To keep up with the latest news and discussion about Sony cameras and equipment see Sony Alpha Rumors and Fred Miranda's Sony Forum. An official Sony shooter, Brian Smith's blog is highly informatve.

Brian Smith's Ultimate Guide to Fullframe E-Mount FE Lenses is comprehensive and regularly updated.

Although less frequently updated, here's another survey and evaluation of native full-frame lenses with electronic coupling for Sony E-Mount cameras by Phillip Reeve: Sony FE Lenses: a Comprehensive and Independent Guide. He also provides these additional helpful articles: The Best Lenses Below $499 for the Sony A7 Series and Beginner’s Guide to Manual Lenses on the Sony A7.

For news about digital equipment of all stripes, see Digital Photography Review.

For fine-art subjects (as opposed to snapshots, sports, wedding and fashion), manual focusing is preferable. we're rarely working quickly and we can't trust the camera to make the right artistic decision. For example, see below where sharp focus has been applied off-center.

Because the Sony provides focus-peaking and magnification, it's like using a loupe on a view camera. Mirrorless cameras provide a level of precise focus that can never be reached while looking through an SLR or rangefinder window.

Another advantage of manual focus: we can focus with the lens stopped down to the actual taking aperture. This not only helps us preview depth of field, it eliminates focus shift.

The Sony 28-60mm FE is a kit lens for Sony full-frame and crop-sensor cameras. It provides a 42-90mm equivalent focal length on APS-C cameras. Its auto-focus is fast and silent and its manual zoom ring lets you smoothly select any focal length.

This lens is very sharp wide open, all the way out to the corners on full-frame (not just APS-C). In my testing, at 55mm it is just as sharp as my 55mm Micro Nikkor f/2.8 and has excellent blur rendition. There is some barrel distortion at the widest focal length. I purchased my copy used from KEH.

This lens is a highly portable choice for travel and family photography. I use this lens when I want the smallest kit possible. Very small and light due to its retractable design, it weighs only 167 grams and is only 67mm long: shorter in total length than the filter size of many other lenses. You can see some sample images here.

The Sony E 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS was the original kit lens for Sony E-mount (crop-sensor) cameras. It provides a 27-82.5mm equivalent focal length. It is very small and light, yet has optical stabilization and auto-focus which integrates with Sony face/eye recognition. This lens lets you shoot down to 9.7″, close enough for photos of flowers like this Ficus. Its manual zoom ring lets you smoothly select any focal length.

Like many zoom designs, this lens is very sharp in the center and should be shot at f/8 for best corner resolution. Zoom lenses are rarely as sharp as the many prime lenses they replace, but kit lenses like this are great when we consider their portability and affordability.

If you have one of the Sony APS-C cameras - or shoot a full-frame Sony camera on it's APS-C setting - it's a highly portable choice for travel and family photography. I used it for all these photos of Paris in 2012. Mounted on an NEX-7, the entire kit easily fit into the pocket of my coat. It weighs only 194 grams and is only 60mm long: shorter in total length than the filter size of many other lenses.

Sony mirrorless cameras have a very small flange-to-focus distance, allowing us to adapt a wide variety of 3rd party lenses such as Leica, Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Voigtlander, etc. To shoot manual lenses, a simple affordable adapter is all that we need. I was disappointed with a no-name bargain adapter (it developed a light leak which resulted in flare), but have had good experience with Fotodiox Sony E-Mount adapters.

For fine art subjects (landscape, still-life, portraits), older lenses are often an excellent choice. Many perform just as well as the newest ones, the only difference being that they are manual focus and have no built-in stabilization. Available in the used market, they are affordably priced.

As you can see from my list of lenses, I like vintage Nikkor designs. Some give very neutral blur rendition. Others give a slightly luminous blur rendition, which according to this article by Christopher Perez, can be attributed to "under-corrected spherical aberrations behind the point of focus".

There are countless lenses available in the normal focal length but for its combination of image quality, flexibility and low price I chose the 55mm f/2.8 AIS Micro Nikkor from 1979. You can buy this lens used on eBay or from KEH but after decades it is still available for purchase new because it's a fine performer even by modern standards.

It focuses down to 1:2 but is very sharp at all distances due to what Nikon calls Close Range Correction: a floating internal element. At its closest magnification of 0.5X, it's close to the top of the heap on the coinimaging.com Hall of Fame

With this model, no lens shade is required because the optics are recessed within the barrel. Because this lens does not open wide it is light and portable, taking 52mm filters like many other Nikon designs. I love macro lenses: they are usually free from chromatic aberration and geometric distortion. Many standard lenses are sharp but if you like to shoot at close distance without needing an adapter and you appreciate not needing a lens hood or corrections in post-processing, this is a fine choice.

For a collection of images made with the 55m f/2.8 Micro Nikkor, click here.

For a very portable high-quality lens, consider the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 Series E. This lens is only 33mm long, weighs only 155 grams and takes standard 52mm filters. Mounted on a Nikon-to-Sony adapter, it's still only 61mm long: shorter than any of the "kit" lenses (and sharper too). You can buy it used on eBay or from KEH. I inherited mine from my father.

A member of the Nikkor E series, it was offered as a smaller and lighter version of the 50mm f/1.8 AI-s from the late 1970's to the mid 1980's. Although this model does not focus as close as the AI-s, the optical design is the same. Shot on crop-sensor, it delivers the equivalent field of view and magnification of 75mm: an ideal portrait length.

You can read more about this lens from Christopher Mark Perez, Matthew Durr and Ken Rockwell.

As these full-frame sample images illustrate, it's a superb performer at all distances, very sharp with lovely blur rendition.

The Voigtlander 75mm Color-Heliar f/2.5 was introduced in 1999 and the Leica screw-mount version is portable, affordable and sharp with a 10-bladed aperture and excellent blur rendition. Although not officially a macro lens, it performs very nicely at close range using a stretch adapter or extension tubes. There is a very slight pincushion distortion which is easily addressed by the Adobe Camera Raw profile for this lens.

The lens shade is integrated into the design and the lens cap fits over the shade, making it even more portable in actual use. Weighing only 230g, it takes 43mm filters and with lens hood and cap is only 65mm long: less than the filter size of many modern designs. Even with the lens hood in place and an adapter attached, this lens fits in your pocket ! You can carry it for long periods of time.

Perhaps the weakest point of this lens is purple fringing under situations of extreme contrast, which can be corrected in an editing tool. It's not a perfect lens by modern standards but it's highly useable in most situations.

There are faster lenses in this focal length, but I prefer lenses which do not open very wide: they are smaller, lighter, more affordable and optically superior. Lenses which open wide often have mediocre performance at wide settings, particularly away from the center of the image. If not, they are prohibitively expensive, large and heavy.

For a collection of images made with the 75m f/2.5 Color Heliar, click here.

The 135mm f/3.5 Nikkor AI-S is a manual focus prime lens made from 1977 to 1981 and has minimal distoration, excellent optics and a built-in lens hood. Only 81mm long, it takes 52mm filters. It's very portable - and very affordable - when compared to modern offerings. If we shoot stationary subjects and use a tripod or high shutter speed we rarely need autofocus or image stabilization... especially at 1/20 the price !

Photographer and lens-tester Christopher Perez writes "I think the Nikon Nikkor 135mm f/3.5 AI-S should become my 135mm "control" lens. It is the standard by which I could measure all other 135mm lenses."

For a collection of images made with the 135mm f3.5 Nikkor AI-S, click here.

Like the 135mm f/3.5, the 200mm f/4 Nikkor AI-S is a manual focus prime lens with minimal distortion and excellent optics. It was built from 1981 to 1996 and has a built-in telescoping lens hood. I love telescoping lens hoods !

Keep in mind that a 200mm lens at f/4 has the same blur rendition and shallow depth of field as a 100mm lens at f/2 - or a 50mm lens at f/1.

Because it opens to a maximum aperture of f/4 it can take standard 52mm filters and is a very portable and affordable alternative to modern offerings. In situations of high local contrast, it can exhibit some color fringing but that is easily corrected.

For a collection of images made with the 200mm f/4 Nikkor AI-S, click here.

The 35-105mm Zoom Nikkor Macro was introduced in 1983 and is available at modest price in the used market. A manual focus zoom, it opens no wider than f/3.5 so it's compact, taking 52mm filters like the 55mm Micro Nikkor and many other Nikkor designs.

At 105mm this lens has extremely neutral blur rendition and is quite sharp at all distances. It can be used in place of a 105mm prime lens.

On a full-frame sensor, stopping down to f/8 or greater improves corner performance considerably. Click here twice for a full-size sample image shot at 105mm: 4x6 feet on typical web browser.

At widest apertures, if we're looking for the highest corner resolution this lens is better suited to APS-C format or close focus, where we use only the central portion of the image circle.

This lens has 16 elements in 12 groups and a ring which shifts the internal arrangement, allowing you to gradually transition to macro mode. At the 35mm setting, it can focus down to a 1:4 ratio. If we add a short extension tube the lens will focus very closely at all focal lengths.

For a collection of images made with the 35-105mm Zoom Nikkor Macro, click here.

The 75-150mm Nikkor E f/3.5 was introduced in 1980. It's a lightweight, manual-focus zoom. I inherited my copy from my father, who used it on his Nikon film camera back in the day.

The "trombone" push-pull design provides a single ring to adjust both focus and focal length. This lens takes 52mm filters, has 12 elements in 4 groups and is quite sharp once stopped down. Most important, it has very neutral blur rendition which makes it a wonderful choice for portraits and close work.

This lens is featured on NIKKOR - The Thousand and One Nights No.42.

For a collection of images made with the 75-150mm Nikkor E, click here.

The 70-300mm Nikkor AF ED is very affordable and portable compared to similar offerings. This model provides autofocus on Nikon cameras, but no image stabilization. I use a simple Fotodiox Nikon-to-Sony adapter which does not provide autofocus.

Stopping down to f/8 or greater improves corner performance considerably. At widest apertures, if we're looking for the highest corner resolution this lens is better suited to APS-C format or close focus, where we use only the central portion of the image circle.

To get higher resolution or built-in image stabilization, professionals who make very large prints may require a better lens - at much higher cost - but if we shoot at best aperture, print at reasonable size and avoid the corners of the sensor, this lens offers long reach and light weight at an attractive price-point.

For a collection of images made with the 70-300mm Nikkor AF ED, click here.

Don't purchase a set of filters for every "odd-ball" size (and carry them into the field). An inexpensive step-up ring can save you money, space and weight. If you add a step-up adpater ring to your smaller lenses, they will take a larger lens cap and you can purchase a single set of filters.

This tripod is neither the largest, smallest, heaviest or lightest - but the Bogen 3021 BN Pro is an affordable all-around solution. It's built strong enough and light enough. It's not made of carbon fiber but unless you are a trekker... who cares !

Sorry, I do not recommend ball heads: when we adjust the camera in one direction, we lose the other two planes of orientation. Ball heads are hit-and-miss. They drift as we tighten the knob, due to the weight of the camera. For precise work, they are practically useless ! I recommend geared tripod heads for general use. For careful positioning of small cameras at close distance, I recommend a 4-way Focusing Rail.

I like the Manfrotto 3275 410 geared tripod head, which is rated for holding cameras up to 11 pounds. It lets you make fine adjustments in 3 directions, independently. It's small, light and strong. It's a treat to make adjustments this way: there is no drift. I use it with cameras that are comparatively light in weight, like wooden field cameras and digital cameras.

Geared movements let us make minute compositional adjustments, critical when shooting small objects at close distance, like these Tulip and Telephone photographs which were made with a Sony mirrorless camera. There are better geared tripod heads on the market like the Arca Swiss C1 and D4, but the Manfrotto is considerably more affordable.

For heavier equipment, consider the Manfrotto 229 tripod head. It's rated up to 16 pounds and has no problem holding a Sinar P with 5x7 back, extension rails etc.

Here's a cold-weather tip: wrap some pipe insulation around the legs and hold it down with some inexpensive duct tape. This will keep your hands warm when you carry the tripod. Pipe insulation is very inexpensive but you will find this very helpful in winter time. It also helps if you want to carry the tripod on your shoulders: it's soft on the body.

The Oben CT-3535 Folding Carbon Fiber Travel Tripod with BE-208T Ball Head folds to only 12 inches and weighs only 2.5 pounds. It fits in just about any backpack or shoulder bag and is therefore ideal for travel. It also converts to a monopod and comes with a ball-head that will orient vertically. Ball heads are suitable for travel when weight and size must be kept to an absolute minimum.

You can watch a Youtube video about this tripod here.

I use this combination when traveling with my Sony A7RII. When possible I replace the Oben ball head with the Manfrotto 3725 410 head shown above. Even though it weighs as much as the tripod, it is finely geared.

A leveling tripod base like the Manfrotto 438 sits just below the tripod head (see yellow arrow). You get a level platform without having to adjust the legs of your tripod. This piece of equipment doesn't weigh very much but makes life much easier - especially when shooting in the field, where the ground is rarely level.

On the right you can see the leveling base in action. The tripod is not level - as the red line shows - but the tripod head is level, because we have adjusted the leveling base beneath it.

With such an arrangement, we can pan the head horizontally (or move the 3 gears of the 410 head in any direction we like) and we don't have to correct anything afterwards. To adjust the leveling base, just loosen the lever and use the bubble level. It's much faster than changing the length of the tripod legs. If you've ever tried to work with a tripod that isn't level, you'll appreciate this improvement !

To see a nice Youtube video about the Manfrotto 438, click here.

At right is an image which can tell you if your monitor and printer are reasonably color-calibrated and profiled. Click on it to see it full-sized. You should be able to see all the shades of all the colors. Can you see the purple rocks in the fish bowl ? Is there plenty of detail in the shadows of the sand dunes ?

Now print these images on your printer and see if the final results looks like what you see on your monitor. Ideally, they should match, very closely. If they don't match, then perhaps your monitor is off or your printer needs to be profiled... Probably both !

Ideally, we should have our own custom profile for every combination of printer/paper/ink that we use. The same ink has a unique response to every different kind of paper - and every printer is unique. They are mechanical devices, subject to variation. Just like musical instruments, they need to be tuned up, all the time.

Printer manufacturers like Epson make profiles for their own printers/papers freely available for download and tools like Photoshop allow you to print your images with the profile of your choice. These are not as good as getting your own profile but they're a great place to start and you can't beat the price ! it's hard to get things right, even with all the right tools. Without a calibrated workflow, it's almost impossible !

For best results with color printing, get someone like CHROMiX to make profiles for you. If you only print with one paper, you only have to get one profile made when you get a new printer. If you're printing black and white exclusively, use Piezography. If you don't want to have a custom profile made, then at least get one of the profiles from the public domain. Thanks to InkJetArt.com for the test image.

Even if your monitor has been recently calibrated and you are printing with a custom profile for your printer/paper/ink, you may still end up struggling to match your prints to what you see on your monitor. Why? Because LCD monitors are much brighter than paper and manufacturers are making monitors brighter with each new generation. When editing photos to be printed, we need to work at the brightness level of paper.

If you have a light meter, you can see for yourself that bright office illumination is such that a white piece of paper, or a white wall, gives an Exposure Value or EV, around 9. Actually, EV 9.3 is around 80 cd/m2, so that's good level for digital printing if your photos will appear in a brightly lit office or gallery. Many homes (and some galleries) are darker than that, more like EV 8, 7, or 6 or lower. We need to lower the brightness of our monitor to match the brightness level of our intended display area.

If you don't have a light meter you can use one of the many phone apps, like Luxi. Be sure to use the value for ISO 100, since that is the standard.

Typical LCD monitors don't do well at these levels: they are designed to be brighter than standard office walls. That's why print imaging specialists don't use consumer grade equipment. Instead they use monitors like Eizo and NEC SpectraView, which are designed to perform at paper brightness.

Here's a superb video presentation from Andrew Rodney: Why Are My Prints Too Dark ?. Here's a nice article on the Shutterbug web site, entitled Are Your Prints Too Dark ? Here's another one, by Pat Herold of CHROMiX. it's called My Printer Is Too Dark on the CHROMiX Color Wiki.

In order to make Inkjet photo papers look whiter, manufacturers not only bleach them, they add OBAs: Optical Brightening Agents. Brighteners are commonly added to laundry detergents to make white clothing appear cleaner and brighter. When exposed to daylight (which contains UV light), the OBAs luminesce. They emit blue-white light. The brighter the whites, the deeper the blacks look by comparison. It sounds great, no ?

The problem is that under indoor lighting, they don't luminesce, so your images look dull. With less blue, the same image suddenly looks pink. This effect is known as metamerism, or color shift: your print looks different, depending on where you view it. While harmless for family snapshots, it's unacceptable for Fine Art prints. Traditional Silver-based photographs don't suffer from Metamerism - and neither should a good inkjet print.

To make matters worse, OBAs fade over time. Even if the image looked right under daylight, it starts to look wrong eventually. The print you spent so much effort to make, is slowly replaced, so to speak, with something else.

Not all papers have OBAs: some are made with 100% Cotton Rag, have no OBAs and exhibit no color shift. Two papers I recommend are Epson Hot Press Natural and Premier Smooth Hot Press. Another brand I really like is Canson Infinity Museum Quality 100% Rag papers. Be sure to look for papers which have no OBAs. Canson writes "No Optical Brighteners" right on the front of the box. I like their Rag Photographique: it's very smooth, 100% Rag, has no OBAs and a great color.

To see how different papers and inks fade and change over time, see Aardenburg Imaging. Mark McCormick-Goodhart is a first-rate scientist and a world class expert in the field of image permanence.

Apple's Time Machine is great for backing up your computer, but it's safest to keep your images and other important documents on a separate drive.

Carbon Copy Cloner lets you schedule tasks to back up your files - from one disk to another - as many disks as you like - as often as you like. Back up all your files, or copy only what has changed. Move a copy of your digital files to a backup disk. Back up your OS X system files to another disk. Copy your large Photoshop files to another disk. I schedule these tasks to run in the middle of the night, while I'mm sleeping.

For information about Large Format cameras, lenses, scanning, darkroom, etc. click here

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