Super Camera Shootout - Battle of the 35mm

This is a comparison of three very different camera packages, each delivering a high quality 35mm equivalent field of view.

Our first contender is the Nikon D600, equipped with the Sigma ART 35mm F/1.4. The D600 is Nikon's first affordable full-frame DSLR, with a 24 megapixel sensor and relatively small body for a full frame camera. The Sigma ART 35mm is widely acknowledged as an excellent lens, rated above both Nikon and Canon equivalents.

Our second contender is the Sony A7 with Sony Zeiss 35mm F/2.8. This is the smallest full-frame autofocus interchangeable lens camera package you can get with 35mm equivalent view. Also a high quality 24 megapixel sensor and a body so small that you can't believe it's full frame. The Zeiss has also been very well received and reviewed, with many praising it for sharpness, but also complaining about lack of large aperture.

The last is a bit older, which is the Sony NEX-7 equipped with the Sony Zeiss 24mm F/1.8. This still comes in lighter weight and smaller than the Sony A7 package, but of course it is only APS-C crop frame. The Zeiss lens has also been well reviewed, with the common complaint just being it is too expensive for what it is. A 24mm F/1.8 makes it pretty much equivalent to a 35mm F/2.8 in terms of depth-of-field equivalence.

Camera Comparison - Nikon D600, Sony A7, Sony NEX-7

General Sharpness

The test scene was shot from a tripod, under relatively consistent lighting conditions, and the following parameters:

• All 24 megapixel sensors.
• 35mm equivalent field of view prime lenses.
• ISO 100, for best possible quality.
• Aperture priority mode, set to F/2.8.
• Shutter speed selected by the camera's own metering.
• Autofocus using live-view, targeting the camera test chart centre.

Here are the individual shots, and will be followed with 100% crop comparisons.

Nikon D600 with Sigma ART 35mm - General Scene

Sony A7 with Zeiss 35mm - General Scene

Sony NEX-7 with Zeiss 24mm - General Scene

The first 100% crop comparison focuses into the camera test chart. Each camera shows a bit of colour artefacting with the very dense lines on the page. The Sony NEX-7 is clearly inferior to the other two, with the image being softer.

Between the Sony A7 and Nikon D600, I'd slightly favour the A7, as it seems the lines and the texture of the paper are more crisp in the Sony A7 crop.

The colour artefacts are less wide-spread on the A7, but the area around the 6 mark is very obvious, whereas the D600 has artefacts that are less distracting. The NEX-7 with its general softness hides most of the colour issues.

100% Crop Comparison - Camera Test Chart Scene

The second comparison scene is also a 100% crop, focused on the Lego Simpsons car. This scene produces an obvious winner, with the Nikon D600 showing a much more sharp and crisp image. The Sony A7 and NEX-7 come in second and third respectively, again showing obvious performance differences.

With this level of difference between the D600 and A7, I'd suspect there may have been some minor differences in the focus.

100% Crop Comparison - Lego Simpsons Car

Dynamic Range

One other significant performance indicator that is important for me, is the dynamic range of the camera sensors. In previous comparisons, I had found the D600 to have a clear performance improvement over the NEX-7, probably attributed to the fact that the full frame sensor simply has more area to work with. This raises the question whether the A7, also with a full frame 24 megapixel sensor, could be better.

The follow comparison was done with the following parameters:

• Lights off
• Wii U Gamepad with screen on
• Manual exposure settings, ISO 100, F/2.8, shutter speed 0.5 seconds.
• Lightroom post-processing with +100 Shadow Recovery, -50 Highlight Recovery, + 1.0 exposure.

Nikon D600 - Dark Dynamic Exposure Test

Sony A7 - Dark Dynamic Exposure Test

Sony NEX-7 - Dark Dynamic Exposure Test

The results from this test first confirm that the NEX-7 is at a disadvantage, with much higher noise in the shadow areas, serious colour shift towards green, and unable to recover the text displayed on the Wii U gamepad.

The Nikon D600 still manages to defeat the Sony A7, with better controlled noise around the shadow areas. Recovery of the blown highlights on the Wii U gamepad seem equal, although slightly sharper on the D600.

For reference, this is what the scene looked like before any post-processing:

Dark Dynamic Exposure Test, as shot without post-processing

Conclusions

Cameras are getting better every day, and the Sony A7 was a significant breakthrough in getting a full frame interchangeable camera into such a small package. The performance champion in this comparison is still the Nikon D600, if size is no issue. Also keep in mind that the D600 itself is still a pretty small package for a full frame DSLR.

For my own shooting preferences, I have found that the Sony A7 satisfies my photographic needs 90% of the time, and that's what I'm carrying most often.

Size comparison of the Nikon D600, Sony A7, and Sony NEX-7

Sony NEX 10-18mm Lens Shootout

Having recently obtained a Sony NEX E-mount 10-18mm F/4.0 wide angle zoom lens, I decided to do a bit of a shootout between it and other comparable lenses in my arsenal.

Pictured below is the 10-18mm F/4 mounted on a Sony NEX-7.

The lenses that it will be compared to today, are the:

• Sony E-mount 18-200mm F/3.5-6.3 Super Zoom @ 18mm
• Sony E-mount 16mm F/2.8 Prime, with and without the VCL-ECU1 (0.75x converter)

18mm View - Full Scene

First up, the comparison at 18mm (or 16mm for the prime). Click on each photo for larger view.

At the full scene scale, there are some obvious differences. First up, of course the 16mm lens will be giving a slightly wider view. Both the 10-18mm and the 16mm give a pretty similar image, while the 18-200mm shows a lot more barrel distortion (where the centre of the photo appears to be bulging out). However, a clear winner in sharpness is also the 18-200mm, which is much more obvious in the cropped comparison below.

18mm View - Centre Crop

Below we look at a 100% crop near the centre of the frame. 

The 10-18mm is a bit blurry, while both the 18-200mm zoom and the 16mm prime do a decent job at sharpness. The 16mm appears to be a little bit more crisp than the 18-200mm, but it's hard to judge whether this is actual sharpness, or rather the fact that things are a little bit smaller here (due to the 16mm POV compared to 18mm) making them appear sharper.

18mm View - Corner Crop

In a comparison of the 100% crop at the top-left corner, the 18-200mm has a significant edge in sharpness. Both the 10-18mm and the 16mm are completely blurry. Again, click on each photo for a larger view.

  

Here, I am especially impressed by the sharpness of the 18-200 super zoom. The leaves on the tree are sharp, and this is a 100% zoom on a 24 megapixel APS-C camera, which would be very demanding on a lens.

I'd also point out disappointment in the 10-18mm zoom, as the sharpness is even worse than the 16mm. I guess that while the 16mm is not known for its image quality, a prime lens is still easier to make than an ultra-wide zoom. 

Also note that the 16mm is not cropped to the extreme corner like the other 2 lenses, since the overall image was wider and I wanted to crop to the same view.

12mm View - Full Scene

Next, let's look at the performance at the wider end, which is really the reason why anyone would buy the 10-18mm lens anyway. For obvious reasons, the 18-200mm superzoom is excluded from this part, so the comparison is limited to the 16mm F/2.8 with the VCL-ECU1 0.75x wide converter which gives an equivalent view of 12mm.

There doesn't seem to be a lot to separate out these two lenses when viewing the full scene at 1600 pixel wide scale (ie, resized for internet consumption). From my eye, I think there is an edge in sharpness for the 10-18mm over the 16mm + converter. This is apparent in the centre trees, and also the wooden deck. The 10-18mm at 12mm also appears to be a tiny bit wider than the 16mm with converter.

12mm View - Centre Crop

As above, we have a closer look with 100% crops in the centre of the frame and the top-left corner.

Not a lot to separate the two lenses at a centre crop, where most lenses tend to perform the best. I'd pick the 10-18mm as being the sharper of the two, but the differences are not hugely apparent.

12mm View - Corner Crop

If I had to choose a favourite, I'd go with the 10-18mm, but really there's very little to separate the two lenses at a 100% crop in the corner. The flower seems quite similar, but I'd argue that the leaves in the bottom right corner of the crop are sharper in the 10-18mm.

For the sake of completeness, here's also a shot of the same scene at 10mm on the 10-18mm zoom.

Conclusions

In conclusion, the 10-18mm wide angle zoom is not perfect optically, but when you want an ultrawide angle zoom lens native on a Sony NEX system, this is the only choice. The performance at the wide angle definitely beats the 16mm prime with wide converter, but that is a much cheaper alternative. At the 18mm focal length, the 18-200mm superzoom would be the obvious choice for sharpness.

However, I also find that when you're shooting at extreme wide angles, having a zoom is very handy. In this focal length range, a small change in focal length has a huge impact on your composition and framing, so I definitely prefer having the convenience of a zoom as well as being able to walk closer or further from the subject.

To summarise: not perfect, but I still want it :)


Bonus shot, size comparison between these lenses:

[Updated 10/02/13 with centre 100% crops]

Shootout - The Sequel

This is a follow-up to the Shootout: Pentax Q vs Sony NEX-7 vs Nikon D600 that was reported previously. Following some feedback provided by readers on the methodology used in the previous shootout, a new test has been performed which hopefully improves upon the comparison.

For details regarding the test and cameras involved, please see the previous post:

Shootout - Pentax Q vs Sony NEX-7 vs Nikon D600

The following scene was shot under these conditions:

• Base ISO, which is ISO 100 for the NEX-7 and D600, and ISO 125 for the Pentax Q.
• Focal length approximately 50mm equivalent.
• Aperture of F/5.6.
• Focus achieved using contrast detect autofocus. 
• All shot in RAW format and processed to JPG using Lightroom with no corrections, except:
• White balance corrected in Lightroom.
• Exported at 1600 pixels wide.

The full test scene as shot on the Sony NEX-7, 50mm equivalent focal length.

The full test scene is shown in the photo above. I won't bother repeating this for the other two cameras, as you can't see much at this scale.

The following images were cropped to show the same view, and resized to 1600 pixels wide. This represents a 100% crop on the Pentax Q, and approximately 62% crop on the NEX-7 and D600. These cropping percentages apply only when image is viewed full size at 1600 pixels wide.

Pentax Q - Cropped to 100%

Sony NEX-7 - Cropped to 62%

Nikon D600 - Cropped to 62%

This is where we get to the meat of the review. Cropped to this scale, differences between the three cameras are more obvious.

We'll start with an assessment of the Pentax Q, the image is blurry and fuzzy. The colour reproduction is not too bad, but everything lacks clarity. A commenter on the previous Shootout review suggested that the Pentax Q may not have focused properly, so this time I tried to achieve good focus. Again I have not been able to shoot a sharp image under these conditions, so either this is the true performance of the sensor, or the autofocus is very unreliable. I did try autofocus multiple times, and also attempted manual focusing without much success.

The Sony NEX-7 and Nikon D600 do much better, as we'd expect. The small text appears slightly sharper in the D600 image compared to the NEX-7, but this advantage is offset by the obvious false colour being introduced into the image with the extreme details (such as the band of vertical lines at marker 6). Let's go for a closer crop for finer comparison, the following images are 100% crops from the D600 and the NEX-7.

Sony NEX-7 - Cropped to 100%

Nikon D600 - Cropped to 100%

These crops further reinforce the previous comments. The D600 shows sharper text but with the disadvantage of false colour in areas of extreme detail. The NEX-7 on the other hand handles those details in a more pleasing manner. This might suggest a weaker anti-aliasing filter on the D600 compared to the NEX-7. It should be noted that the NEX-7 has a higher pixel density than the D600, which may also be a factor in avoiding false colour arising from fine details.

Dynamic Range

The following image tests the dynamic range of the three cameras. Dynamic range refers to the ability of the camera sensor to capture both details in dark areas at the same time as bright areas (i.e. being able to see inside a cave while retaining correct exposure in brightly sun-lit areas).

A simple method was designed to test this performance measure. The room lighting is now set to a very dim level, and a bright light source is introduced into the image, which in this case is a cellphone screen. The image is exposed correctly for the cellphone, leaving the dark areas completely black. An attempt is then made during postprocessing to recover the shadow details.

Details for this image:

• Base ISO, which is ISO 100 for the NEX-7 and D600, and ISO 125 for the Pentax Q.
• Focal length approximately 50mm equivalent.
• Aperture of F/4.5, shutter speed of 0.3s.
• Focus achieved using contrast detect autofocus. 
• All shot in RAW format and processed to JPG using Lightroom, with:
• Shadow Recovery +100
• Exposure +2.0
• Colours (white balance) not corrected.
• Exported at 1600 pixels wide.

Sony NEX-7 - Exposure as Shot

Pentax Q - Exposure +2.0, Shadow Recovery +100

Sony NEX-7 - Exposure +2.0, Shadow Recovery +100

Nikon D600 - Exposure +2.0, Shadow Recovery +100

I won't bother offering too much comment on this test, as the results are very obvious. The Pentax is very noisy and has a purple cast to the shadow areas, no text is readable in the background. The Sony NEX-7 is slightly better, still a fair amount of noise and a green cast. The D600 performs much much better than both other competitors, with fairly good colour reproduction and some minor noise.


Conclusions

Again, we demonstrate that the Pentax Q is not a competitor to APS-C and full frame cameras. Of course, I would never expect it to be able to compete either. This series of tests does push the Pentax Q beyond its limits, and would not represent what the typical usage for this camera should be.

This version 2 shootout is more a comparison of the NEX-7 and the D600, both 24 megapixel cameras with very high expectations, except the D600 is full frame while the NEX-7 is cropped APS-C.

The D600 shows it is king of fine detail, being able to resolve the small text sharper than the NEX-7 does. However, it does also suffer from false colour in the extreme fine details, while the NEX-7 manages to handle it quite nicely.

The dynamic range test shows the D600 outperforming both competitors by several classes and would suggest it would have just as much advantage in real world shooting when both dark and bright areas are present in a single scene.

Shootout - Pentax Q vs Sony NEX-7 vs Nikon D600

Here we have a shootout comparison between three very different cameras, which are the minuscule Pentax Q, the Sony NEX-7, and the Nikon D600. First up, a brief description of the contenders and what makes them special.

The Pentax Q can be called the smallest interchangeable lens camera, outside of some toy or spy cameras which barely take pictures. It has a correspondingly small sensor size, common to many compact digital cameras.

Pentax Q with Pentax-01 Prime Lens (47mm equivalent)

The Sony NEX-7 is one of the enthusiast level mirrorless cameras available from Sony. Sony produced the first mirrorless APS-C sensor camera with the first generation NEX-3 and NEX-5 cameras, and the NEX-7 improves upon that formula with a digital viewfinder, more control dials, and a powerful 24 megapixel APS-C sensor.

Sony NEX-7 with Sony 18-200mm Zoom Lens

Pentax Q pictured next to a Sony NEX-7. The NEX-7, which is a small camera itself, completely dwarfs the Pentax Q (of course, the giant lens helps too).

The Nikon D600 can claim to be the first affordable full frame DSLR. It has a full frame sensor (equivalent to 35mm film size) in a body that is barely larger than the popular Nikon D7000. It is currently the smallest and lightest full frame DSLR on the market. Also has a 24 megapixel sensor, believed to be sourced from Sony, but it is full frame so the pixel density is lower than the Sony NEX-7.

Smallest Full Frame DSLR ever doesn't mean much when sitting next to a Pentax Q.

For some quick statistics, the Pentax Q with the prime lens attached weighs approximately 240g. 

The NEX-7 weighs approximately 350g, and the 18-200mm lens as pictured in this review weighs 524g. To be more fair, the Sony 35mm F/1.8 prime would be the more similar lens to compare with, and that would weigh 155g to give a combined camera + lens weight of 505g.

The Nikon D600 body only weighs 760g, and the Nikon 50mm F/1.4 lens weighs 290g for a total of 1050g.

So in summary, for equivalent approx 50mm shooting with prime lenses, the three combinations come in at 240g for the Pentax Q, 505g for the NEX-7, and 1.05kg for the D600. Or approximately double for each size up.

So how do they compare in photo quality?

For the purposes of this shootout, 

• All three cameras were mounted on the same tripod, shooting at the same target.
• At a focal length of 50mm equivalent (the Pentax-01 prime is 47mm equivalent, the NEX-7 with zoom lens was set to 32mm, and the D600 has a 50mm lens).
• At base ISO (ISO 100 for NEX-7 and D600, ISO 125 for Pentax Q).
• Aperture F/4 for Pentax Q and D600, F/4.5 for NEX-7. Hopefully to balance the playing field for lens quality, but NEX-7 has disadvantage here due to using a zoom lens.
• Crops taken close to centre of photo to minimise lens quality issues.
• All images shot in RAW format, processed in Lightroom with no adjustments, and exported to JPG.

Nikon D600

Pentax Q

Sony NEX-7

With the full image resampled down to 1600px width, there's not a lot to separate the three cameras. There's an obvious difference in colour temperature with the Pentax Q, but that's something that's easily fixed in post processing. With all three cameras, the text on the Nikon lens is just readable. The fur on Scooby's paw does seem a little bit sharper on the D600 and NEX-7, but not obviously so.

Crop 1

Next, we have a closer look with a crop around the subject items. This represents an 80% crop of the Pentax Q, and approximately 50% crop on the NEX-7 and D600, when the crops are viewed at 1600 pixels width.

Nikon D600 - 50% crop

Pentax Q - 80% crop

Sony NEX-7 - 50% crop

Since the NEX-7 and D600 are both approximately 24 megapixels resolution, they have the same cropping percentage. This crop represents downsizing the image by around half for those 2 cameras, and 80% crop for the Pentax Q.

At this size, the Pentax Q is obviously inferior, with blurry text on the Nikon lens and the Staedtler pens box. With the slighter brighter exposure on the D600, it does appear to be sharper than the NEX-7, but actual visible level of detail seems to be similar.

There is also a fair bit of false colour noted for the D600 and NEX-7 shots. The text should be black on the Staedtler pens box, but quite a bit of blue is observed in the photo.

Crop 2

We go for a more aggressive crop next, to see if we can identify any further differences in detail. This crop around the Gran Turismo booklet represents a 200% crop on the Pentax Q, and approximately 125% on the NEX-7 and D600.

Nikon D600 - 125% crop

Pentax Q - 200% crop

Sony NEX-7 - 125% crop

The Pentax Q already lost in the last comparison, but for the sake of the comparison we keep going. With this last crop, the Q is completely blurred, with most of the text unreadable. The gran-turismo.com is ok, as is Polyphony, but that's about it.

Again, the D600 and NEX-7 are very close. The slightly brighter exposure on the D600 does appear to make things look sharper, and the fur on Scooby's paw does seem better defined. In both examples, the white text is easily readable but the red text not really. This seems to be an issue of contrast rather than sharpness though, as the white text is smaller in size. I would predict than in better lighting conditions, the red text should be readable too.

Conclusions

The Nikon D600 has the best sharpness and detail, followed very closely by the Sony NEX-7. In good lighting conditions, there'd be very little to separate the two. This is a huge compliment to the NEX-7, as it is a mirrorless camera with an APS-C size sensor, taking on a full frame DSLR. For future comparisons I'll need to find something with more detail to try and challenge these two cameras.

The Pentax Q obviously can't compete, but it shouldn't have to. It's not a lot worse than the two big boys in the first whole scene size shot, and that's really the level of detail you need when posting on Facebook. The Q is extremely tiny in volume, and only 1/4 the weight of the D600, and 1/2 of the NEX-7 (when the NEX-7 is using a 35mm prime, not the currently pictured monster zoom). 

Note that this comparison is focused only on resolution and details. There are many other things that define good image quality, such as dynamic range and colour reproduction, which aren't being tested here. I'll consider looking at these in future reviews.

Update: See Shootout - The Sequal for further tests.