I’m happy to share the news that an ambitious project has reached its target of making a sci-fi movie with a big support from crowdfunding and it’s going to be screened (and available under Creative Commons!) from the 13th of May.
Congratulations to all of the team and to the supporters.
For more information go to their website:
http://trailer.thecosmonaut.org/
Obviously I’ve just become a supporter!
Disclaimer: I’m an indipendent artist with no relation or sponsor from the brands involved in this mini-review.
Last week I went to Photoshow in Milano, Italy, and I had the opportunity to make a quick video comparison between the Nex-5N and it’s young brother Nex-5R.
I was interested to see if there are significant differences in aliasing, moirè and lowlight noise.
As you can see in the video, despite the weaker AA filter on Nex-5R, it seems to manage better diagonal lines than the older brother, giving a smooth but sharp transition from black to light blue in the close up of the fence. Other reviewers noted some kind of disappointing aliasing on Nex-6 (same sensor as Nex-5R) but no one did a comparison with the 5N, so it was more a subjective perception, useful but not exhaustive.
I had another shot in which you can see moirè on Nex-5R, and perhaps I will post it separetly, because I did not take the same scene with the 5N. Anyway the moirè was present but very fine, I would dare to say it was more a luminance moirè than a chroma one.
Regarding lowlight performance I shot with both cameras at 400 ISO and they showed no noise at all, I tried to search for some dark spots to point the camera at, but everything was heavily illuminated and I had no choice of bringing the camera with me to test it in some service corridor.
I assume lowlight performance to be quite on par, for sure it’s not a key point for a comparison.
CONCLUSION
Both cameras performed as we expect from Sony technology, better than Canon mid-ranged DSLRs and worse than Panasonic GHx line, especially regarding definition and aliasing (GH3 is better, even if not as good as GH2).
Dynamic range is one of the strongest features of both cameras, with a slight advantage for Nex-5N, while sharpness of lines goes to Nex-5R.
If you are looking for an upgrade from the 5N I think the 5R is not worth the extra money for the video department, giving so similar results, instead if you die for the new features, like the Wifi, the apps and the faster autofocus you can go for it without fearing of a step back in video quality.
A short movie shot during two stop-over of 6 hours that I had in the trips to and from Thailand.
I tend to choose the right planes that allow me to have as much time possible within the day to leave the airport and visit the city.
I did the same trick for Dubai, Wien and Sidney in the past, basically you have a big bonus (visiting top cities in the world) without having to spend anything more in transportation and accomodation.
The video was shot with my Nex-5n and the 18-55mm lens plus the 16mm pancake lens.
The interiors of the temple – oldest one in HK – are shot with the Olympus Zuiko 50mm f1.8, a fantastic performer, small, sharp and cheap.
Everything handheld, as usual when I’m with just a small backpack and not enough time to make things the right way 
My journey to Thailand ended exactly one week ago, needless to say I’m missing that beautyful country and weather a lot!
Anyway, I came back with a lot of shots and I’m going to publish some short movies topic-oriented.
First one will be about my two long stop-overs in Hong Kong, an incredible city showing the good and bad of where the world is heading to.
I think I’ll finish editing in a few days, so expect it at the end of upcoming week.
After that I’ll have to check what’s worth on remaining footage, it won’t be easy and it will be hard to skip sunsets or elephants in order to avoid the touristic holyday movie effect!
Meanwhile, here are some pictures from different places I’ve been, from North to South of Thailand.
I’m going to stay almost one month over there for pleasure, visiting friends and making two or three short movies about some interesting things in that beautyful country. I’ll try to update as frequently as possible
Same on VIMEO:
Fusilli from Riccardo Covino on Vimeo.
I was preparing lunch at home and as usual I was going to split myself between cooking and testing my new vintage lens, a Minolta Rokkor MC 58mm f1.4, so I decided to use it for shooting myself while cooking.
It was some kind of joke, because timing was ruled by the food’s own cooking time, but it ended in 20 minutes of pure fun.
Editing was done in Blender, again for testing reasons, and it came out with interesting results: some limits and some powerful pros, but I’ll talk extensively about it in another post.
How did the lens perform on my Nex-5n ?
Well, it’s a tank-built lens with exceptional bokeh, on the downside it is prone to flare and sharpness is not on top if you stay on fastest apertures.
In conclusion, more than you can expect from the price I actually paid for it (around 35 euro on ebay), it’s in the price range of some russian vintage lenses but with far superior image and construction quality, we can’t say it’s on par with an Olympus Zuiko 50 f1.4, but it’s close to it, being half of the price.