall's end!)

The graceful Victorian iron railway viaduct over Willington Dene

Sigma 19mm f2.8

The marina at Royal Quays (The Albert Edward Dock) in North Shields.

Taking the Shields ferry I crossed from North to South Shields. The open air market in South Shields

I had a brief chat with this lady selling copies of the Shields Gazette. She told me that her contemporaries based in Newcastle had recently been paid off. I bought a Gazette and took her photo. It transpired that her brother had taken a photography course and she knew not to stare at the camera.

For the last few miles I had become aware that all was not well with my Brompton bicycle, there was an ominous thud coming from the rear wheel. Inspection revealed a swelling of the tyre, which caused me to abandon my original plan and take to the Metro, which carried me to South Hylton about 3.5 miles from home. On arrival there the tyre was completely flat, with a large tear in the casing. A phone call  brought my wife to the rescue and home in the car.

Sony Nex 6, various lenses.