I own a SONY NEX camera. The lenses from Sony are awful. No useable Macro. Few primes and NONE past 50mm. Zooms ALL are soft at the longest focal length and vignette like crazy. Even color fringing and (pick one) barrel or pin cushion distortion. And they are expensive, for what they are.
Question: What OTHER glass available used is good or better? I can get an Adaptor for nearly ANY lens made in the last 2 or 3 decades for the E-Mount. I'm OK with Manual focus and exposure. Automation no longer impresses me.
What would be a good glass 'system' to get into? Leica 'M'? old Nikon? FD Canon? I can't afford 'em, but 645 Pentax also could work! I mean it when I say you can get nearly any adapter.
Sony FINALLY came out with a good Macro. A 90mm 2.8 'G' lens in the correct 'e' mount.
Problems? Well, for the ask you could buy the Canon L glass and have enough left over for a good dinner for 2 at a nice restaurant. Or a pair of GOOD tickets to a baseball game.
Reviews are good, but not quite up to L standards.
As it turns out, ALL the new glass from Sony, Canon and Nikon is getting more expensive.
The 'kit' lens which adds 600$ to the price of a Z6 full-frame Mirrorless goes for 1000$ a la Carte. The 50mm f1.8 which admittedly is on the short list of best of its type goes for 600$. I think the 35mm f1.8 is more expensive yet. If it ever comes available I don't want to know how much the 70-200 f4 will run. Current Nikkor is about 1300$ so the new one could really sting. As for the faster, f2.8 'pro' zooms? Dig Deep.
As it turns out, and after some investigation, I've dome up with a reason for more expensive glass and the general laziness of the market.
Cell Phones have TAKEN OVER. Camera sales are down substantially year-over-year, for the last decade or longer. At least 1/2 of ALL photos taken since the dawn of photography have been taken with a cell phone!
Camera sales peaked about 2010 and have fallen almost without exception every year since. this means fewer lenses sold, too. So unit cost is going up while manufacurers are tightening their belts. Specialty stuff, like GoPro have taken yet another, but smaller, chunk out of traditional camera sales.
I look for more condensing of the market. Don't forget that mayb 15 years ago, SONY bought the few year old Konica Minolta conglomerate. Today? The Big Three of Canon / Nikon and Sony are treading water. Pentax, Olympus and many others. Even Leica is small potatoes. Several of the smaller companies MAY merge to preserve market share. Or simply go under.
I don't understand all the detail, but OLYMPUS has split / consolidated some of its operations. they make medical stuff....imaging and the like with the camera end of things being part of the whole.
If curious, look it up and YOU tell ME what this all means