Sony NEX-3N: an affordable digital body for Leica M lenses

[koray]

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I have long been contemplating digital mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras as a digital solution next to my Leica M2 and Leica M lenses. I still shoot film and love it, but it wouldn't hurt to have a digital body to utilise those beautiful lenses that I have.

 

Sony NEX series cameras have always attracted my attention due to their tiny dimensions, 1.5x crop factor large sensor, high capacity battery and very good image characteristics. However, I've never gotten one since they were not ticking all the boxes for me. For example the earlier kit zoom lens of NEX was both very large and not stellar in image quality, so I wanted a better and smaller one. I also wanted a good video recording capability with a power zoom option, which I use very often. I needed peaking support for manual lens use. And as a final point, since this camera will replace my compact digicam and will be shared with my family, a simple built in flash and a zoom rocker control next to the shutter release was an important need from usability perspective.

 

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NEX-3N delivers all these points with style, and for only $500, such a good deal! It comes with a wonderfully tiny power zoom lens which has a very useful 16-50mm (24-75mm eqv) range. It is a no-frills camera. Many Sony fanboys complain about the cost cutting features, such as reduced LCD resolution, or omitted flash hot-shoe. But for me, these are not deal breakers.

 

I have purchased the cheapest Leica-M to NEX adapter from ebay (~£8) and tested my Leica lenses right away. Wonderful results. I have also bought a slave flash trigger with red-eye setting, so omission of flash hot-shoe will not stop me from using studio lighting with my Leica M lenses, which I look forward to! I did a quick (and dirty) test of each of my Leica M lens with NEX-3N, browse the folder by clicking the photo below, you can download full size copies from Photobucket:

 

Leica M2 with Summicron 50, Elmarit-M 90 and Sony SELP16-50 (left), shot with Sony NEX-3N + Leica Summicron 35

 

I have sold all my other compacts and my Canon DSLR and EF lenses. Now this tiny Sony NEX-3N replaces all of them. I just wanted to share this experience with you. Of course, I would love to own a Leica M8 or M9, but with my current budget this seems to be the best choice.

 

Koray

[egrossman]

Thanks for sharing. How easy is it to focus with M lenses?

[kdriceman]

Looks good. Similar to my approach, although I went with the Nex6 mainly for the built in EVF. I have not been able to adapt to composition and especially focusing with the LCD at arms length. I did get a better quality adapter (a Voigtlander) as the cheap one I had as to GPS a bit loose and I just wasn't confident that it wouldn't drop a $3,000 lens! I use the Nex6 all the time. A great little camera.

[kdriceman]

Thanks for sharing. How easy is it to focus with M lenses?

 

Easy to focus (with the Nex6) using focus peaking. But not as fast as RF because, to get precision focusing, you have to open up the lens aperture, focus, then set the lens to the desired aperture.

[peter_n]

Easy to focus (with the Nex6) using focus peaking. But not as fast as RF because, to get precision focusing, you have to open up the lens aperture, focus, then set the lens to the desired aperture.

Use focus zoom instead and assign it to one of the buttons on the back of the camera.

 

I use a NEX-7 with Leica lenses and have had no problems with focusing. Great little camera.