The Picture Desk: Using the Sony NEX with 16mm Prime and Viewfinder

I covered the Caribana Festival in Toronto this weekend and had a chance to try out some different gear. The Parade is attended by over one millions people, and runs from 10am till about 5pm. Lots of time to try different camera/lens combos since it goes on for so long.

This was the second time this week I've used the new Sony NEX 5 mirror-less camera with the 16mm prime lens on it. I also used the optical viewfinder for the lens. There is no lens shade for this lens yet, I'm not sure if it would have helped but a couple frames had lower contrast due to flare. It was a full sun day, and I tried to shoot backlit as much as I could to get the light coming through the feathers of the outfits.

I'm not really a Live-View type of photographer, most likely because I've used a viewfinder for so many years. I didn't use the Live-View that much at the Caribana Parade but really enjoyed using the camera with viewfinder.

I had the camera set on "Program" with the lens on "Auto Focus". The only thing I set was the white balance and the ISO. The camera focused very quickly since all the photos seemed sharp. Most of the exposures were fine, although somehow the camera "Exposure Compensation" shifted to -2 when I wasn't looking and I was under for a while.

The lens is a 16mm Prime, while the camera has an APS-C size sensor. That makes the lens equivalent to 24mm in the full-frame world. I nice length to use at Caribana.

All these shots were done with this combo.

I didn't do anything in Photoshop afterwards, no cropping, sharpening or levels. The files open in Photoshop around 40mg each which means you need to downsize them for most newspapers and magazines.

This is the shot I like the best, shooting into the sun, yet it has good colour, sharpness and exposure. I'm sure when you looked at the photo this was exactly what you were thinking.