positivity #7

A quick review of the 'Neewer 35mm f1.7, e-mount lens' on the Sony a6000

For approximately $100 CAD... delivered... (i.e. less than 1/4 price of a similar "name-brand" lens) 

...it’s not too bad.

There’s definitely some barrel distortion (straight lines aren’t super-straight), the colours aren’t 100% delightful without a little post processing (fit eels a little ‘dull’), and it’s no where near as “sharp” or “clear” as something from Sony, Sigma, Canon, Nikon, Leica, Olympus, Panasonic, Fuji, etc…

But that lack of sharpness or clarity, is what brings a certain ‘character’ and ‘quality’ to the images that it captures… (sorry. Never thought I’d be ‘that’ person who writes about a lens’s “character” ugh)… it's quite enjoyable. It's also quite possible that I'm justifying the impulse purchase by looking at it's 'pros', while discounting the 'cons' ;)

I’m certainly enjoying the lens size, playing with the shallow focal plane, and the challenge of its manual focus.  You can really tell the lens is a cheaply built one, as part-way through the focus-throw, it almost seizes up and becomes difficult to turn... might be a quality control issue, or might get better as time goes on.

In short - if you can't afford a 'proper' lens, or would prefer to have some more "organic" image degradation without the image processing; then one of these 'cheap and cheerful' manual economy lenses might be worth the cash. It's about as optically good as the kit lens, almost the same size too; only with the capability of a shallower depth of field, and shooting a cleaner ISO in much lower light.

Some examples below.

The aloe plant in our kitchen

Back yard sunshine *It does occasionally happen!

Sharp-ish and nice colour (...in Daylight ...with a little post-processing)

Kale in the garden 

Kevin sleeps on my lap, I contort my body to capture it...

Lisa in the Living room

The view past our neighbours house (bonus points for the deer grazing by the fence in the distance that I didn't even see until I was tinkering with the image on the computer)