To make a complex review as we like to do here, we need to have lens for at least 3 weeks, ideally for much longer. When the new gear comes however, producers can’t give as testing samples for so long, thus we can either lower the quality of our tests or wait until it become less attractive. With Batis 18/3.5 we opted for the first option, accepting to make some compromises, during brief – 6 days testing.

The super wide-angle ZEISS Batis 2.8/18 for the Sony E-mount

Let’s start with Technical specification (all data belongs to Zeiss a.g. – original link – http://www.zeiss.com/camera-lenses/en_de/camera_lenses/batis/batis2818.html)

Lens design is based on Distagon, but this is first time that I see Zeiss introducing new type of the element – aspheric surface & special glass in one element.

What exactly new element means, is slightly unclear to me, because Aspheric (molded) glass is always “special”, but I guess that new technology probably further improve light transmission or/and decrease reflections.

When I look to the barrel in comparison to the size of the elements, I have to ask myself – why the lens is so big (wide). Sure, some space is needed for AF, OLED and electronics in general, but I still think that lens could have been thinner. On the other hand, Batis 18/2.8 is extremely light lens, so it certainly won’t make a substantial burden to photographer bag.

Looking at the official MTF charts from Zeiss data sheets – Zeiss Batis 18/2.8, Zeiss Loxia 21/2.8 or Zeiss Batis 25/2.0 I can not help thinking, that we are approaching certain level of perfection, where differences between lenses are ending in theoretical plane, at least when it comes to LAB tests. (Please note, that Zeiss Batis 25/2.0 is measured at f/2.0 and f/4.0, while other two lenses are measured at their max aperture – f/2.8 and stopped down to f/5.6)

Center performance is almost equal, while corner performance decreases with the focal length, but that is rather marginal difference and one to be expected.

Zeiss is famous by probably best coating technology in the world, but in my experience also by rather heavy vignetting. Why it is so, I have no idea, but no matter if you choose one of those wide angle lenses or mighty Otus, you should expect rather heavy light fall-off.

When it comes to distortion, Zeiss, as most other recent lens producers, is relying to the software corrections. Data for correction are coded into lens firmware and camera will read them without need for its own firmware update (in most cases). Difference between uncorrected and corrected image can be very significant (you can take a look at Zeiss data sheet – Loxia 21/2.8, for which Zeiss published both results (page 3). For Batis, I expect even more aggressive correction (no data by Zeiss), but results are still quite pleasing. Batis 18/2.8 even after camera correction has some distortion of a complex (mustache) type, but we will write about it later.

Packaging and build quality

Zeiss Batis 18/2.8 comes in nice paper case, with polyurethane filling in blue color. Inside there is lens itself, plastic lens hood (both in plastic bag) and (in a side pocket) booklets – Quality assurance card, hand signed by Mr. Y. Nishimura, warranty card (with extended warranty upon registration and instruction booklet.

Lens itself is made of metal composite, with built-in OLED display, rubberized focus ring (focus is electronically coupled), metal mount and plastic lens hood bayonet type. Hood has small dot which needs to be aligned with similar mark on the lens for proper installation. Once mounted, lens hood looks like being integral part of the lens design. As it was already written, lens is very light, and similar in size to Batis 25/2. (Loxia 21/2.8 is smaller, but heavier.

Lens sits nicely on the Sony A7 type cameras and balance is almost perfect.

Batis 18/2.8 is certainly well made, modern lens, but I can not escape the impression that it won’t last as long as legendary Zeiss C/Y lenses would. Sure, we are living in time, when all those products are considered as consumables and they should flawlessly work for (extended) warranty time and probably a little longer. If you want quality that will last for decades or maybe even centuries, you won’t find many of those lenses any more…

Image quality

Let’s make things simple.
Zeiss Batis 18/2.8 is very good ultra wide angle lens, with excellent center resolution from f/2.8, very good to excellent edge and corner resolution from f/5.6 (but 100% usable at f/2.8 too), good coma correction, amazing back-light performance, slightly complicated distortion (usually not an issue, but in some situations it might be), pronounced purple fringing in high contrast areas and lovely Zeiss color rendering.

It is by far best 18mm lens that I tested on any camera.

Trouble with testing sharpness of a wide-angle lenses is that usual charts made for short distances of 50mm and longer, can’t cover full frame with 18mm (at least not at reasonable distance).
Instead of studio test, we went outdoor and make two comparative sets with Loxia 21/2.8 and legacy – Olympus OM 18mm f/3.5.
If we would have this lens longer for testing, we will include at least one or two more lenses for comparison and more set-ups,  but that wasn’t possible in such a short time.

First comparison is at the distance of approx. 2,5m

Following image shows 100% (600 x 600 px) crops of the scene above. First line is representing focus area.

Click with right mouse button and select “open link in new tab” option. Once it opens, click with the magnifier icon to enlarge it to its maximum size.

Next compilation includes Olympus lens. All lenses are at f/8 now

From this test, I can only say, that resolution wise, Batis and Loxia are almost indistinguishable from one another, while at f/8 Olympus is not that far away, especially toward edges.

For this test, we used Sony A7 MII camera and manual focus for all lenses.

For the test bellow, we used Sony A7r camera and AF for Batis (medium size flexible point, single shot, 3 shots taken with repeated AF on the same target).
Test was performed at focus to infinity (church dome with green roof on the right), but results left me puzzled, because Batis performed notably worse than Loxia, away of the focus area and especially toward left side.
I am almost sure that fault is on my side, but I would send test images to Zeiss Oberkochen to ask them about opinion, what could have gone wrong…

Following image shows 100% (600 x 600 px) crops of the scene above. First line is representing focus area.

Batis is as sharp as Loxia in the focus area, but toward edges it become less sharp, sort of fuzzy, especially at f/2.8 and f/4.0, on the left side of the image. De-centering was my first thought, but after wall test, where edge and corner performance was excellent across the frame, I am sure it has to be something else. One of the possible reasons is Sony A7r used in this test. Another slight difference were exposure times (I used external light meter to measure exposure, because lighting conditions were permanently changing) – difference was around 1/2 of the stop. Most probably however, focus plane is slightly shifted and while everything should be covered by DOF in theory, in practice, acceptable sharpness is rather vague definition, when viewing 36 mpx images at 100%.

Having no time to perform more resolution tests, I can only say that in my short experience, I didn’t notice any edge “smearing” that will concern me in a normal shooting scenarios. Quite in contrary, in most cases I was very happy with the corner resolution.

Distortion

For better illustration of the level of Batis 18/2.8 distortion correction, you can take a look at a following image

There is pronounced barrel distortion in the middle of the frame, followed by pincushion distortion and then getting back to barrel. Together it creates so-called mustache distortion.

Different calculation for the distortion correction could influence many things – field of view, but also resolution e.g.

Using slider to switch between images, you can see how different is distortion correction between old Olympus 18/3.5 and modern Batis 18/2.8.

Distortion comparison 01

Distortion comparison 02

Batis 18/3.5 has stronger and more irregular distortion than Olympus, but at the same time it has slightly wider FOV, so once properly corrected (when needed) both lenses should cover about same part of the scene.

While I can see in some of the sample shots (at the end of this review), distortion being little issue (mainly architecture), fact is that view-point perspective deformation is much more important to consider.

Bellow is the shot where view-point involve heavy perspective deformation.

While the scene has nice dynamic because of the left wall perspective, the only straight vertical line in the entire image, is the pillar in the middle of the frame. Left side is falling toward right and right side horizon is falling to the left. While it is possible to correct perspective to certain level

two things will happen. We will lose quite a bit of our image FOV if we want clean crop and every software distortion correction, comes with slight IQ decrease – bigger the correction, lower IQ can be expected.

My point here is that while Batis 18/2.8 has certain amount of mustache distortion aberration, natural view-point perspective deformation of such a wide-angle lens, should be of much bigger concern for the resulting images.

Flare resistance

Absolutely magnificent!
To deal with back light, photographer has to consider lens (and sensor) flares (which on digital photography usually looks ugly with acid green or purple color) but most importantly, loss of contrast. Many legacy, but also several modern lenses, are showing significant drop of contrast in such situations.
Zeiss with its famous *T coatings, that are permanently improved, is IMHO world leader in terms of contrast retention and flare control. Batis 18/2.8 is one of the best lenses I tested so far when it comes to back-lit scenes.

At wide open apertures, not only I can’t see any drop of contrast when shooting directly into sun, but I have hard to look for flares to find some. (There are few, but very insignificant).

Stopped down to smaller apertures, contrast remains extremely high, but flares starts to appear. Most of those flares are reflected from sensor back to the lens and not by lens elements themselves, but if camera producers improve sensor coating, maybe we won’t see any of those soon… Still, this is almost nothing in comparison with many other ultra wide-angle lenses.

Chromatic aberration

Well, I am picky on this one. If I’d have to point to one aberration that Batis 18/2.8  is not good at correcting, it would be CA. Sometimes you can get rid of it, sometimes it won’t go simple way, and you’ll have to spend more time to improve results. For many photographers it is not an issue, but I hate it. Batis is not worse than many other similar FL lenses, but it is not much better either. Take a look at following (torture) test.

At f/2.8, purple fringing is in almost all twigs that are against white sky, while at f/9 center part is well corrected, but toward edges, strong fringing can be still found. To be fair to Batis 18/2.8, there are very few lenses which will do significantly better in this extreme situation, one of them being Otus. If it takes that much more money, size and weight to deal with this aberration, than I can understand why most photographers simply don’t care. (And I will be poor, but strong, with the Otus, once it comes this wide).

Coma

As far as I was able to test coma aberration, it seems very well corrected.

I wanted to go to the mountains to shot night sky, but couldn’t manage to do it in time, so we tried with my friends in studio, to simulate single star and shot it placed near the center of the frame and near the corner.
In both simulations, coma correction looks very solid.

Bokeh

Seriously? Anyone is curious about bokeh of 18mm lens?

Despite minimum focus distance of 25cm (from sensor – 17cm from the lens front), magnification is “only” 1:9.5. That means that strong subject isolation is not really possible with this lens, but the quality of the bokeh (not the quantity) looks actually very nice (smooth).

Conclusion:

As I wrote at the very beginning, Zeiss Batis 18/2.8 is one of the best, if not (technically) best ultra wide lens that I had chance to test. There are only few reasons why you might want to look elsewhere.

a) Ultra wide-angle is not easy to deal with. Think twice do you need it, and would you have knowledge (or patience to learn) how to compose with it. Batis 25/2 offers more convenient wide focal length for every day use, even Loxia 21 does.

b) CA. If you can’t stand it, prepare to pay a lot more, in both money and size/wight, in order to reduce it. I hope that evolution of new glass types will lead one day, to much more affordable CA free designs.

c) Distortion. If your main interest is architecture, I would suggest Canon TS-E 17/4 L instead. Batis doesn’t have “heavy” distortion, but it does have complex distortion which might be issue and hard to correct in some situations.

d) Your wife is threatening with divorce if you buy another lens.

But hey, think twice, it’s not any lens, it’s Zeiss!

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Sample images:

I just wanted to share with you, the story of one image, that could have been lost forever, if shot on film or some other digital cameras such as my (otherwise lovely and trusty) Canon EOS 5D Mark II.

By exposure latitude, I mean the amount of over or underexposure, that after correction still can deliver acceptable level of details. In the case of Sony sensor, exposure latitude is especially impressive in the left side of histogram – underexposed images.

Our White Miniature Schnauzer Lily,

delivered month or so ago – two twin sisters Lara and Lynda.

My wife asked me to make couple of shots when they were few days old and I set small table studio with three Canon system flashes – 580 EX II, one as a master on my Sony A7r and two other as slaves, on the stands.

We didn’t want to upset and stress puppies, by setting or shooting long, so everything had to be done in just a few minutes. Unfortunately, one of few disadvantages of the system flashes is, that they usually need longer time to fully recharge.

In one of those sessions, Lynda (few seconds younger sister), made a big, juicy yawn, which from such a small beast, looked very cute and special. My Canon flashes however failed to deliver light, so the original image ended heavily underexposed.

Just look at that terrifying histogram in the top right corner.

Here the magic comes. With film, or digital sensors with smaller exposure latitude, lifting exposure in LR (or pushing it in lab), will involve significant increase of signal to noise ratio (or film grain) and in most cases, visible color degradation, artifacts and bending. In a result, all fine detail will be almost gone.

I remember that with my Canon 5D Mark II I was safe to go to +1 EV and in some rare cases it could stand for almost 2 EV, but that was it. With Sony A7r senor, I lifted exposure by  5 EV and here is the result.

Of course, there is a bit of chroma and color noise, but we just pushed our exposure by 5 EV!!!!! I would expect to see much more IQ problems.

Using some de-noising tools and further processing, I managed to get this final image,

which in a reward entered Flickr “Explore” selection and received there 647 faves with over 16000 views in just a few days. My third most awarded Flickr photo

While proper exposure is one of the key things in photography (being neutral exposed or under/overexposed on intention), thanks to the new technology, we can save some images that would be otherwise lost forever.

“Thank you Sony for a great sensor” Lynda and Lara would say, as soon as they starts to talk! (So far, they learned to say just – Verybiglobo rules!)

>Buy Lara, Lynda or their mum – doggy treat. I promise I will tell them, it’s from you! (You can also buy me Sony A7r II if you get drunk. I promise I won’t tell anyone it’s from you).

In between all those lens and camera testing, I thought it might be a good idea, to write a little about interesting shooting experience.

To start, here is a little story of the most curious wedding that I ever attended.

Few days ago I got info from my friend and great street photographer – Petr, that homeless couple is going to get married today in the local wedding hall.

Unfortunately, I mixed the date and when Petr called me to ask if I am coming, it was already very late. I didn’t have time to prepare at all, so I just grabbed first camera body that was on table, two extra batteries, memory cards and put all that in my camera bag.

Driving to the location, I tried to clarify in my head – what and why am I going to shot there…

Shooting usual wedding as a main photographer is stressful, but it is kind of fun for a friend with camera, who is trying to capture some interesting looking guests, drunk friends, funny interactions etc.

Facing however wedding of a homeless couple is problematic from an ethical point of view IMHO.

There is something fascinating about people who failed, who ended on the street, who are poor, sick, often hungry. We can either look at them as at drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally retarded persons, or we can look at them as at cautionary tale, sad heroes of the sad story that can happen to us, but somehow still didn’t. There are many other perspectives to think about them, they can also be seen as a rebels fighting against system, cynics who shit on regulations, pirates of the street who want to be free.

Whatever perspective we take, we often forget to look at them as at individuals, as at people who are not that much different from us and who ended on the street for the bunch of different reasons.

As a photographer, I feel responsibility not to feed cheap sensation. I grown up from times when I tried to capture those people secretly, admiring at home my idiocy of being brave to shot a sick or drunk stranger, with a 300mm lens. There is nothing appealing in that, quite in contrary. If there is anything under paparazzi honor, it would be it – shooting homeless, just to show losers, to the other bunch of ignorant on the Facebook.

On the other hand, it will be pathetic and dishonest to try to document wedding like this without certain dose of insight, detached point of view and forcing false respect.

They are what they are, and I should be what I am. Being sarcastic, invidious, envy misanthrope, I am actually proud of it, so it should make me emotionally positive person at the end…

I got late to the wedding, just to see the end of the ceremony, when priest blesses young couple on their joint way through the life. Note nice tattoo and wedding ring on the grooms left hand.

There were only few attendants on this wedding, Romana and Milan (bride and groom), his best men, her bridesmaid, one friend, priest, and three photographers When they walked out, police car accidentally stopped just in front of us, for completely different reason, but best man reacted instantly: “We just ordered Taxi to take you on the honey moon!” he said and small group started to laugh out loudly.

Staying there for a while, I noticed that either alcohol starts to evaporate from grooms mind, or it started in contrary to take control, because he suddenly become very serious.

Wedding guests were dressed best they could, getting most of the wardrobe from charity organization. Some of them had long sleeves, other short pants, but bride had very nice casual dress and small bucket of roses. Nearby around the corner, they left all their property, closely guarded by another friend. Their property consists of backpacks and two dogs. Not much you might say, but it’s essential for their living. Dogs were very happy to see them coming back!

It’s time to celebrate! Bottle of rum was just opened.

Bride was offering rum to all three of us photographers, but only one – Kevin was brave enough to share a sip from that bottle.

Other guests were accepting willingly of course.

One of the guys started to play on the harmonica and he played very nice.

It was actually very pleasing atmosphere and if I may add, it was revealing to see people interacting without any affectation. No need for dress code, no sitting order, no gossips nor expensive gifts. For what it worth, I would use the word – joy – as simple and as honest, as it only can be.

There wasn’t problem to share one bottle, nor to share kisses with dog and groom. Best man is the one who should ensure good mood!

Groom gets very “tired” quite soon. I heard bride when she whispered to her husband – “Now, I am only yours” she said. He was too drunk to understand the importance of that sentence, but he got the kiss anyway.

Later, they proudly shown the wedding document to everyone who passed around.

Whole group moved to the park in front of the Prague music hall – Rudolfinum. I couldn’t go with them, but as I was informed, celebration didn’t take too long. Just one hour later, groom was expedited by police to the sobering-up station.

I wanted to share this story with you, because the experience filled me with lot of positive energy. Beside all obvious problems, that this young couple will face from the day one, they were happier for that very moment, than some of us will be for the whole life.  They were celebrating love without need to discuss marital agreement, they were celebrating it as a kids, who don’t care where they will sleep, what they will dress, or what will happen tomorrow… There is something deadly romantic in it.

Personally I find myself balancing on that tinny line between sanity and insanity, between responsibility and carelessness, between moment and abstract eternity, too often. Line is very thin and very slippery.

Imagine if Romana would had found different life path. Maybe she could have been successful model. Impossible?  The line is very thin…

Since the bridesmaid was the only other female there, she was the one to capture thrown bucket of roses. I hope it will bring her love too. Would love to spend another wedding, with those nice people…

Good luck Romana and Milan!

During our reviews of Zeiss Loxia 21/2.8 and Zeiss Batis 18/2.8, we mentioned several times also Batis 25/2. It was about the time, to give it its own review space and to take a deeper look on its performance.

The ZEISS Batis 2/25 is a compact wide-angle lens with an 82° image angle (diagonal).

Let’s start with Technical specification (all data belongs to Zeiss a.g. – original link: http://www.zeiss.com/camera-lenses/en_de/camera_lenses/batis/batis225.html)

Technical specifications:

Design and Construction:

Similar like Zeiss Batis 18/2.8, 25/2 is also based on Distagon design.

Zeiss used in the construction lens elements which combines aspheric form and special glass to achieve even better optical corrections. This “new” element was also used in Batis 18/2.8 and from all that I could have seen during tests, it really helps to reduce spherical aberration.

Official LAB Tests

Looking at the official MTF charts from Zeiss data sheets – Zeiss Batis 18/2.8, Zeiss Loxia 21/2.8 or Zeiss Batis 25/2.0 we can once again repeat, that differences in optical performance between those three lenses are marginal and most aberrations are very well corrected. It’s simply that easy. I remember not so long ago, when reviewers were criticized for praising almost every lens they got for the review. In reality, with all optical innovations, software based design, performance simulation and production optimization, it is much easier, faster and cheaper to design lenses with very high level of aberration corrections. I would personally like to bash some lenses, but producers are not giving me reason. And this is not any lens producer, this is Zeiss, and that makes it even harder to find some faults.

(Fortunately, our politicians are going in the opposite direction, being dumber, more corrupted and mind distorted than ever, so they are helping to compensate for all that positiveness in Internet debates.

You can see bellow compared LAB based performance charts for MTF, Distortion and Vignetting.

(Please note, that Zeiss Batis 25/2.0 is measured at f/2.0 and f/4.0, while other two lenses are measured at their max aperture – f/2.8 and stopped down to f/5.6)

At the first sight we might see that Batis 25/2 is just slightly behind other two lenses in maximum resolution, but at the same time, its performance is most even across the frame, especially wide open. Anyway, looking for some significant MTF differences between those three lenses is hair-splitting IMHO.

Zeiss is famous by probably best coating technology in the world, but in my experience also by rather heavy vignetting. Why it is so, I have no idea, but no matter if you choose one of those wide-angle lenses or mighty Otus, you should expect rather heavy light fall-off wide open.

When it comes to distortion, Zeiss, as most other recent lens producers, is relying to the software corrections. Data for correction are coded into lens firmware and camera will read them without need for its own firmware update (in most cases). Difference between uncorrected and corrected image can be very significant (you can take a look at Zeiss data sheet – Loxia 21/2.8, for which Zeiss published both results (page 3). Unlike Batis 18/2.8 which shows some mustache (complex) distortion, It’s narrower brother – 25/2 is actually very well corrected for this aberration. This is not surprising given its focal length, but I really like Batis 25/2 when it comes to distortion. You can take a look at the samples images, where you will find a lot of architectural shots and almost no signs of optical distortion (apart of Point of view of course) and I didn’t apply any additional distortion correction in post processing.

Packaging

Zeiss Batis 25/2 comes in nice paper case, with polyurethane filling in blue color. Inside there is lens itself, plastic lens hood (both in plastic bag) and (in a side pocket) booklets – Quality assurance card, hand signed by Mr. Y. Nishimura, warranty card (with extended warranty upon registration and instruction booklet.

Built Quality

Lens itself is made of metal composite, with built-in OLED display, rubberized focus ring (focus is electronically coupled), metal mount and plastic lens hood bayonet type. Hood has small dot which needs to be aligned with similar mark on the lens for proper installation. Once mounted, lens hood looks like being integral part of the lens design. As it was already written, lens is very light, and similar in size to Batis 18/2.8. (Loxia 21/2.8 is smaller, but heavier.) Lens is well-balanced on Sony A7x bodies.

As I wrote in the Batis 18/2.8 review, you can either love this modern design or not, but only time will tell how sturdy this product is. The whole concept of Sony mirrorless is still a big enigma to me. While there is huge potential to attract professional photographers, I can hardly imagine to take Sony A7x + Batis (or any Sony E lens) to the war zone, desert rally, speed boating race, open air festival and many other occasions where durability and reliability are of the utmost importance… Batis lenses are weather protected however and light construction can even reduce the impact of bumps and hits, but the whole system feels a bit fragile for heavy pro use.

Image quality – Sharpness

This part starts to be quite boring for reviewer to be honest. Is the lens tack sharp up to the extreme corners wide open? No. But it’s damn close, which means that in the most situations, there won’t be problem with sharpness at all. Bellows are crops from respective zones of testing chart, In practice it means that if the DOF is sufficient for your subject, you can shot at f/2 without compromising sharpness across the frame.

Only if you compare images between the lenses, you might be able to say that this lens is slightly sharper than the other one, but in order to make really fair comparison, you’ll need to start with absolutely same focal length and use the same system with same settings etc. Since we didn’t have other 25mm lens to test, I made few comparison with Loxia 21/2.8, but rather just as an informative quality margin, because different focal lengths would disqualify any serious conclusion from the very beginning.

And related 100% crops

We can also take a look at our comparative composition which was published in the Loxia 21/2.8 review

If you hover with mouse over cropped frames, you should be able to see larger crops.

Chromatic Aberration

I have to open my own Pandora Box – chromatic aberration correction. Both Batis wide-angle lenses are not really excelling in the CA department. I have a friend who simply doesn’t care about purple fringing, sphero-chromatic aberration or any other color related aberration. We spent quite some time talking about it and while removing purple fringing in post production is usually possible, the corrected area will just become gray, making the resulting contrast edges softer than they should be. Most exposed case are tree branches toward sky, chrome or other shiny objects in direct sun and similar areas of very high contrast.

Batis 25/2 is certainly not the worst lens that I have seen in this department, but not the best either. In the images bellow, yo can see difference between it and Loxia 21/2.8 at comparable wide aperture (f/2.8)

Axial aberration is easier to spot on Lens Cal tool.

As I wrote, it is hard to write reviews about new Zeiss lenses because there is very little not to like, but in the CA corrections there is space for improvement. While APO like lenses, especially at WA might end ridiculously large and heavy, such as Otus 28/1.4, Zeiss is certainly capable of better correction than what Batis WA couple are offering and best proof for that is their own Loxia 21/2.8. That lens is not perfect either, but it is better than both Batis 18 and 25 and it is certainly not bigger.

Flare resistance

If the CA is Achilles’ heel (IMHO) of Batis 25/2, flare resistance and overall level of performance in back light is probably best in business.

It is amazing that I can turn my camera toward sun, and just don’t think about loss of contrast or excessive nasty flares. I would say that in flare resistance, Zeiss Batis is competing with the very best lenses in the world in that regard, including Otus. If the digital sensors won’t add to the reflection problematic, I dare to say that we might see completely flare wise unaffected image, no matter where the light comes from.

Batis 25/2 (and 18/2.8) seems to be even more flare resistant than Loxia 21/2.8 (which is also amazing btw)

What can be seen as a flare at f/22 are actually dust spots on the lens.

Vignetting

As I wrote above, vignetting is rather heavy but in camera correction works well. However, you shouldn’t apply in camera correction and later Lightroom lens profile, as this results in over-correction.

IMHO the best result is obtained with Camera corrections off and Lightroom lens profile applied, if you shot in ARW.

I already said that distortion is very well corrected and here are few comparable real life shots with Loxia 21/2.8

Bokeh

While with Batis 18/2.8 was very hard to think of any subject separation, with Batis 25/2 it is certainly possible to work with DOF. This means that the bokeh quality gets more important than with Loxia 21 or Batis 18.

Bokeh shows all typical characteristics for modern Zeiss lenses – mechanical vignetting toward edges (cat eye shaping of circular highlights) onion ring artifacts in some situations (aspherical element), and slight sphere-chromatic aberration in the highlight edges.

Overall bokeh looks nice and smooth however, and as much as this wide-angle lens will let you separate your subject from the background, it will do it classy.

Auto and Manual Focus

Batis has fast and reliable Auto focus on Sony A7 MII and A7r (testing cameras). If you face problems with focus reliability, they will most probably be caused by somewhat limited options of Sony A7x focus area options. even smallest flexible spot is not covering real area of the focus and if there is something with more contrast than your subject near the edge of displayed focus area, camera might shift the focus. This is however not problem of the lens, just that with wide-angle lens, you will cover larger portion if the image, where more possible problems with different contrast zones might occur.

Manual focus is electronically coupled. OLED display will tell you approximate focus distance as well as calculated depth of field, which will automatically switch between full frame or APS-C depending on which camera or in which (crop) mode, lens is used.

Electronically coupled manual focus is certainly not my cup of tea, but in the case of Batis WA lenses I get easily used to it. Since Batis 25/2 should be considered as a widest angle (24mm) usable for parties, concerts, family and group shots etc. (if you don’t want to heavily distort people with wider focal lengths), auto focus is very important feature for this lens.

Conclusion

Batis 25/2 is great, in fact superb wide-angle lens and apart of the CA, it will easily beat my Canon EF 24/1.4 II L and many other similar lenses in all departments. With the high-resolution camera such as Sony A7r II it creates very convenient and versatile system for everything between 25 and 35mm for most casual situations. It can be great travel lens too, being light and small and relatively fast with perfect performance wide open. It’s well corrected distortion, fast AF and reasonable level of weather protection, makes it serious alternative for any sort of reportage, event, and of course landscape lens. It is not a cheap lens, but if you want best 24-25mm lens for Sony mirrorless system, you shouldn’t look much further.

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Today Zeiss officially announced new lens for its Loxia line, made exclusively for Sony E mount (for now). New lens occupies traditional portrait focal length and we hope to get hands on it at upcoming Photokina.

While this is certainly interesting proposition, I have to admit that it makes me feel very old and confused. I doubt that I would be able to understand why Zeiss decided to put Loxia 85/2.4 against their own Zeiss Batis 85/1.8, considering that both lenses has to fight in rather limited Sony E mount ring.
Beside those two Zeiss lenses, there is also Sony 85/1.4 GM and most importantly – many legacy propositions, usually much cheaper.
Hmm, with a price tag of approx. 1400 EUR, it won’t be easy life for this new Loxia, but Zeiss believes in its compact size and optical excellence. If I may add – it better should be brilliant considering circumstances.

Knowing that new Loxia should be announced, I was hoping to see another lens – namely Loxia 35/1.4 made out of existing Zeiss Distagon 35/1.4 ZM. That lens, I would buy imminently. Let’s hope that Zeiss will reveal more Loxias soon.

Here is official Zeiss Press release – http://www.zeiss.com/corporate/en_de/press-and-media/news/press-releases.html?id=Photokina-2016—ZEISS-Loxia-Telephoto

Telephoto lens for the ZEISS Loxia family

With the ZEISS Loxia 2.4/85, the optics company expands its compact lens family for mirrorless Sony full-frame cameras with E mount

OBERKOCHEN/Germany, 15/09/2016.

The newest member of the ZEISS Loxia family is a short telephoto lens called the ZEISS Loxia 2.4/85. It supplements three focal lengths that are already available for this lens family, namely the ZEISS Loxia 2.8/21, Loxia 2/35 and Loxia 2/50, and was specially designed for mirrorless full-frame cameras with E mount. The compact ZEISS Loxia lenses are the ideal choice for travel and street photographers who value light and compact camera equipment. “In terms of its technology and the feel of its surface, the ZEISS Loxia 2.4/85 fits perfectly with the existing focal lengths, and is particularly well suited for portrait photography,” said Christophe Casenave, product manager with ZEISS Camera Lenses. The ZEISS Loxia 2.4/85 will be available in stores starting mid of December 2016.

Optimized ZEISS Sonnar^® design

The new ZEISS Loxia 2.4/85 has been designed for digital sensors. Based on an optimized ZEISS Sonnar design, it has seven lens elements in seven groups. “With the ZEISS Loxia 2.4/85, we have managed to develop a well-rounded and new interpretation of the original ZEISS Sonnar optical design that meets all the requirements of digital photography and videography,” continued Casenave. The lens has a minimum object distance of 0.80 meters and a manual focus ring with a rotation angle of 220 degrees, enabling the subtlest variations of focusing. The large aperture of f/2.4 combined with the high-quality optical design ensures an appealing bokeh. The electronic interface transfers both lens data (EXIF) and focus movements, and activates the magnification function of the camera if desired by the user. “Precise manual focusing with hard stop and the mechanical setting of the aperture (working aperture priority mode) provide sophisticated photographers who don’t want to leave everything to the camera abundant possibilities for composition,” said Casenave.

Also suitable for cine applications

With the well-known De-Click function of the ZEISS Loxia lenses, the optics company is also targeting videographers. The De-Click function allows to mechanically deactivate the click stops on the aperture ring — a condition for silent and smooth adjustments of the aperture. As a result, the ZEISS Loxia 2.4/85 is also an attractive lens for video cameras that have an E mount, such as the Sony PXW-FS7 and PXW-FS5. A robust metal barrel, the filter diameter of M52 (which is identical across all focal lengths) and protection against penetration of dust and spray onto the lens mount complete the entire package. In addition, the external diameter, which is uniform across all ZEISS Loxia lenses, simplifies film shoots.

ZEISS Lens Gears

ZEISS Loxia lenses can also be used with a follow focus system. Made of high-quality aluminum with a hardened surface coating, the ZEISS Lens Gears are slid onto each respective lens and, through simple mounting, attached to the focus ring of the lens by turning two rings that each go in the opposite direction. Supplemented by a follow focus system, precise focusing is therefore possible and ZEISS Loxia lenses become endowed with similar features as a full-scale cine lens. The ZEISS Lens Gear Rings in the sizes mini (62 – 69mm, 60 – 67mm with GumGum) fit the ZEISS Loxia lenses.

Price and availability

Global delivery of the ZEISS Loxia 2.4/85 will begin mid of December 2016. The lens shade is included with delivery. The recommended retail sales price is 1,399 euros (including 19% VAT in Germany) or 1,399 US$.

With the ZEISS Loxia 2.4/85, the ZEISS Loxia lens family has grown to four focal lengths and is therefore able to cover the focal length range from 21mm to 85mm.

The ZEISS Loxia 2.4/85 is particularly well suited for portrait photography and, due to its optical design, meets the demands of modern still photography and videography.

Every 2 years, Photokina – largest photo exhibition in Europe and one of the largest in the world is opening its gates in Cologne. It starts tomorrow – 20.9.2016 and we will be there.

If you can, come and visit this event, because it really worth it, and if you can’t but you still want to get a bit closer, you can ask here about things that you are interested in and we will try to give you answers.

You can either use comment board bellow or you might open new threads in our forum section, if you expect more people will join discussion.

Here is the link to the dedicated forum – http://www.verybiglobo.com/forums/forum/photokina-2016/

DAY 1

My first day on Photokina 2016 was very sad day unfortunately.

Coming to Zeiss exhibition I was looking forward to meet with Dr. Hubert Nasse, chief scientist in Zeiss and man who was living trade mark of the company in the eyes of many enthusiasts. Unfortunately I was shocked to hear that Dr. Nasse suddenly passed away in the age of 64.

World of photography lost not only one of the greatest experts in optics, but also great person and spirit that will never be forgotten.

Thank you for all Dr. Nasse!

On the positive side, if you manage to go to Heaven, I am sure you’ll have some great lenses to play with there.

It took me a while to get back to reality so I asked Mr. Andreas Bogenshütz, great photographer and Zeiss ambassador, to show me new Zeriss Loxia 85/2.4, one of the main reasons why I come to Photokina.

Here is my hands on mini review.

Zeiss Loxia 85mm f/2.4

New lens is very thin in comparison to most other 85mm lenses that I know. On the other hand, its weight is substantial and length is essentially same as Milvus or Otus (I mean transport size, with reversed hood). Nevertheless, width is usually more problematic than length for packing, thus we can say that Loxia 85/2.4 is one of the smallest lenses in its category. Built quality is great as with any other Loxia lens, and there is certain level of weather protection.

Lens looks and feels like a gem and its balance on my Sony A7II is as good as it can be. While the whole body still rotates when you try to mount it, it is much more pleasing experience (because of longer body) than with 21/2.8 e.g.

I had a short interview about new Loxia with Zeiss camera lenses product manager, Mr. Cristophe Casenave, which I will publish soon, and the key message was, that Loxia 85/2.4 (actually whole Loxia line) is designed with the small size but uncompromising image quality in mind. That of course resulted in the rather moderate speed, but truth is, that quite a few Sony users on forums have been asking for compact portrait lens, even slow if it has to be (and it has, damn physics), something like Zeiss Tele-Tessar 85/4 in M mount.

Here it is and it is faster than Tele Tessar.

There are two positive things which I’d like to mention – first, without a doubt, Zeiss is listening its customers and second, Zeiss is not afraid of introducing products that won’t attract main stream.

But there is also Zeiss Batis 85/1.8, which is thicker but lighter, has AF and undoubtedly very good IQ too. I am not however worried that Batis will significantly affect sales of Loxia (well, at least money will stay at same house), but what might be a problem for Loxia 85/2.4, is the world of legacy lens options.

Zeiss Sonnar 90/2.8 Contax G or Zeiss Sonnar 85/2.8 C/Y, are just few to start with, are serious contenders for the fraction of the Loxia 85/2.4 price.

To make things even more complicated, believe it or not, for some users those legacy lenses might have even higher appeal, because most of them can be adapted for AF functionality with Techart Pro adapter, while Loxia can’t. Strange world…

How can then Zeiss managers sleep well and believe in its success?

There is only one answer that I can think of – it’s got to be a great lens and they know it.

Let me tell you right here, it’s not a great lens, it’s amazing!

For portrait lens there are three things that I care about – sharpness, look of the blurred background, lack of CA, especially purple fringing.

Not only that new Loxia is ticking all those boxes, but it ads more – brilliant back-light performance and compact size.

Speaking about sharpness, I was lucky that beautiful lady from Zeiss team, who I asked if I can take her portrait, didn’t refuse. She wasn’t exactly happy (you won’t either if you’ll see me), and the light was the worse that could be for taking portraits, but take a look at the result.

The biggest problem with shots like this is to prevent any camera or subject shake. People will look at it and if there is slightest blurriness, they will accuse lens. I also had only 1/40s, because I tried to keep ISO low, but IBIS of A7II did help. Bellow is crop of the focus area, without any sharpening in the post processing, except for the standard Lightroom CC.

There is no doubt, that Loxia 85/2.4 is sharp, probably more than enough. While this shot was taken with rather moderate distance, the following shot was taken at larger distance, and sharpness is still great (but ISO is higher this time)

And at very close distance… (please keep in mind DOF)

Did I forgot to say that Zeiss is producing also lenses for iPhone? Maybe because I really don’t care…

Mr. Andreas Bogenshütz deserves the highest Verybiglobo award (that we don’t have unfortunately), for its endless patience and politeness with a PITA client such as myself, when I am trying to create comparative test in between 200 curious visitors, journalists, bloggers and photo enthusiasts, most of whom has more time than money. Mainly thanks to him, I can present now one of the first brief comparative results between Zeiss Loxia 85/2.4, Batis 85/1.8 and Otus 85/1.4.

We can’t post on Verybiglobo original size files yet (well we can, but you might not live long enough to open them), so bellow is the gallery of the original shots at smaller size and one crop comparison between three lenses. You can however open files in their original size if you go to related Flickr Album – https://flic.kr/s/aHskK5ufJp

Don’t see much difference? That’s because they are all great lenses. Don’t forget that Loxia is wide open, while other two lenses are already stopped down.

Zeiss installed the seascape scene in the lens testing area. That means lot of white seagulls under lot of harsh spot lights. This combination usually lead to problems with CA and tend to show lot of purple fringing at the edges. As you can see above, it is not the case with any of those lenses, but except for the Loxia, they are all stopped down. This is really great performance.

You will find a little PF in extreme situations, lens is not as clean as mighty Otus, but it is certainly on par with Milvus and slightly better than Batis.

For the bokeh, there simply isn’t good testing background, so I can rather write about my impressions than showing you results. Loxia 85/2.4, just like Milvus 85/1.4 doesn’t have aspherical glasses in it’s construction (but it has some very expensive glasses instead, according to Mr. Cristophe Casenave – product manager), so we won’t see onion rings in the highlights. On the other hand, I tend to see a slight effect of the sphero-chromatic aberration in some highlights, so the background blur should have similar appearance as with Milvus 85/1.4, only that because of the speed, the amount of blur for subject separation is limited in comparison.

Distortion is negligible and not so important at this focal length and vignetting seems to be similar as with most other Zeiss lenses (rather high).

All in all, Loxia is great portrait lens, that you will actually take with you, because it will nicely fit in your bag with other Loxias. Not like my Otus, that is probably optically better, but that doesn’t really help when it stays on the shelf, most of the time.

Should you buy Loxia or Batis for your Sony? Take it that way – you are either Batis Man or Loxia Man, I can hardly give you better advise.

Few more images with new Loxia 85/2.4

I managed to briefly visit few other key player stands, but didn’t spent much time there.

Canon is all in the colors of 5D mark IV and new M5. Both cameras are bringing some really great features and they both deserve much more time thanI recently have. So in short – what are key features of Canon Mark 5D IV? On top of already very good 5D Mark III, it’s only weak spot was low dynamic range, Mark IV brings new 28 mpx sensor with improved dynamic range, even faster and more accurate focusing thanks to the dual pixel technology and I would say – key feture – possibility to shift the focus in the captured RAW file in post processing, if you missed it on the spot. While this sounds a bit like Lytro (RIP Lytro photo program), it’s actually quite different technology. This feature alone might be a very good reason for many professional photographers, dealing with complicated surrounding with lot of unpredictably moving subjects (such as wedding e.g.), it won’t help with motion blur caused by camera shake or slow speed vs subject movement. But it is great feature for sure.

When it comes to Canon M5, I agree with comments that this camera is a bit late on the market, considering that for the same price as Sony A6300, gives only Full HD video and “only” 20 mpx sensor. There is however one feature that I fallen in love straight away – change of focus point. M5 has touch screen and while you are looking through the viewfinder, you can move your finger on the screen to place your focus point where you want. This is so great way to move focus point and so intuitive, that I am seriously considering this camera just for that. It is also very nice looking camera IMHO and overall ergonomic is top notch. I will do my best to get one for testing asap. but since I don’t know anyone in Canon Czech Republic, it might end as a Mission Impossible.

Oh, I almost forgot – there is new 120 mpx Canon EOS!!!

I am not kidding, there is installation of the camera prototype and some old books bellow. On top of those books there is a little lady bird (1cm tall) and focus is on its back. Thus focus on the letters in the book is slightly off and I guess half of the resolution is wasted. Oh well… I manged to capture part of EXIF info for you, take a look at the image size and start saving for Sunway TaihuLight if you want to process your images.

Nikon is on mission! What mission? I guess none really knows…

While one would expect that biggest star of Nikon exhibition will be D500, real star was small video camera KeyMission 360 or whatever that thing is called.

It has two lenses and it can capture 360° video that you can enjoy looking through the appropriate VR set.

Cool.

In general, most significant trends on Photokina are 360°video and related VR accesories. One would expect Nikon to keep its focus on photography, but those times are over…

Looking at most big brands around, I can’t avoid the feeling that traditional marketing which used to build brands based on their core values, their DNA and resulting stability, strength and competitive proposition are replaced with something that I call shotgun strategy – fire on all sides and adapt according to the market reaction. This is not bad thing from the user point of view but IMHO, it pushes importance of the brands even further behind the product itself, and we might end with a bunch of private labels, all made in the global factories. This is for much longer elaboration and I might get once to it, but not now.

I tried briefly Lensbaby Twist 60 optics, and it seems to be actually very interesting Petzval sort of lens, which I would love to review. Anyone want to buy me one?

Their Velvet 56/1.6 didn’t ring any bells, as I can get similar effects with my modified Helios 44.

For some reason I didn’t realize that Benro is making filters. Very good filters. Actually, their filter holders are looking and feeling better than famous LEE stuff, and most of the filters they offer are glass and not resin, but the prices are very steep, just as LEE.

LED lighting revolution is on going trend, and together with all sorts of camera supports, such as motion controlled rails, sliders, 3D heads, time-lapse modules etc. there are virtually thousands of new ways to improve your lighting and video. I’d love to have them all, but I have no idea what I would do with most of them.

To close 1st day experience, here is the stand of one famous and one new brand next to each other.

Berger introduced new B&W film – 400 Pancro and images they are showing looks amazing. Film is not dead!!!!

I managed to speak with Mr. Ben Pilling – manager of Sony European Technical Product Marketing about new A99MII and differences in comparison to A7RII. He also told me when the new Sony A7MIII is coming – “Ha, ha” he said.

Day 2

This place is so huge that I could spend another month, still discovering new exciting exhibitions. It takes almost 30min to walk from the press center in the North part to the hall 1 and every 10-15 meter you have to stop and look to some great gadget.

You can also meet most of popular blogger faces, such as Jarred (FroKnowsPhoto) or Kei (I think) from Digital revue. Kei was just trying new Hasselblad x1D, with two pair of glasses, one of which were very dark. I just hope he doesn’t judge image quality with those on head.

Let’s move.

Leica – I managed to capture few shots with M240 and 24/1.4 lens which I find really beautiful. When I was there, I also captured few shots with the monstrous SL and dedicated 24-90 lens. I’ll have to check them when I get back home.

I arranged shooting with Hasselblad x1d tomorrow at 2pm in their installed studio. I still don’t know if they will let me use my memory card to take files, but let’s hope for the best.

I had a brief hands on experience with a new Micro 4/3 mirrorless Yi, which has almost exclusive touch screen interface and very affordable price consdering great Sony 20 mpx sensor inside.

I spent quite some time trying all different modes of Sony A99 MII autofocus system. My first impression – WOW. I wasn’t allowed to put my card in the camera, so I can’t really comment about accuracy and IQ, but that thing is a speed demon. Everything is fast and shooting expirience at those 12 f/s is not far from the top Pro Canikon models. Than I relized how masmerizing that machine gun sound of Hi+ drive mode is, and why Sony had to improve the life span of the shutter.

I also tried new macro 50/2.8 for e-mount and my first impression is also positive. It’s maybe not as fancy as it’s larger and longer brother, but it feels and performs as expected and it might be very good option for someone looking for standard lens with occasional macro capabilities (flower lovers?).

There will be more to write about, some shots with Lomo art lenses and few more shots with Sony 85/1.4GM and 50/1.4GM (man, that lens is huge!!!)

The best thing about today is that I finally managed someone to get sorry about my look and state of mind and to invite me for a dinner! Sorry guys it’s a free dinner, something I learned never to refuse, so no more news tonight, but remember, I am coming back tomorrow for the last time this year, so if you have any questions… you know the drill.

Day three – see you in 2 years…

Today was my last day here on Photokina. I spent some time on Sony booth, trying to evaluate focus speed of a new Sony FE 50/2.8 macro. It was quite though, because one of Sony representatives didn’t want to let me move just few meters from the stand, in order to get better shooting scenario. Guy was very uncooperative and that always makes me a bit dissapointed and angry. I moved to another guy and make few videos from there, trying to show focus speed, but than I left Sony deciding not to test other lenses which I originally wanted to try. In those conditions it won’t be fair anyway…

Who ever took a part on this type of trade events, would know that there are few critical days… days which starts with couple of beers for the dinner, continues with couple of something stronger in the hotel pub and ends with whatever is in the room mini-bar.

This was one of those days.

The shining glory of company colors was muted by few extra grades of alcohol, so it wasn’t only Sony were I met uncooperative representatives…

I forgot to tell you that there is a rental booth next to the hall 9 where poor bloggers like me, without active youtube channel and amazing video reviews (in which you can mostly get press informations in audio video form with smaller or larger dose of humor) get some attention and are offered to rent some equipment. Yesterday I took Sigma 24-35/2 Art with MC-11 and I was positively surprised with its usability and image quality (less so with size and weight) and today I rented Kodak Pixelpro 360 4K double set – two small 360* action cams mounted back to back on some sort of extendable selfie stick. My idea was to stop here and there and shoot few seconds of 360* video. I did that, but I have no idea what is on cards right now and if I will be able to make something of it. Stay tuned.

I stopped also on the Godox booth, because I am looking for reltivel cheap led panels and I was interested in their Godox 600 falsh head. Normally you can’t buy stuff on Photokina (at least not before last day), but I saw someone buying stuff from them, so I asked nice lady (she wasn’t on the dinner last night) about the orice of a beautifull, light, thin but quite big led panel with very soft light. She said – “that one is not for sale, but everything else is.” Damn, is that my bad day or what? “Would you sell it for me if I write a review of it?” I asked. She went to ask her boss and get back with the positive answer. “But I need two pieces, I will write about both of them I promise!” “No,no,no, I can’t sell you two, only one! It’s a prototype!”

Well, better one than none. I don’t know what much to write about it, but it is very nice and it cost me 90EUR. I just hope to buy second soon, otherwise it would be useless to me.

Running around I stopped to see what’s new in Olympus camp where I saw new OMDEM1 MK2 (I’d love to know what those guys are taking when they name their products, and I certainly won’t let them choose my pets name). I saw it! Behind the glass. I asked representative what would he like to tell us about it – what are reasons why should I buy it instead of Panasonic, Sony or Canon. He willingly opened nicely looking brochure and started to read it. Long dinner or wrong person – your pick.

At Fuji I saw GFX 50s (it’s camera, not motorcycle). Behind the glass. With fine asortiment of the lenses. I took some pictures with lot of reflections.

Visiting Laowa stand was quite refreshing. They let me try their 15 and 12mm lenses for Sony E and my first imoression is very positive. That fifteen f two looks really promising!!!

I got to the Hasselblad booth at studio appointement. X1d looks and feels great in the hand. Firmware is however still in development so some functions are limited. I managed to capture few shots on my card and even tried one comparative shot with my Sony A7Mii. I’ll have to see what’s on the card and if I can make something usefull of it.

At Canon I grabbed few shots with 5D MIV to try that pixel shift twekaing and I shown their represntative that M5 can be set for continious focus too and that it’s not the same as face detection! He was very surprised. (Another long dinner I guess.)

I picked few infos here and there on the run and I will now try to sit and write more in detail about my Photokina experience.

Thank you all who have been following me and keep checking for new articles.

P.S I appologize to all who have contacted me via contact form or my private email. I just can’t manage to react on those, so please use comment bellow or dedicated forum. Once I get back home, I will however try to answer those questions too.

Sony FE 50/2.8 Macro lens, made for FF (but can be used also for APS-C of course) Sony E-mount cameras, was somehow quietly announced few weeks before Photokina 2016. On the show itself, this lens remained outside attention of the visitors, so I decided to give it a try and it certainly worth it.

Here is the official press release from 30.08.2016

Sony today introduced a new full-frame lens for the ɑ E-mount camera system, the FE 50mm F2.8 Macro lens (model SEL50M28).

Ideal for everyday photography, this versatile 50mm macro lens features a F2.8 maximum aperture that offers outstanding image quality and bokeh, while its 1:1 macro capability allows the photographer to get sharp close-up shots of their subject. Additionally, its comprehensive range of controls including focus-mode switch, focus-range limiter and the focus-hold button ensures a quality macro shooting experience for a wide range of users.

Great for scenery and portraits as well as macro shots, it offers a 0.16m minimum focusing distance and a wider frame for capturing more background, compared to longer focal-length macro lenses. Weighing just 236g, the lens is extremely lightweight and portable, making it easy to carry around and is dust and moisture resistant[i] for use in different weather conditions.

The new FE 50mm F2.8 Macro lens features ED (Extra-low Dispersion) glass to effectively compensate for axial chromatic aberration at close focus, allowing it to create consistently sharp and high quality images. The circular aperture design produces beautiful bokeh effects and the optical and mechanical construction of the lens has less flare and ghosting even without a lens hood.

The SEL50M28 will be available in Europe in October priced at approximately €600.

[i]Not guaranteed to be 100% dust and moisture resistant

I managed to have a short interview with Mr. Ben Pilling – manager of Sony European Technical Product Marketing and in his words, this lens was made as an on budget alternative to excellent FE 90/2.8 G Macro and also as a wider solution for those who needs it.

50mm focal length is now most occupied focal length in the Sony FF E-mount, counting 4 lenses from Sony (including 55/1.8), 2 lenses from Zeiss and number of existing and upcoming lenses from 3rd party producers (e.g. Samyang 50/1.4 AF) Interestingly enough, it is just 2nd macro lens among the range and first with the price just around 600 EUR margin.

Let’s take a look at the lens specification:

Built quality and handling:

Lens is made of metal composite and it is rather light. Inner part of the barrel where front element is hidden deeply inside is plastic though. Mount is metal. Lens has three external buttons/switcher, all plastic as far as I can tell. It is supposed to be dust and moisture resistant but not 100%. That means that Sony applied some sealing at the critical places (mount, button, switchers), but they will most probably refuse to accept under warranty any damage caused by moisture/water/rain/sand or dust.
In other words – let as claim in advertising that it is moisture and dust protected, because that sells good, but use it on your own risk (avoid humid and dusty environments…)

Oh well…

As mentioned above,lens has two switchers and one button. Button (between the switchers) can be programed for almost any function that you want (that is possible to map to any other custom button). I didn’t tried it though, that’s what I have been told. I like it’s position, size and response.

Dedicated AF/MF switcher is also nice add-on, especially for macro work.

Finally there is focus limiter with 3 positions – a) full focus range, b) 0,3m to infinity and c) macro range – 0,16-0,3m. You might think – why there are 3 positions, wouldn’t 2 suffice? The reason is that almost 75% of the focusing throw happen in the macro range (between 16cm and 30cm from the sensor plane). Yes – that 14cm in the macro range takes not only 75% of the focus throw but the lens extends in that range from it’s original size of approx. 7cm to around 10cm.

Focusing is coupled electronically, so when you turn the focus ring, motors are extending the lens, in order to focus (increase magnification). That means that lens can’t be operated without power from camera, but it will stay on the focus position where you left it prior to switching camera off. Full turn of the focus ring takes in my experience approx. 850° (2 1/3 full rotation) in order to focus from infinity to minimum focus distance and vice versa.

That long focus throw affect also AF speed, but it is invaluable help for acquiring perfect focus at macro distances. I can also imagine that Sony might come with external app. for focus stacking with this lens. Manual focus itself is nicely implemented and quite responsive (for electronically coupled focus anyway).

I made a bunch of short videos (please excuse the quality and fact that I didn’t rip the sound off) that should give you an idea about focus speed, using all three focus limiter settings and trying to focus from MFD across medium distance to infinity and back. To watch video, please click on the following You Tube link – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL93y5vXvN3mTB4gnz79CVpZZXc3R2CKfK

Lens features 1:1 magnification, which means that you can have objects recorded on the sensor at their real life size. Minimum focusing distance (from the sensor plane to the subject in focus) is 16cm, but considering that lens extends to 10-11 cm when in full magnification, working distance is just about 5 cm. That (as with most macro 1:1 lenses) pose some problems for the lighting.

Front element doesn’t rotate and it is deeply recessed, so lens hood isn’t necessary.

Lens has filter diameter of 55mm and apart of the filters, you can use also macro flash rings and similar accessories.

All, in all, lens has some very useful functions and it feels solid, although not premium as higher end lenses from the same manufacturer.

Image quality – first impressions

On the Sony booth on Photokina, is usually very crowded and visitors are not allowed to take lens from the booth to the gear test site, which is small stage with few models and props, not further than few meters away. Around that stage, there are several camera models together with mounted lenses but:

a) card slots are locked so it is impossible to insert card (to take test pictures with you),

b) lenses are locked to the bodies, so it is impossible to put them on another body.

I would strongly recommend Sony to consider changing this useless routine, because in a result, I can present images with less than pleasing content and quality.

Well, I managed to “steal” the lens on the first day, in order to make few shots on the stage, but I was so nervous that I couldn’t really focus on the task.

Bellows are some of those test shots, which you can find in their original size in the related Flickr Album – https://flic.kr/s/aHskEbcfHE and my first impressions.

Sharpness at a macro distance:

Most test shots have been done at f/2.8, because there weren’t enough light to stop the lens down. DOF is thus very thin, so you have to look at the in-focus plane only. On the other hand, you can judge the transition to the blurred area, which IMHO looks very smooth. In the focus zone, lens looks sharp in the center, but also in the edges (when they are within focus zone). I can’t comment about field flatness but I would expect rather flat projection, considering its macro heritage.

Sharpness at medium distances:

Center sharpness certainly looks fair, I can’t comment on the edges.

f/2.8

Bellow is comparison between f/2.8 and f/5.6

Contrast

I had to shot at ISO 500, but my first impressions is that micro contrast could have been higher. On the other hand, for macro purpose, it is maybe good to have slightly less contrast, so it is maybe on purpose. With a proper lighting and at low ISO, I am sure that this lens can produce “punchy” images.

CA

It looks rather well corrected for color aberrations, there is some purple fringing at high contrast edges and I can see some sphero-chromatic aberration in the highlights, but nothing really excessive.

Vignetting

While I didn’t have proper test target to test for light fall off, from the single shot that I took on purpose, it seems that this aberration is well under control. I would guess bellow 1 EV.

Distortion

Again, I couldn’t find relevant subject, but from the above posted model shots, lines in the background (and on the floor above) looks straight as they should, so I expect negligible distortion. (It’s macro lens at the end).

Bokeh

In the AF tests and in some of the pictures above, bokeh seems surprisingly smooth to my eye. There is typical mechanical vignetting causing cat-eye highlight shape toward edges, but overall, my first impression toward bokeh is very positive.

Conclusion

This looks like very nice lens, somehow abandoned from the beginning by its own producer. If you are after shooting flowers, bugs, coins, eBay products, or red and blue pills and you don’t want to spend almost three-time more for FE 90/2.8 (or you have limited space in your home studio), I will encourage you to try Sony FE 50/2.8 Macro.

If you need fast focusing lens for your running kids and want to shot macro here and there, this isn’t lens for you.

In other words, it will serve you well for everything that doesn’t involve low light or fast-moving subjects.

If I manage to get this lens for testing, I would have this hand-on review completed with LAB tests and more real life samples.

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I already published Loxia 85/2.4 hands-on in the Photokina coverage article, but it deserves its dedicated space, so here it is, slightly reorganized and with some new content.

I had a short interview with Mr. Cristophe Casenave, senior product manager in Zeiss and expert on weather sealing.

Mr. Casenave is first gentleman on the left

VBL:Aren’t you afraid that Batis and Loxia are two lines under same umbrella, directly competing between each other? Right now, you are putting Loxia 85/2.4 right against Batis 85/1.8.

Mr. Cristophe Casenave: Loxia and Batis, they are made for different application, no matter what focal lengths they are. Customers that will choose one or the other are not really the same target group. Batis is choice of enthusiast or professional photographers who are looking for high quality images and fast AF, such as wedding or event photographers, while Loxia is made for photographers who have time to stay in full control of their images, to focus manually and who mainly appreciate the compact size of Loxia lenses. We all know that moment when we are packing our bags, standing above and thinking – which one should I take with me, which one do I really need and will use? You don’t have to do this with Loxia anymore, because they are so compact and small, you can always take them all without compromising image quality.

We also shouldn’t forget about users who are shooting video on Sony E-mount cameras, because Loxias with their long focus throw and perfectly dampened focus ring, as well as with de-clicking aperture is perfect for video, especially with the new Zeiss – follow focus gear rings.

This is why we think that there is no real overlap between the lines.

VBL: Would you say that compactness is the key selling proposition of the Loxia lenses?

Mr. Cristophe Casenave: Definitely. But without compromising build or image quality. This is why Loxia 85 is “only” f/2.4. We have this 85/4 lens in M mount (Tele-Tessar) and people always said – it might be a bit slow but its size is miraculous, it’s superb. So we tried to make a compromise, to keep the size compact while adding a bit more light. We were opening it more and more and then we said stop, that’s it – f/2.4, that’s a perfect balance between size and speed.

VBL: So, the Loxia 85/2.4 is a completely new design then?

Mr. Cristophe Casenave: Yes, it is new design. It is pure spherical design without aspherical elements, but we put some very expensive glass inside. We choose this design in order to create very smooth bokeh, without “onion rings” in highlights, but to preserve high micro contrast and explicit sharpness from wide open.

VBL: So we can say that it has Milvus heritage than?

Mr. Cristophe Casenave: Yes, they have a similar concept. But you see, we had to put that expensive glass in order to get wide open performance close to optical peak, so that user don’t have to stop the lens to get most of it. Loxia 85/2.4 is very sharp already wide open and CA is very well controlled.

VBL: Is there anything else why should users choose Loxia 85 instead of Batis 85?

Mr. Cristophe Casenave: There is certainly emotional aspect. There is actually a fan club of Loxia lenses users. If you take the Loxia in hands and try it on your camera and you make pictures with it, you will most probably fell in love with the line. I am always reading on forums – “I love my Loxias, they are so special to me!” This is why I believe that current Loxia owners will be very happy with the new 85/2.4.

VBL: You can count me being a Loxia lover too. I have one issue with them however – since the whole barrel is actually focus ring, it rotates when you are trying to put the lens in your camera. Mounting and dismounting of the Loxia is not greatest ergonomic experience.

Mr. Cristophe Casenave: We are aware of that, we’ve been listening to the complains. Unfortunately that is technical limitation of the design and price for their compactness. 

VBL: Loxia is very expensive lens. There are many legacy lenses in this focal length that are well praised by users and much cheaper. One of those coming to my mind is Zeiss Sonnar 90/2.8 in Contax G mount. What do you think of that competition.

Mr. Cristophe Casenave: We are aware of it and of a popularity of legacy lenses in general by Sony E-mount camera users. However, Loxia 85/2.4 is sharper and has much better control of CA than most of legacy lenses. We should also think of a new coatings which ensure better flare protection and color rendition stability across the recent Zeiss lens line. We are investing a lot in the effort to keep that distinguished Zeiss color interpretation and look across all Zeiss lenses, not to speak about lenses being part of certain line.

VBL: This probably answers one of my older questions regarding color differences between Classic and Milvus line. Could we say that they have same color rendition, despite Milvus having newer coatings?

Mr. Cristophe Casenave: Absolutely.

VBL: Thank you very much for your time. I have a last question, a little bit personnel – will we see ever Loxia 35/1.4 based on amazing and relatively new Distagon 35/1.4 ZM in M mount?

Mr. Cristophe Casenave: Would you be interested in one?

VBL: I’ll buy it now!

Mr. Cristophe Casenave: (mysterious smile) OK, I’ll take a note.

After this short talk to Mr. Casanave, I went to try the lens, to get some first hand experience. Here is what I found out.

Introduction:

There are two positive things which I’d like to mention – first, without a doubt, Zeiss is listening its customers and second, Zeiss is not afraid of introducing products that won’t attract main stream.

But there is also Zeiss Batis 85/1.8, which is thicker but lighter, has AF and undoubtedly very good IQ too. I am not however worried that Batis will significantly affect sales of Loxia (well, at least money will stay at same house), but what might be a problem for Loxia 85/2.4, is the world of legacy lens options.

Zeiss Sonnar 90/2.8 Contax G or Zeiss Sonnar 85/2.8 C/Y, are just few to start with, are serious contenders for the fraction of the Loxia 85/2.4 price.

To make things even more complicated, believe it or not, for some users those legacy lenses might have even higher appeal, because most of them can be adapted for AF functionality with Techart Pro adapter, while Loxia can’t. Strange world…

How can then Zeiss managers sleep well and believe in its success?

There is only one answer that I can think of – it’s got to be a great lens and they know it.

Let me tell you right here, it’s not a great lens, it’s amazing!

Built quality and handling

New lens is very thin in comparison to most other 85mm lenses that I know. On the other hand, its weight is substantial and length is essentially same as Milvus or Otus (I mean transport size, with reversed hood). Nevertheless, width is usually more problematic than length for packing, thus we can say that Loxia 85/2.4 is one of the smallest lenses in its category. Built quality is great as with any other Loxia lens, and there is certain level of weather protection. Lens design is based on optimized (for digital and video) Sonnar design, with seven elements in seven groups. While there is no aspherical element, some other very expensive glass was used, in order to reach peak performance from wide open.

Lens has minimum focus distance of 0,8m (from the sensor plane) and focus throw of 220° for extra smooth and precise manual focusing. While lens is electronically coupled with camera, in order to transfer relevant EXIF information including focus distance, focus and aperture settings are all manual. Focus does have hard stop at infinity, unlike lenses with focus by wire.

Lens looks and feels like a gem and its balance on my Sony A7II is as good as it can be. While the whole body still rotates when you try to mount it, it is much more pleasing experience (because of longer body) than with 21/2.8 e.g.  Lens hood is very deep. This was a bit of surprise, but reversed, it fits nicely on the body, preserving its slim line.

There is also de-clicking aperture for videographers.

Here is the official specification:

For portrait lens there are three things that I care about – sharpness, look of the blurred background, lack of CA, especially purple fringing.

Not only that new Loxia is ticking all those boxes, but it ads more – brilliant back-light performance and compact size.

Sharpness

Speaking about sharpness, I was lucky that beautiful lady from Zeiss team, who I asked if I can take her portrait, didn’t refuse. She wasn’t exactly happy (you won’t either if you’ll see me), and the light was the worse that could be for taking portraits, but take a look at the result.

The biggest problem with shots like this is to prevent any camera or subject shake. People will look at it and if there is slightest blurriness, they will accuse lens. I also had only 1/40s, because I tried to keep ISO low, but IBIS of A7II did help. Bellow is crop of the focus area, without any sharpening in the post processing, except for the standard Lightroom CC. Remember – it’s and f/2.4 – wide open performance!

There is no doubt, that Loxia 85/2.4 is sharp, probably more than enough. While this shot was taken with rather moderate distance, the following shot was taken at larger distance, and sharpness is still great (but ISO is higher this time)

And at very close distance… (please keep in mind DOF)

Mr. Andreas Bogenshütz deserves the highest Verybiglobo award (that we don’t have unfortunately), for its endless patience and politeness with a PITA client such as myself, when I am trying to create comparative test in between 200 curious visitors, journalists, bloggers and photo enthusiasts, most of whom has more time than money. Mainly thanks to him, I can present now one of the first brief comparative results between Zeiss Loxia 85/2.4, Batis 85/1.8 and Otus 85/1.4.

We can’t post on Verybiglobo original size files yet (well we can, but you might not live long enough to open them), so bellow is the gallery of the original shots at smaller size and one crop comparison between three lenses. You can however open files in their original size if you go to related Flickr Album – https://flic.kr/s/aHskK5ufJp

Don’t see much difference? That’s because they are all great lenses. Don’t forget that Loxia is wide open, while other two lenses are already stopped down.

Chromatic Aberrations

Zeiss installed the seascape scene in the lens testing area. That means lot of white seagulls under lot of harsh spot lights. This combination usually lead to problems with CA and tend to show lot of purple fringing at the edges. As you can see above, it is not the case with any of those lenses, but except for the Loxia, they are all stopped down. This is really great performance.

You will find a little PF in extreme situations, lens is not as clean as mighty Otus, but it is certainly on par with Milvus and slightly better than Batis.

You can often read that it is easy to correct purple fringing. Well sometimes it is, other times it’s not that easy, because it will shift other edges toward green. Most importantly, you can correct the color (get rid of purple) but the edge will remain softer. That’s where Otus really excels.

Bellow is just one example of PF that is not very easy to remove (some masking will be necessary).

Original image:

100% crop prior to Lightroom correction:

Crop of the same image after Lightroom Correction (fringe correction tool)

Bokeh

For the bokeh, there simply isn’t good testing background, so I can rather write about my impressions than showing you results. Loxia 85/2.4, just like Milvus 85/1.4 doesn’t have aspherical glasses in its construction (but it has some very expensive glasses instead, according to Mr. Cristophe Casenave – product manager), so we won’t see onion rings in the highlights. On the other hand, I tend to see a slight effect of the sphero-chromatic aberration in some highlights, so the background blur should have similar appearance as with Milvus 85/1.4, only that because of the speed, the amount of blur for subject separation is limited in comparison.

Distortion

Distortion is negligible and not so important at this focal length and vignetting seems to be similar as with most other Zeiss lenses (rather high).

Focus Breathing (somewhat important for video)

There is some that would be possible to experience when shooting video. I have seen worse though.

Conclusion:

All in all, Loxia is great portrait lens, that you will actually take with you, because it will nicely fit in your bag with other Loxias. Not like my Otus, that is probably optically better, but that doesn’t really help when it stays on the shelf, most of the time.

Should you buy Loxia or Batis for your Sony? Take it that way – you are either Batis Man or Loxia Man or probably Legacy Man. I can hardly give you better advise…

Few more images with new Loxia 85/2.4

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There were so many exciting gadgets on Photokina, that it was easy to miss two very interesting lenses. Luckily my friend mentioned Irix lenses https://www.facebook.com/Irixlens/, and while I didn’t find their stand, I spot instead Laowa. Venus Optics – producer of Laowa lenses is a new Chinese camera lens manufacturer based in Hefei, Anhui, which already delivered some rather unique lenses.

Laowa 15/4 Macro lens with shift ability is truly one of its kind, their 60mm f/2.8 Ultra-macro, goes natively up to 2:1 magnification, while 105/2 STF is one of the few lenses with built-in apodizing filter for ultra smooth bokeh rendition.

On Photokina 2016, we could see two new lenses – both with Zero-D designation, claiming to have almost no distortion at all. (Funny sign on the lens says – “Dreamer-D” :-))

I tried both lenses and in those very limiting conditions around Venus Optics stand, I found both lenses to be thrilling.

New Laowa 15/2 on Sony A7 MII

Lenses are not made up to Zeiss built quality standards (not they cost that much), but they feel quite solid in hand. They are fully manual lenses, which means not only lack of autofocus, but also of any electronic information sent to the camera – No EXIF, no focus distance report, no in camera lens profile correction, no automatic functions such as EVF image enlarging when turning focus ring. I am used to work with Samyang 14/2.8, so for me it is not a big deal to have fully manual lens, especially this wide.

Laowa 15/2 vs Sony FE 35/2.8 ZA – size comparison

There are few things worth mentioning:

1: Distortion really seems to be exceptionally low, with 15mm/2 I am not afraid to claim that it is well under 1%, but probably much lower and with 12/2.8 is just slightly more.

2. Image quality looks very good initially. I couldn’t detect much of CA and image is sharp up to the extreme corners (that falls well into DOF of course).

3. Both lenses are among fastest at respective focal length in the world (they are full frame lenses).

4. Someone very smart, said why we don’t put the mark for the middle of the entrance pupil (wrongly named Nodal point) on the lens, so panorama lovers doesn’t have to look for it by moving their camera forward or backward, trying to eliminate parallax error. There is a little red dot close to the lens hood, showing entrance pupil.

5. From (amazing) sample shots, it looks that both lenses have very well corrected coma, which is great news for astro-photographers. You can read full specification of Laowa 12/2.8 and see tons of sample images on their official site – http://www.venuslens.net/product/laowa-12mm-f2-8-zero-d/where you can also pre-order lens with shipping date starting at November

6. Both lenses are rather small and light.

7. For both lenses it should be possible to use 100mm system filters (LEE, Hi_Tech etc.) which is rarely case with UWA lenses (Most of them require 150mm systems, which are bulkier, and more expensive).

I can’t really tell about light fall off without proper testing, but it seems rather strong unfortunately. I couldn’t see on my Sony A7 MII corner color shift though.

I will try to get lenses for detailed review, and even if I don’t succeed in getting samples, I will most probably order them for myself.

They really made a very positive first impression on me.

While on above linked pages you can see several sample images, all really impressive, I can only show you few shots from around the stand, but it is still visible that distortion is really low.

You can see original size image, clicking on the flickr link – https://flic.kr/p/LFZe1d

You can see original size image, clicking on the flickr link – https://flic.kr/p/Mw43YF

You can see original size image, clicking on the flickr link – https://flic.kr/p/MtmJf1

Bellows are official press releases from Venus optics:

Laowa 15/2

Venus Optics Unveil the World’s Fastest 15mm Lens for Sony Full Frame E-mount Camera & the World’s Widest f/2 Lens for Micro Four Thirds Camera

Featuring a 110° Angle of View, Ultra-fast f/2 aperture and 72mm filter thread, LAOWA 15mm f/2 becomes another member in their ‘Close-to-Zero Distortion’ lineup.

LAOWA15MM F/2 FE ZERO-D

Laowa 15mm f/2 FE is currently the World’s Fastest 15mm rectilinear lens for Full Frame cameras. It features a close-to-zero optical distortion, allowing photographers to take landscape or architecture shots with straight lines retained. Dedicated to fulfill the need of photographers, Venus Optics have managed to add a 72mm filter thread onto the 15mm f/2 lens. Photographers can easily install standard screw-in filters without paying for an expensive yet bulky filter holder system.
Designed specially for the Sony Full Frame Mirrorless cameras, Venus Optics has successfully controlled the size and weight of the lens to the minimal. Weighing less than 1.1 pounds (500g) and 82mm in length, the portability and compactness of the Sony Emount Mirrorless cameras can be maintained when used with the Laowa 15mm f/2 FE Lens.

Featuring the fastest f/2 aperture ever built with a 15mm lens, the new Full Frame Emount lens is engineered for professionals to shoot impressive landscape, architecture and primary astro photos with great details. This is an every-day and must-buy lens that every Sony Full Frame Mirrorless camera user should have one in his bag.

Availability
The Laowa 15mm f/2 FE Zero-D and the Laowa 7.5mm f/2 MFT will be available to the market in early 2017.

Specification:

MTF

15mm f/2 @ f/2

15mm f/2 @ f/2.8

Laowa 12/2.8

Venus Optics Announces Laowa 12mm f/2.8, the *World’s Widest f/2.8 Lens with Close-to-Zero Distortion. Featuring an ultra-wide 122° Angle of View and weighing only 1.34 pounds, this is also the world’s *fastest 12mm lens for full frame cameras. It is now on Kickstarter.

The new Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Lens features a close-to-zero optical distortion, allowing photographers to take landscape/architecture shots with straight lines retained. Featuring a widest angle of view (122°) ever built with a f/2.8 lens, the Laowa Lens is an ideal lens for a variety types of photography. From landscape, architecture, interior, travel to the most important one, astro photography. The combination of ultra wide-angle and fast aperture makes this lens a perfect tool for creating impressive milky way shots.

The Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Lens is designed for photographers for everyday use and hence the weight and size has been controlled to the minimal. The lens weighs only 1.34 pounds (0.6kg) and has a front diameter of 77mm. Venus Optics also offers a filter holder which is designed to fit 2 pieces of 100mm filters and 1 piece of Circular Polarizer.

The lens incorporates with 16 elements in 10 groups optical design, including 3 pieces of Extra-Low Dispersion elements and 2pc of Aspherical Elements. This design not only delivers an outstanding image sharpness and controls the distortion to the minimal, but also controls the chromatic aberration at its lowest level. A floating design is also adopted to ensure a good performance even in the closest focusing distance (0.18cm). The enclosure of the lens is fully made of metal to strengthen its durability. Canon EF, Nikon F, Sony E, Sony Alpha and Pentax K mounts are available.

Laowa Magic Shift Converter
Along with the new Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Lens, Venus Optics also announces the Laowa Magic Shift Converter which is able to enlarge the full frame image circle through the 4pcs of elements inside the converter. The enlarged image circle provides sufficient image field for lenses shifting by a maximum of 10mm without vignetting. It will transform the Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Lens (DSLR mount) into a 17mm f/4 Professional Shift Lens with +/- 10mm shift capability for Full-Frame E-mount cameras. It is a perfect tool for professional architectural photography. The principle is explained in below diagram.
Pricing and Availability
The Laowa 12mm f/2.8 lens will firstly be available for backing via Kickstarter from July 30 (EST Time) onwards. It will then be available for purchase at authorized distributors and resellers from Sept 2016 onwards. The recommended retail price without tax is USD 949.

Specification:

MTF and optical design

Image samples and more info – http://www.venuslens.net/product/laowa-12mm-f2-8-zero-d/

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Sony A99 MII, company new flagship DSLR is about to hit shops.

Sony however announced, that because of an unexpected demand, first batches will be of limited quantity and most probably won’t cover all pre-orders.

Meanwhile, on WEB forums, we can read different opinion about this announcement, including suspicion about faking the “high demand” part, in order to create hype and raise of a real demand.

In this short article I would like to share my short Photokina experience with the camera and why I think that Sony doesn’t lie about high demand.

Image courtesy of Sony corp.

Sony A99 Mark II was a bit of a surprise, announced shortly before Photokina 2016. Many have believed that Sony abandoned A mount and will further focus on E mount (mirrorless) system.

Here is extraction from Sony press release:

• Full-frame 4D Focus: Innovative Hybrid Phase Detection AF system with accurate 79 hybrid cross AF points[i] enabled by 79-point dedicated and 399-point focal-plane AF sensors and continuous shooting at up to 12fps[ii]
• High resolution 42.4 effective MP 35mm Full-frame Exmor R™ CMOS sensor
• Newly developed optical 5-axis in-body image stabilization system
• Outstanding operability and reliability in newly designed downsized body
• Internal 4K movie recording in XAVC-S format[iii] with host of pro-orientated movie features

At the first glance, we might say – well it’s just another DSLR with extended features for advanced amateurs or enthusiasts. It shouldn’t take long however to realize, how far we are from truth… Sony A99 MII, based on above listed specifications, is penetrating several market segments at once. It is certainly overkill for amateurs, but it combine features that are of most importance to different type of professional photographers.

With its sensor of high resolution, great SNR, high dynamic range, weather protection built and in body stabilized sensor technology, it should be very interesting proposition for landscape photographers.

Image courtesy of Sony corp.

With state of the art auto focus system, using two PDAF reading areas with 79 cross AF dedicated sensors and 399 points at focal plane (on image sensor), on paper it sounds like unbeatable specification for both – speed and accuracy. Add to that blasting 12 f/s with continuous AF tracking (with some limitations though) or improved EVF algorithm which further reduces image displaying lag and we have a real speed demon. This should intrigue all sort of action photographers, such as sport, wildlife or BIF.

Image courtesy of Sony corp.

In camera recording of 4K video with full pixel read out (no need for interpolation), presence of XAVC S format, quick and slow shooting modes from 1 up to 120 f/s, compact size (for DSLR) and a number of additional features designed for a professional movie production work-flow, Sony A99 Mark II is very attractive for video producers.

In other words Sony designed camera, that packed with latest technologies is challenging compaction across the board – Canon 5 Mark IV, 5Dr, 1Dx II and Nikon D810 and D5. In the small countries like I am living in, photographers usually have to cover several genres in order to get paid for living and camera like Sony A99 MII is therefore very attractive proposition.

Image courtesy of Sony corp.

I also liked the first sentence in the Sony Press Release…

Reaffirming its commitment to produce industry leading A-mount interchangeable lens cameras, Sony today launched a new flagship ɑ A-mount model, the ɑ99 II. A successor to the highly acclaimed ɑ99, the new ɑ99 II combines the best of Sony’s latest digital imaging innovations including a new Hybrid Phase Detection AF system with exclusive Sony A-mount features such as Translucent Mirror Technology^TM (TMT). The result is a supremely specified, professional level camera that will be particularly appealing to sports and wildlife photographers.

Reaffirming – sounds a bit as reinventing, reviving, getting back to the roots. Sony says – A mount ain’t dead, we will keep working on it… That’s good news for still quite some A mount users.

Image courtesy of Sony corp.

All of those (fascinating) specifications would be just words on paper, if in practice camera doesn’t perform as expected. In the past, many pro photographers had negative comments about Sony interface and menu navigation, ergonomics and weather protection. Sony A99 Mark II introduces new interface with more logical and photographers friendly menu layout. Weather sealing while still not 100% guaranteed is also improved in comparison to the former model.

I had a chance to make a short interview with Ben Pilling, Sony Europe’s digital imaging expert, about new camera.

VBL: What is in your opinion main difference between Sony A7r MII and A99 MII from an user point of view?

BEN: Sony A7R MII is a mirrorless system and obvious advantage of that system is size and weight. It is smaller, it is lighter and more portable. The additional thing you could say is that it is more adaptable. We don’t guarantee any third party compatibility (you know what I mean by that) but there are lenses that can be potentially adapted for our (E-mount) cameras, so we see Sony A7R MII as a still photographers and videographers with third party lenses and adapters. This is an area where Sony is doing exceptionally well within ILC cameras and mirrorless systems.

So the Sony A7rII is smaller, is lighter is more adaptable to certain point.

New Sony A99 MII uses the same processor, but it has new front end LSI, processing unit that is helping image processor. Comparing to A7R MII, A99 MII key difference is AF and frames per second. A99 can run up to 12 f/s with A7r MII limited to 5 f/s.

A99 MII features what we are marketing as 4D AF system, but internally we were giving ourselves challenge to make AF system that is going to be wide, is going to be quick, but it also is going to predict subject movements very well. While Sony A7R MII has some really good feedback for its AF system, we actually don’t market it as 4D system, because it doesn’t have dedicated AF module with separate AF sensors.

VBL: How’s about accuracy of AF, as we know, A99M II doesn’t have contrast detection AF, like A7R MII and contrast detection is known for its high accuracy?

BEN: That’s true, contrast detection is good for accuracy, but Sony A99 MII uses same 399 points on the image sensor and dedicated 79 sensors in AF module and wherever those sensors interacts together, they become cross sensitive points that are improving AF accuracy. A7rMII might have advantage of contrast detection accuracy but Sony A99 Mark II won’t stay much behind and will bring faster AF with better tracking capabilities.

VBL: How’s about weather sealing, are there differences between two cameras in the level of protection?

BEN: They are very comparable, we have seals against dust and moisture, but we don’t guarantee anything by that. IF you jump with it in the swimming pool you are on your own. It just means that every button, every inputs and outputs we isolated by putting rubber rings and gaskets around, helping to keep moisture and dust out. It’s similar like magnesium body skeleton which can’t guarantee you that you can drop camera from few meters on the concrete and have it still working, but in my experience I dropped camera from a meter or so and magnesium body did help. So there is no guarantee, but it is there to help you to keep dust and moisture out.

In conclusion, getting back to your original question, both cameras are targeting different users, this is why we believe that they will complement each other rather than compete.

Both have exactly same sensor,  but while Sony A7R MII is about compactness and adaptability, A99 MII is all about speed.
It is only camera that is capable of 12 f/s at 42 MPX resolution. There are also photographers who prefer this type of camera with larger grip, more substantial feel, more control buttons, joystick etc. This camera is really great for action photographers, it’s all about speed and accuracy and if you mount bigger tele-lenses such as Sony 500/4 i.e., you might find useful somewhat bigger body at the end.

VBL: Thank you Ben.

To summarize what Ben said and what I could read between the lines, we have a camera that is combining very high resolution with a speed. Weather sealing might remain the only weaker point of Sony cameras, but there is lot of cautiousness in the proclamations and it shouldn’t be much worse (if at all) than comparative bodies.

I had a chance to try camera on Photokina and I spent over 2 hours playing with it, but unfortunately, I couldn’t take resulting shots with me. My initial impressions is very, very positive. Here is the short summary:

1. It is all about the speed. Not only speed of AF or number of frames per second, but this camera reacts in every sense instantly. You switch it on, and before you put your eye on viewfinder, you can start to fire 12 f/s
2. Ergonomics are very nice, camera is smaller then its predecessor and fits my hand almost perfectly (I have rather small hands though). Joystick is a little bit less responsive than I am used to (or maybe there is less of tactile feedback if you know what I mean), but it works perfectly. MENU seams better and more logically organized. Problem is that as cameras are becoming more and more sophisticated, there is so many options that you should set-up and they interact in different ways. Sometimes you can’t engage something, because something else was set and that can’t be changed unless you change something else again. There are lot of customizable buttons and I am sure that it is possible to tail camera for personnel use, but don’t expect that you won’t need to read user instructions.
3. AF seems really, really fast and as far as I was able to check on the camera display, it is accurate, but, you’ll need to master settings to get most out of it. At 12 f/s I got solid results (with constantly moving subject) but on 8 f/s, over 70% of my shots were in focus and the rest was slightly blurred rather because of user mistakes.
4. EVF looks great, I honestly don’t feel any lag, it is bright and vivid. If you are coming from OVF, you still might need some time to get used, but once you do, you can enjoy all nice benefits of EVF, including exposure simulation and zoom magnification for more accurate manual focusing.

All that makes me believe that this camera is extremely versatile tool for rather advanced enthusiasts but also for professionals. For the first time, I feel that Sony stands right there, next to Canon and Nikon pro offers, with the body that is as fast and responsive as their flagships.

I will probably replace with it my Canon 1Dx, but the problem are my big white lenses which I simply don’t want to sell, since some of them doesn’t have comparable alternative under Sony badge (200/2 and 400/2.8 II) This still can be a reason to stick with traditional pro brands, as well as pro service for more countries around the world.

Transition for pro photographers is always complicated. It’s not just about bodies, but everything that comes around – lenses, flash systems, grips, battery packs etc. For those who are entering pro photography and are considering new system, please take Sony A9 MII very seriously. In fact, you will hardly get better value for money in this category.

You can read original Sony press release and complete specification here – https://presscentre.sony.eu/pressreleases/sony-launches-new-flagship-a-a-mount-camera-the-a99-ii-1565273

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This is one of the first user reviews published here and we are happy that it comes from a great person and very experienced photographer. If you are interested on publishing your review of photographic equipment – lenses, cameras, accessories, post processing tutorials, camera settings and photography in general, please send us a email about your idea. We are always looking forward to bring more quality content to the photo community.

Review By Mordechai Berger (mordiberger@gmail.com)

Image courtesy of Techartpro.com

The TechArt Pro is an innovative if somewhat quirky product that popped onto the Sony mirrorless scene almost a year ago. It was designed to autofocus Leica M mount rangefinder lenses on Sony A7II, A7RII and A6300 and A6500 cameras that offer phase detection autofocus (PDAF). It doesn’t work on the A7 or A7R.

The principle behind the product is simple: intercept the PDAF focus commands from the sensor/electronics, and use them to drive a focus motor in an M to E adapter. The lenses are set at infinity, and the adapter motor extends or retracts the adapter mount in response to focus commands.

Electronics within the TechArt Pro are programmed with specially-chosen camera f-stop setting for purposes of informing the EXIF of the focal length of the lens attached – a smart strategy since the camera and TechArt can’t receive – and can’t transmit – aperture settings to or from a manual M mount lens.

Summary:

This is an impressive accessory that – within limits – performs pretty much as advertised.

• With firmware update 4.0, TechArt focus is as precise as any FE lens I’ve tested, but it cannot do Eye AF, and it will not allow the in-camera panorama function designed into Sony mirrorless cameras. When the green ball lights in the lower corner of the EVF, and one or more phase-detection boxes appear on the subject, the lens IS in focus.
• Because of the focusing principle employed, TechArt focus speed depends on the focal length of the lens (short focal lengths focus faster than longer ones). With a 15mm Voigtlander Series III, focus is almost instantaneous. Full travel from infinity to closest focus with a 90mm could take several seconds (which can be dramatically reduced by roughly prefocusing the lens with its engraved zone-focus scale).
• The TechArt adapter has no impact on the optical characteristics of attached lenses, because it introduces no glass between the lens and the sensor. However, I cannot vouch for its performance on prime lenses that depend on moving elements to correct for optical issues (I don’t own any).
• The latest 4.0 firmware measurably improved focus speed, and virtually (but not completely) eliminated occasional blackouts when you half-pressed the shutter release to focus and shoot.
• There is a small but observable battery drain even when the camera is switched off.
• The 4.5mm travel of the TechArt effectively acts like a helical close-focus adapter. And so, a 35mm f1.4 pre-aspheric Summilux-M with a one-meter close focusing limit will focus down to about 20 cm.
• You probably need to purchase the “Leicaist” Canon FD-to-M and Nikon F-to-M adapters from TechArt to use those lenses on the TechArt Pro. The dumb adapters commonly available to convert FD and Nikon lenses to M mount don’t, without modification to the TechArt motor cover or the dumb adapter, allow you to adapt lenses other than M mounts. LTM (Leica Thread Mount) lenses seem to work well with standard thin LTM-to-M adapters.
• Conclusion: No reason to rush out and buy the TechArt if you don’t already own a couple of M or adaptable manual-focus lenses. But if you do, at less than $400 this is a worthy addition that will tempt you away from native E mounts, simply to more easily tap the lovely characteristics of these older lenses. And with those special TechArt Canon FD to M and Nikon F to M adapters, you can adapt those lenses for autofocus, too.

Purchase background

I bought the TechArt Pro because, more than 30 years ago, I acquired a Leica M4P, a 50mm f2 Summicron-M, and then, perusing the back streets of Frankfurt and Copenhagen, a used 35mm f1.4 Summilux-M and a used 90mm f2.8 Tele-Elmarit-M. This compact travel kit went all over Europe and Asia with me.

For most of my medical business photography, however, I depended on a series of Canon FD cameras and lenses. All that great glass just collected dust for the past 20-plus years as first AF and then digital orphaned the FD lenses. The high price and poor performance of the Leica M8 and M9 proved resistible. After 10 years shooting medical business stills and video with Nikon, the advent of Sony mirrorless – and its great image peaking/magnification features – led me to adapt that film-era glass to the Sony A7 and A7II with dumb adapters.

Hence – when word leaked that TechArt had developed an AF adapter for M mount lenses – and more – I was one of thousands who were immediately interested.

I quickly realized that the Chinese team of engineers who developed the TechArt Pro was completely unprepared for the deluge of interest their creation stimulated. They clearly underestimated how many digital photographers shooting with the relatively small number of Sony A7II and A7RII bodies had enough M mount lenses – and interest in autofocusing them. First they promised to distribute them via a handful of major camera sellers, as well as their websites. Then they retracted those distribution agreements, and communicated erratically to a growing legion of frustrated customers worldwide. Delivery times exploded to weeks, then months. I got mine by steadfastly refusing to cancel my order with B&H – and when they got a few, I got mine.

The English writer Samuel Johnson wrote of female preachers that their performance should be judged as one would judge a dog walking only on its hind legs – humans should simply marvel that they can do it at all, not how well. To a very great extent, that is how I greeted my first experience with my TechArt’s surprise arrival from B&H. I’d ordered months earlier from B&H because I thought ordering with credit card directly from erratically communicating TechArt was too risky.

My first tests were a mess. Fortunately, some rugged Chinese early adopters on the DP Review full-frame Sony forum offered suggestions on setup that were missing from the English instructions. Two subsequent firmware updates by TechArt have gone a great way to solving the frustrations. Also smoothing the way – at least for me – were the company’s offering of both Nikon F and Canon FD to M dumb adapters that fit the TechArt, greatly expanding the autofocus capabilities of one’s investment.

Result: Today, I have a system that works well enough for me to use it with a variety of prime and zoom lenses – not well enough to depend on it for business use – but surely for personal use. I am optimistic that with future firmware updates, and perhaps second-generation hardware, it will be part of my business kit, too.

Initial announcements promised both iOS and Android programming and firmware updates via a Bluetooth receiver in the adapter. To date, only firmware updates have been issued  – currently, the company is on its fourth firmware update. Those updates corrected some, but not all, of the frustration of early adopters – frustrations including shutdown after as few as 4 frames, erratic focus confirmation when a lens was clearly not in focus – and poor English directions reminiscent of the kind global photographers had not encountered since the 1970s with Japanese camera companies.

Unboxing and initial use

The TechArt Pro comes in a small box with lens and camera-side caps, nested in a die-cut foam rubber block. Lying atop the adapter and foam block is a small printed sheet of instructions. You know problems are coming when you note there is more information and tables on the Chinese side of the instructions than the English side. A visit to the TechArt web site reveals “support” consists of links to the Bluetooth app in the Apple Store and Google Play store…and a PDF of the same somewhat cryptic English/Chinese leaflet in the product box.

This the kind of bleeding-edge product that demands forum group think…which is not easily accomplished on Internet forums against a chorus of self-appointed rainmakers advancing theories why a product they’ve never seen, much less used, could not work. One Hong Kong member recommended setting the mode to “A” (aperture), and the_ _ _ _ _ to “as shot” – and immediately, most (but not all) of my initial difficulties with the TechArt disappeared.

That missing instruction set still left a puzzling point: The instructions explained that to program the adapter to each lens, you have to dial into your A7II or A7RII a specific f-stop, snap a photo – and then, reset the f-stop to f2.0 for photography.

What is not clear from the instructions is that the f-stop you’re directed to pre-set for each different focal length lens appears to have zero to do with anything more than programming the EXIF. Example – you set the f-stop to F25 for a 50mm lens, F22 for a 35mm lens, F39 for a 90mm lens etc. And the EXIF duly reports the focal length. The EXIF also inexplicably reports that the attached lens is a 40mm f2.8 Sony DT – no matter what lens is actually attached, or what focal length has been dialed into the TechArt or SteadyShot.

Unclear – even after use – is whether the act of programming the adapter to the focal length of a prime lens also programs the SteadyShot in the A7II or A7RII to the proper stabilization setting if SteadyShot is set on “automatic.” My experience from 15mm to 135mm is that if does communicate to SteadyShot, it doesn’t do it well – certainly not as well as manually setting the camera SteadyShot for the lens focal length.

Remember – while the camera and adapter communicate, the manual focus lens communicates with nothing. Native FE mount lenses can communicate both their focal length and aperture via the camera mount contact pins. To me, it seemed unlikely that the phase detection could tell the camera what focal length lens was attached to the adapter.

Result: It would – if necessary – be a pain in the butt to have to set the focal length in both the adapter (to tell it what lens is attached) and also in the SteadyShot menu.  Figuring I could tell the difference between an image shot with a 15mm, a 50mm and a 135mm lens, I began leaving the adapter programmed to a 50mm lens, and manually changing SteadyShot for each prime lens, and the focal length at which a manual or non-native AF zoom lens was shot. That experimentation suggests that it’s largely irrelevant whether the EXIF is programmed for each lens. The EXIF will not be correct – but after the last firmware update, the OSX “information” on each image still reads every lens as a 40mm f2.8 Sony DT – regardless of the focal length programmed into the adapter.

After thorough testing with lenses from 15 through 300mm, it appears the manually set camera SteadyShot – and not the TechArt focal length programming – is critical. This could be a function of the shutter speeds and apertures when I tested it, but I shot in extremes of light that called for ISO 100 at 1/5000th and ISO 3200 at f2.8 and 1/30th.

When operating under firmware 4.0, a 50mm lens in low indoor light (say, f2.8 @ 1/30th second, ISO 1600, the lens takes about a half second to focus from infinity to, say, 8 feet. Accuracy of focus is excellent. Go to 90-135mm, and focus can take almost a second – but if you roughly focus manually with the lens mount, and then depress the shutter, the lens will hit focus as fast as a shorter lens. And even at distance, with potentially interfering closer objects in the frame, setting focus for the center of the lens yields subjects very sharply focused (see violinist photo).

Conversely, when focusing on subjects very close to the camera – less than the native close-focus minimum – the effect of a helical adapter kicks in nicely, as with this duck photo shot with a 50mm f2 Summicron-M at a distance of about 60 cm. (see duck photo)

Setting up the TechArt Pro

Image courtesy of Techartpro.com

First, download the smartphone/tablet app and update firmware. The TechArt Pro contains a Bluetooth receiver that today enables only firmware update, but is promised to do more in the future. For now, firmware update is enough, and urgently needed. Version 1.0 was really grim – focus could charitably be termed spotty, and about every 10th frame, the adapter locked up with a black screen that could be broken only by removing the battery, and/or shutting off the camera for a minute. After three more updates in six months, focus is much more accurate and snappier, and blackouts rare (maybe one per 100-200 exposures).

The firmware installation is simple:

• Download the TA-GA3-Swift app from the Apple app store or Google Play
• Ensure that both the phone and camera batteries are fully charged.
• Set “Auto-Lock” in the System app of an iPhone to “Never.” Set an Android phone’s “Sleep” setting to 30 minutes
• Attach the TechArt PRO adapter to the camera body by aligning the white dot on the TechArt PRO with the white dot on the camera’s lens mount and rotate the adapter clockwise until it locks into place
• Install the M mount lens by aligning the red dot on the M-mount lens (or on the (other mount to M adapter) with the red dot on the TechArt PRO, and rotate the lens (or adapted SLR lens) clockwise until it locks.

When you turn on the camera, you will see that the normally white f-stop alphanumeric display is red. With the TechArt Pro, the f-stop wheel – with no function on a manual-focus lens – has been used by the TechArt engineers to prepare the camera for a firmware update, and to program the EXIF.

• Turn on the camera, and rotate the aperture wheel to F90.
• Take a photo and turn the camera off.
• Launch the TechArt update app.
• Select the firmware version from the list (as of this writing, 4.0 is the latest)
• Keep the smartphone close to the camera/adapter and press “update” in the app.
• Watch in the corner of the app for the firmware progress to complete (takes approximately 10 minutes).
• When the firmware update success message appears, wait for at least one minute before turning the camera back on.

Setup of camera

Next, I am offering what I have gleaned from several DPReview and Fred Miranda website posts.

• Set the mode dial to A (aperture)
• Choose the lens you plan to program into your TechArt Pro first, and dial in the listed “F” number (remember – this is NOT an aperture – it’s an EXIF programming function only) and snap a photo – then move the F setting to F2.

• For a 15mm lens: F11, then F2
• For an18mm: F13, then F2
• For a: 21mm: F14, then F2
• For a 24mm: F16, then F2
• For a 25mm: F18, then F2
• For a 28mm: F20, then F2
• For a 35mm: F22, then F2
• For a 50mm: F25, then F2
• For a 90mm: F29, then F2
• For a 135mm: F32 (manual focus only), then F2

Now, here is a key point to remember: These F settings affect ONLY the EXIF – not the focus of the lens or the IBIS! And so, if you care more about autofocus than the accuracy of the EXIF, just program some common focal length you use – say, 50mm (F25), and then, as you switch lenses, just go to the IBIS menu setting (camera icon, submenu 7 on the A7II).

For lenses longer than 90mm, I recommend ignoring the 135mm/F32 recommendation and just use the 90mm F29 setting. That lets the TechArt focus those longer lenses perfectly. Just remember that the 4.5mm travel of the TechArt is inadequate for long lenses, especially zooms with moving elements. You AF these lenses by rough focusing manually, and using the TechArt to hit focus exactly.

• Next, go to menu “gear” icon, submenu 3 and turn Live View Display to “Setting Effect On”, Disp (lay) cont (inuous) AF area “on” and Phase Detect(ion) Area “on.”
• On gear icon submenu 6, use AF System “Phase Detection AF”
• You can use either AF-S or AF-C with the TechArt Pro. I usually use AF-S, and I recommend starting out with that until you get a good feel for the different lenses and adapters
• I use “face detect” and it provides good guidance for where you should confirm focus.
• No matter the native maximum aperture of the lens, make sure your camera aperture is set for F2. That’s part of the TechArt programming.

Conclusion

As noted at the beginning of this article, if you own any fine manual-focus lenses – Leica M or LTM mount, or one for which a Leicaist adapter is available, it makes sense buy the TechArt Pro. I expect that continuing firmware and perhaps software/app improvements will make the adapter even more useful. It is nowhere close to matching native FE lenses in focus speed (except for the inexpensive FE 50mm f1.8, which – because of a bizarre focusing algorithm, cannot fine-focus between shots).

For portraits and most events photography, the TechArt Pro is very appropriate. Two years ago, I purchased an FE 35mm f2.8 to shoot backup for a family wedding, rather than use my 35mm f1.4 Summilux-M, to get AF for covering the party. If I’d had the TechArt back then, I’d have not purchased the FE, because by f2.8, my old Summilux easily matches the newer FE 35mm. I shot the Lowell (MA) Music Festival with a Canon FD 135mm f2.8 and the focus speed and accuracy of that combination was stunning (see concert photos of black singers, violinists etc.) Again, in Nova Scotia, I shot instrumentalists with various lenses, and the TechArt Pro was flawless.

Nevertheless, I still travel with a Yeenon helical M to E adapter, because I often shoot with an original A7 as well as my A7II – and you really don’t need AF or IBIS for most 15mm shots. But also, as this is still a new device, its ultimate reliability is still unproven. Since I have Leicaist adapters for all the manual-focus primes with me, in the unlikely event of a TechArt Pro failure, I can always mount all my primes via that Yeenon.

Image gallery

You can find more images and useful information on http://techartpro.com/

You can also visit dedicated forum thread about this adapter – Techart Pro Forum

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Disclaimer:

We would like to start a tradition of user reviews on VBL site.

This review comes from my good friend, great poet, painter, innovator and photographer Peter Mac Han. He is one of a very few my friends who I see as a real artist. That doesn’t mean that he is more talented than my other photography friends (although he probably is), but it mainly means that despite all his efforts, he is far from becoming rich out of his outstanding work. But that seems to be fate of many great artists today – you create, you enrich this world with positive energy, beauty and experience, but unless you have sexy ass, miracle cat or parrot and couple of thousands followers on Instagram, FB and Twitter, nobody really cares…

To support Peter, I bought one of his amazing paintings few years ago. I am almost sure, that it will make significant increase in value over time and I can only encourage you to invest in some of his work too. Well, that is main difference between two of us – I am thinking of money, and Peter is thinking of…  that’s hard to tell. (Other differences are that he is younger, nicer and more polite).

Peter develops his BW films by himself, he shoots more film than anyone else I know, and this review was his idea from the beginning.

We don’t have many film photography related reviews here (which is pity IMHO), so I hope that you will enjoy this one and that it might motivate you to dig for your old Leica M3 and go capture some real stuff!

Review by Peter Mac Han – (http://machan.tumblr.com/)

Number of 35mm black and white films on market is declining. We have seen final batches of Kodak, Fuji favorite films like Plus-X or Neopan 400. So seeing a completely new film on market is like a miracle. One of these miracles came from Japan, the JCH Street pan 400 by Bellamy Hunt. 400 ASA film with right amount of grain perfect for street photography. What really caught my eye, is claimed “sensitivity to red light” and “panchromatic up to 750 nm”. Huh nice. My favorite film of choice right now is Rollei Infrared, and I use it as a plain 400, with occasional IR shots, so i started to expect a lot from this film.

And then it came. Two fresh rolls, straight from Japan thank to my friends Jon (https://www.flickr.com/photos/jonmanjiro/) and Martin (https://www.flickr.com/photos/mortocaltese/).

The film comes in very nice black and red packaging and this color combination stands out even when loaded in camera.

Ladybug size comparison

Loaded in Zeiss Ikon ZM

I tried the first roll and at the end I made a fast test. I wanted to know if you can use it as a pure IR film. So I set my Zeiss Ikon on tripod, metered ASA 3, put Hoya R72 in front of second roll 32/1.2 and it was there.

I took second roll on a trip to České Budějovice, small provincial town in the south of Czech republic, specially because very interesting exhibition by Jan Šépka – Perception. České budějovice has second largest town square in Czech republic. In the center is very nice baroque fountain featuring biblical Samson on lion. Jan Šépka made possible to see just the solitary fountain without the surroundings by building a wall around it and forcing visitors to take a tunnel to approach it.

The street pan really does good work here. Nice blacks, sharpness and grain. By reaching the center with the fountain about 30 minutes after noon, there was perfect moment for IR test.

First the whole scene

Now for the test with just the fountain. Metered exposure for 400 ASA, 35/1.2, orange filter, hand-held. Everything i expected from this film, was there.

For the infrared photo i measured exposure for ASA 3. The shot is hand-held too.

The sky darkens even more, the contrast and structure of stone pops out.

Conclusion:
JCH Street Pan 400 works perfectly not only as a panchromatic film, but also like a near infrared film, similar to previously mentioned Rollei, or Ilford SFX. I really enjoyed photographing on this new film and I don’t hesitate to recommend it to anyone, looking for interesting, good monochromatic film, not only for street photography, but also as a general use film.

Thank you Peter!

If you want to read more about this great film, check its home site – http://www.japancamerahunter.com/2016/03/film-news-announcing-jch-streetpan-400-film/

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Introduction

Meyer-Optik-Görlitz is an old German company founded in 1896 by famous optician Hugo Meyer and businessman Heinrich Schätze in Görlitz, Saxony. Company passed through turbulent periods in its history, almost disappearing as a brand during cold war (when it was absorbed by VEB Pentacon and VEB Carl Zeiss group).

There were some attempts to revive lens production in 1990-1991, when Feinoptische Werk Görlitz was spun off from VEB Carl Zeiss and converted into a private company, but since they didn’t succeed to attract investors, company was liquidated in mid 1991.

On Photokina 2014 I saw Globell Deutschland announcing some new lenses under famous Meyer-Optik-Görlitz brand and was excited to read about their plans, less so about their price policy. First lenses appeared on market at the end of 2014.

New MOG company claim to produce lenses in Germany. Here is what they are writing on their web:

What does it mean to produce lenses in the tradition of Meyer-Optik-Görlitz?

Quality Made in Germany
We procure the components for our lenses fairly, both in Germany and worldwide. This enables us to offer the best technology at reasonable prices. Meyer-Optik-Görlitz lenses are assembled in Germany, but above all they are tested, measured and finely adjusted in Germany. For this reason, every lens deserves the Made in Germany seal of approval and quality guarantee after undergoing tough testing. Each lens leaves our factory with an individual testing certificate and a five-year guarantee.

Some of the lenses in the offer reminds lenses produced by Zhongyi Optics and sold with brands such as Mitakon e.g. This affects only part of the offer which doesn’t have direct relation to the Meyer-Optik-Görlitz heritage, but it also indicates who might be provider of barrels and mechanics. On the other hand, they offered also Somnium 85/1.5 which looks like Helios 40, so take your guess what is coming from where…

Anyway, new Meyer-Optik-Görlitz, in just two years, managed to deliver to the market impressive number of lenses, many of them being new edition of old legends, such as MOG Trioplan 100/2.8, Primoplan 50/2.9 (pre-order), already mentioned Somnium 85/1.5 (not in the offer recently), Trimagon 95/2.6, Figmentum 85/2 and 35/2 and few others that are to be presented soon.

Company is often using KickStarter to raise the funds and they seems to be very successful in it. One of those Kickstarter projects is revival of the legendary portrait lens – Primoplan 75/1.9 (Primoplan 58/1.9 is on Kickstarter now).

Photo by Jan Tichý ©2016

MOG Primoplan 75/1.9 was first introduced around 1930 for Ihagee Exakta cameras. First samples were made of brass and they are usually called – Pre War version. Thinner than later – post war versions, they were much better built, but also much heavier.

Photo by Jan Tichý ©2016

Post war version was produced up to 1952 or so, until major part of the company wasn’t included in VEB Pentacon group.

Photo by Jan Tichý ©2016

Some of Meyer lenses kept being produced under Pentacon brand, such as Oreston 50/1.8 (Pentacon 50/1.8), Oreston 135/2.8 (Pentacon 135/2.8) etc. This wasn’t case with Primoplan 75/1.9 however, so the lens is quite rare today and its price is very high on the used market.

My friend Jan Tichý – http://jantichyphotography.com/  called me few days back to ask if I have PostWar Primoplan 75/1.9 to let him compare it, with his Pre War version (damn rare in Leica threaded mount and in great condition, absolutely beautiful sample!) and new MOG Primoplan 75/1.9 Prototype, which MOG representative brought to Prague for show up.

I was of course excited to join him in that short test, and to use the opportunity to put my dirty fingers on nothing less than prototype lens!

Thanks to MOG representative we had lens for almost 24 hours, but unfortunately I couldn’t get it to my LAB for thorough chart testing. Together with Jan, we took the lenses outside and tried to capture few comparative shots with the rare Primoplan 75 family.

There are not many sources to be found about Post War Primoplan 75/1.9 and almost none for the Pre War version. I will try to put a little comparative table bellow, but if you can help us to add missing info in the empty boxes, it will be much appreciated…

Build quality and handling

First of all, we should wait for production sample in order to make a final verdict on new Primoplan 75/1.9 built quality. Lens is made in black with mat finish, with fully metal barrel (no rubber). Metal is probably sort of composite, similar to those used in Mitakon 50/0.95 e.g. Lens is very small for this focal length, at least in Nikon mount version which we had for test.

Prototype lens couldn’t focus up to the minimum focusing distance, but that will be of course improved with production sample. Focusing was smooth and thread long enough for precise focusing. Lens has metal mount.

Filter thread is 52mm which is common and filters in this thread are readily available.

Overall lens seems to be well-built, although not at the level of Leica or Zeiss, but that is probably rather subjective impression. Meyer-Optik-Görlitz gives outstanding 5 years warranty on their lenses, so I suppose that they believe in quality of their products.

While New Primoplan 75/1.9 is smallest of the three, it is not lightest. It is however still light lens and on our Sony A7 cameras with the Nikon adapter, it is well-balanced, unlike super heavy Pre War (616 gr). However Pre War version is so beautifully made, that I’ll gladly forgive it its weight, only if by some miracle I ever manage to get one Post War Primoplan is made of light aluminum, so even if it has largest diameter (implying probably most glass inside), it is lightest of the three with only 250gr. At the same time, those aluminum lenses from the fifties are prone to shading and focus lockup.

Image quality

Disclaimer – without final production sample of the new Primoplan 75/1.9 and strictly controlled tests, we can hardly give reliable verdict about image quality. Therefore we will talk about our initial impression and let you judge presented images on your own. With the old Primoplan 75/1.9 versions, actual condition of the particular sample will have significant impact on the resulting images. Both our old lenses seems to be in very good to excellent condition, but with this old lenses, some degradation over years is to be expected.

Primoplan 75/1.9 was never meant to be super sharp lens wide open, especially when we move toward edges of the frame. Spherical aberration, field curvature, mechanical vignetting, they all are integral part of unique Primoplan rendering. As a portrait lens, it wasn’t so important to make it super sharp, but it was important to make transition to OOF areas smooth. However, original design has over corrected SA and thus creates more pronounced highlight edges in the background and softer in the foreground. Still, the over correction is not that much pronounced like with Trioplan 100/2.8, and the color rendition is very smooth in transitions so the bokeh aesthetic of Primoplan 75/1.9 (as well as for 58/1.9 btw) is very unique.

As we have been told by Meyer representative, they basically used Post War design and tried to make lens that will benefit of modern technologies while preserving the character of the old Primoplan. They used Schott high quality glass and added modern O’Hara Anti Reflex Coating. Together with anti reflex finish of inner barrel and aperture blades, new Trioplan is not only sharper wide open across the frame, but it deliver higher micro and global contrast, resulting in more puncher images.

Bellows are 100% crops of the focus area at wide open aperture. Move slider left or right to reveal images of respective lenses. Use directional buttons to move to the next set.

Lighting has changed during this short test, so we can’t present it as controlled test, but it might give you idea about sharpness. As I wrote above, Primoplan 75/1.9 is not as much about sharpness as it is about bokeh. Differences in rendered out of focus areas and transition to them are sublime. You might notice more pronounced bokeh structure of Primoplan New. This is mainly because it has better contrast, but on the other hand, Meyer deserves a lot of credits for bringing character of blurred areas very close to the Pre and Post war Primoplan versions.

If you want to see images in their original size, please go to this Flickr collection

Optical aberrations

To properly test for optical aberrations, we would need to make a controlled test in studio, but since I already knew that all Primoplans have pronounced spherical aberration, field curvature, mechanical vignetting and rather well controlled distortion (not unusual with this type of lenses), together with Jan, we tried to set improvised target to check for chromatic aberrations. This small Lens Align target is not ideal and lighting is all but perfect, but if there are to be significant problem with chromatic aberration, we should notice it.

Interestingly enough, from the shots above I found Primoplan New to have slightly more pronounced longitudinal chromatic aberration than its older pals. The level of purple fringing is also slightly more pronounced. Lateral chromatic aberration is bellow any field relevant figures.

In practice however, it will be hard to tell those lenses apart, judging CA only, which is good result for Primoplan New, considering its higher contrast rendering. In my eyes, Post War Primoplan has best CA corrections, but as I wrote above, differences are rather marginal.

Bokeh

If you consider to buy Primoplan, you are most probably looking for its unique rendering of out of focus ares. Surprisingly, differences between all three versions are sublime and hard to differ. As written above, Primoplan New, due to the improved contrast, seems to have also most pronounced structure in the bokeh, which might be good or bad depending on your taste, but character is definitely very similar.

Primoplan 75/1.9 Pre War

Primoplan 75/1.9 Post War

Primoplan 75/1.9 New

Notice the nice round shape of the highlights even when lens es are stopped down.

Day session in comparative mode. Move slider left or right to reveal images of respective lenses. Use directional buttons to move to the next set.

Differences in composition are result of limited minimum focus distance of the Primoplan New Prototype. Looking at the first set of image however, should give you good indication of similarities in rendering character.

Primoplan 75/1.9 New

Primoplan 75/1.9 Post War

Flare and back-light behavior

Primoplan New, due to its complex anti-reflex finish and modern coatings, certainly holds most contrast in back-lit situations, especially when the source of light is present in the frame (sun e.g.).

Post War version with its single coatings has very smooth transitions and probably least pronounced flares, while Pre War Primoplan has strong flaring, but it also show capability of creating “fire ring” flares which many photographers like to use as a creative element.

None of those lenses will stand up in comparison to modern Zeiss lenses when it comes to flare resistance, but New version is certainly closing the gap. Older versions however, are capable of interesting “retro” style rendering, where low contrast and flaring can be used for intended aesthetics.

Primoplan 75/1.9 Pre War

Primoplan 75/1.9 Post War

Primoplan 75/1.9 Prototype

You can find all test images in their original size in this Flickr Collection

Price and availability

As per value, Primoplan 75/1.9 Pre War version in LTM is in a different league, with prices reaching astronomic figures. Large part of that is certainly its rarity and collectible value. New Primoplan 75/1.9 is projected at 1999 EUR,- but you can still pre-order it for 1499,- EUR with a 50 EUR deposit. Post War version price depends on the condition and it varies from approx. 700 – 2000 EUR (mount also plays a role, with M42 being preferred over Exa).

Regarding availability, you will hardly ever see and even less probably buy Primoplan 75/1.9 Pre War in LTM. Post War version is however also rare and you won’t find many in mint condition either.

New Primoplan should be readily available once it comes to the stores. It’s price of 1999 EUR is however very high, considering that it doesn’t have collectible value and that is specialty lens with specific character (not everyone likes it…) If you want it, I would suggest that you pre-order it now, because for 1499 EUR, you will get unique lens for the price that is somewhat easier to digest.

(Being basically new player in the game, Meyer has to do couple of things – by raising funds through Kick starter, they need to push the price in order to fill the objective, while making delivery of the first batch to the investors – realistic. Meyer doesn’t count in this moment with high production figures, thus profit on the single item must be higher. Braking into distribution chain, they need to raise profit margin for the dealers above usual value, to make them intrigued. Without proper advertisement, they might run in cash flow problems and over-investing problems.  All those reasons stands behind high initial price of new Mayer lenses, higher that we might like, but if they keep delivering quality products with unique selling proposition, things might change in the future, with prices going down. This is of course just my personnel analyze and opinion and it is based on pure speculation.)

Conclusion

There is no doubt that recent owners of Meyer Optik Gorlitz brand, did a good job with new Primoplan 75/1.9 when it comes to the revival of the old Primoplan rendering style and look. We need to hold with our final verdict about image quality until production sample doesn’t come to the market (we hope to get one for fully test procedure), but if we have to judge according to the first impressions, New Primoplan 75/1.9 is sharper, especially toward edges, it has better contrast at the price of slightly more nervous bokeh, but most importantly – it is real Primoplan, not just famous name on the barrel.

Post War version has smoothest focusing and it was easiest to focus with, but that might change with the New Primoplan production version. Copy that we had was well used, having some issues with the focusing toward minimum focusing distance.

At the end we agreed with Jan that Primoplan 75/1.9 Post War was probably best compromise between old and new, but differences are so sublime than it will come down to personal preference. If I could choose, I will take Pre War LTM any time, but I can’t choose so its out of debate New Primoplan 75/1.9 gets closer to its older peers than I thought it will, bringing into game more sharpness and contrast. Is that positive evolution? That is million dollar question in fact and it comes to who will answer it.

Since all three versions have much more in common than not, if you like Primoplan rendering and have tolerant partner, this new MOG version should be no-brainer when it comes to your wish list priorities.

We are recently trying to get a set of new Meyer lenses for a more thorough testing and arranged portrait and glamor sessions, because we would really like to see what New Trioplan 100/2.8 or Primoplan 58/1.9 and others are alike. Let’s hope that we will be heard

MOG Primoplan 75/1.9 Post War

MOG Primoplan 75/1.9 Post War

MOG Primoplan 75/1.9 Post War

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It’s been over 4 months since Samyang introduced their first AF lenses, both made for Sony E mount cameras – Samyang AF 14/2.8 FE and Samyang AF 50/1.4 FE.

Having no contacts to Samyang local representatives, I didn’t plan to review any of those lenses, but in fact I am quite a fan of them, having and using several models. Fisheye 8mm/2.8 for APS-C is one of my favorite UWA lenses, as is great 14/2.8 for FF sensors. When it come to best 135mm lenses, Samyang 135/2 should certainly be taken in consideration and when somebody asks me what portrait lens around 85 mm to choose, I often recommend Samyang 85/1.4.

Why do I like those South Korean lenses?  It’s very simple, they represents great value for affordable price, being sharp with good contrast, low CA, smooth bokeh and solid flare resistance. You can check my review of famous Zeiss APO Sonnar 135/2, where in my experience, Samyang didn’t stay much behind its three times more expensive peer.

I have to admit however, that there are many compromises related to above mentioned lenses, one of the biggest being – fully manual (dumb) operation. Not only they are manual focus lenses, but there isn’t even simple electronic circuit for transferring EXIF info to the camera, so TTL e.g. can’t take subject distance in the account.

Quality control problems were often mentioned on web forums (I was either lucky or not enough big pixel peeper, but all my copies were very good on the first try), there is inconsistency in color temperature rendering between models, probably due to the different coatings, some of their UWA lenses have very complicated mustache type distortion  (14/2.8) and build quality in general isn’t nothing to rave about.

For those who were ready to accept little handling discomfort, Samyang lenses offered outstanding optical qualities though, especially considering their price position.

With the first AF lenses though, prices were rocketed too unfortunately.

Manual focus Samyang 50/1.4 in Sony E mount cost around 350EUR while new AF version is offered for near 600 EUR. Similar price difference is between manual focus 14/2.8 and AF version of the same lens. Apart of different housing and presence of AF system, FE version also features 3 aspherical elements, suggesting that optical scheme was also slightly changed. (Original 14/2.8 has 1 aspherical and 1 hybrid glass element)

That’s not all though, beside the original MF 14/2.8 and  AF 14/2.8 FE, there is also new “XP” model of the 14/2.8. XP lenses are made out of high quality metal composite and they have new optical formula, made to satisfy users of ultra high res sensors of 50 mpx and more. We shouldn’t also forget about cine lens lines, both – Cine for enthusiast and new Xeen for professionals.

(I would love to test lenses from XP lens series, but so far I haven’t seen any sample around.)

All in all, from the marginal third-party lens producer with a great value for money proposition, Samyang growth to serious competitor who has to be taken seriously among photographers and cinematographers. Since new company image also means significantly higher prices for their new products, I can only hope that Samyang will keep their low profile line in production, for as long as possible.

Visiting my favorite photo store in Prague today – Foto Škoda (btw be sure to include the store in your “must see” list, if you are planning to visit Prague), their sales team kindly borrowed me both Samyang FE lenses for a brief test.

To test UWA lens such as 14/2.8, I will need much more space and time, so I just snapped few shots within the store to check if main problem – complicated mustache distortion was improved. With 50/1.4 AF I spent a little more time, trying to make a set of test chart shots and few other for checking bokeh and CA. However, since I couldn’t take it to the studio, this is not a full review, just sort of first impressions and thoughts.

Specification and features

Please check official Samyang pages for specification, product images and sample shots.

Samyang AF 14/2.8 FE

Samyang AF 50/1.4 FE

Build quality and handling

Both lenses have plastic barrels and metal mounts as far as I can tell. While assembling tolerances seems very well-respected, I can’t get rid of the feeling that they belong to somewhat cheaper category. There is nothing wrong with plastics in use, it’s just that tactile feeling of holding lens in hand. Similar feeling I have with Nikkor 85/1.8 G or Canon EF 100/2.8 L IS e.g.

Lenses are rather light and reasonable sized. Samyang AF 50/1.4 is much smaller and lighter than new Sony FE 50/1.4 ZA, and while still not small in my understanding, it balance well on Sony A7 body. Samyang AF 14/2.8 FE is similar in size and weight as its predecessor.

Mounted on camera (A7 MII) they fits perfectly without any sort of wobbling.

AF speed and accuracy

Samyang AF 14/2.8 FE focuses instantly (its focus range is very small so that makes auto focusing relatively easy). Samyang AF 50/1.4 FE focused somewhat slower than my FE 55/1.8 and most importantly, when stopped down to f/8 and smaller, focusing was less decisive and took some hunting in moderate indoor light.

Both lenses seems to be very accurate when it comes to focus precision.

This is just my initial impression, so take it with a big grain of salt, but I don’t think that AF 50/1.4 FE will be one of the fastest Sony E AF lenses, while AF 14/2.8 FE, has a big potential for the close-up sport shooting (all sorts of street sports e.g.)

Image quality

As I wrote at the beginning, I took only few shots with AF 14/2.8 FE.

From those few shots I can see few things that I was most interested in:

a) Sharpness across the frame is still great.

b) Distortion unfortunately still seems severe and complex

c) Chromatic aberration is well controlled

d) Light fall off is rather small for UWA at wide open aperture

You can see those images in original size on related Flickr album – https://flic.kr/s/aHskHmoVZD

With Samyang AF 50/1.4 AF I spent more time, but still nowhere near to make any sort of funded conclusion. Bellows are 100% crops from the ISO 12333 test target

(Original files – https://flic.kr/s/aHskMmHZNs)

And few other shots

My first impressions are:

a) very sharp in the mid frame from wide open

b) not so great at corners wide open, but still very good

c) CA correction isn’t top-notch, you can see color fringing at high contrast edges. (especially toward corners)

d) Light fall off seems nicely controlled

e) Distortion is negligible

f) Mechanical vignetting seems to be well corrected, since I couldn’t see much of a cat-eye highlights deformation in the background.

g) Bokeh is hard to judge from enclosed samples, but wide open it looks smooth. I can’t see onion rings, nor much of sphero-chromatic aberration. However, I find a contrast lower than expected, similar to Sony FE 85/1.4 ZA. This might be a taken compromise for creating smoother looking bokeh, or it was just a low contrast scene with bad lighting.

Final thoughts:

First Samyang AF lenses are interesting propositions in their class. While AF 14/2.8 FE is somewhat unexpected effort for me (UWA lens like this is usually used at smaller apertures where DOF is so big that AF is not essential) AF 50/1.4 FE is valid competitor in its class. I know that it is hard to build AF lenses on budget, but price of those two is my only serious concern. When they cost half, third or even less than their Canon, Nikon, Sigma, Tokina or Tamron counterparts, they were simply no-brainers, but with the prices approaching and even surpassing some of them, Samyang is entering different league and only time will tell how successfully.

Within Sony E mount family however, both lenses are almost exclusive offers (with only new Sony FE 50/1.4 ZA as a direct competitor), so who can blame Samyang for pushing prices slightly higher than we might like. (AF 50/1.4 FE is still half the price of Sony/Zeiss counterpart).

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ZY Optics announces a compact & budget Macro lens with High Magnification Ratio.
Zhongyi Mitakon 20mm f/2.0 4.5x

With the magnification of 4.5x this is quite unique lens. I can remember only of old Olympus OM Zuiko Auto Macro 20/2 and 20/3.5 with similar capabilities. Both were bellows lenses though.

Here is the official press release:

Shenyang China, Dec 19, 2016 – Zhongyi Optics (ZY Optics) has released a new compact Super Macro Lens for full frame cameras, the Zhongyi Mitakon 20mm f/2 4.5x Super Macro Lens and it features a high reproduction ratio up to 4.5:1. Zhongyi Mitakon 20mm f/2 4.5X Super Macro Lens is very compact in its class which allows photographers to capture extremely fine details or patterns with ease. The lens is capable of creating unbelievable macro images ranging from 4x to 4.5x magnification. Users no longer need to DIY or use any extension tubes to reach high magnification shooting. It incorporates a 6pcs of elements in 4 groups structure which delivers impressive resolution from corners to corners. Weighing merely 0.5 lbs (230g) and 6cm long, it is a perfect companion for wildlife and outdoor shooting. The wide angle of view and close focusing distance allows you to compose creative images with more information included into the frame. Greater magnification (up to 13:1) can also be achieved by stacking extension tubes or bellows. The high magnification is also extremely useful for scientific purposes. The enclosure of the lens is made of metal to strengthen its durability. Canon EF, Nikon F,
Sony FE, Sony Alpha, Pentax K, Sony E, Micro Four Thirds, Fuji X mounts are available.

Pricing & Availability
Zhongyi Mitakon 20mm f/2 4.5X Super Macro Lens is now available to ship and purchase at

ZY Optics authorized resellers and at our official website (http://www.zyoptics.net/). The

Recommended Retail price is USD 199.

Price sounds very promising!

More info – http://www.zyoptics.net/

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Laowa 12/2.8 Zero-D is one of the most anticipated lenses in my book, since it covers ultra wide angle yet without optical distortion (ZERO-D).

Few months ago, I was able to briefly try it on Photokina 2016 and I made a short “hands on” review – http://www.verybiglobo.com/laowa-12mm-f2-8-and-laowa-15mm-f2-2-uwa-lenses-from-venus-optics-with-close-to-zero-distortion/, where you can find specification and sample shots.

This time, I got lucky to borrow one sample from my friend, great photographer and lover of manual glasses – Jan Tichy. If you plan to visit Prague or Czech Republic and you are looking for experienced photo guide/tutor and expert over manual focus lenses, send him a note and see if he is available for booking!

What makes this Laowa even more interesting is the existence of the shift adapter. Laowa calls it Magic Shift Converter.
For photographers who are seeking shift lens in the UWA range, this sounds great, but it have at least one serious limitation – It will work only on Sony E mount cameras and only with Canon or Nikon mount version. It means that if you want to use it and you have Sony A7 e.g., you should opt for Canon or Nikon mount lens and add Magic Shift Converter as an adapter between lens and camera.

Jan Tichy bought Sony E mount version, so I didn’t have an option to use converter, even if by some “Magic” I would manage to get one.

Specification

Optical scheme:

This image is property of Venus Optics corporation – http://www.venuslens.net/product/laowa-12mm-f2-8-zero-d/

Image samples and more info – http://www.venuslens.net/product/laowa-12mm-f2-8-zero-d/

Build Quality

Laowa 12/2.8 Zero-D is all glass and metal construction. Being full manual lens, the only plastic part that I could find is the lens cap.

But let’s start from the beginning.

Laowa 12/2.8 Zero-D, has all metal mount and in a native E mount version, rear optical element is deeply recessed into lens barrel.

This is  because the whole rear part of the lens, is nothing more than a metal tube, serving the purpose of a flange distance adjuster for the Sony E mount. On Nikon and Canon versions, rear element is much closer to the edge of the mount opening.

This image is courtesy of Laowa corporation. http://www.venuslens.net/product/laowa-12mm-f2-8-zero-d/

To mount the lens, red dot needs to be aligned with the similar dot on camera (white on Sony). Red dot is large and easy to spot, but it is on the mount side, which I don’t really like. I prefer to see it from above, it makes lens replacement easier, especially when you hold another lens in the other hand. On Nikon and Canon version, aligning dot is on the side of the barrel, just as I like it.

Moving above “adapter” part, there is aperture ring, listing aperture stops from f/2.8 up to f/22. Aperture ring is all metal with partially “roughened-knurled” areas (approx. 1/2 of the overall surface). Rib like pattern is not entirely deep, but it does help proper grip. On the other hand, I prefer full knurled ring, it improves tactile feeling of controlling aperture and since the aperture ring of Laowa 12/2.8 is not very wide (6mm approx.), it will be easier to work with it. On the Sony E mount version, ring is well placed, maybe even a bit too far from the camera body, but on the Canon and Nikon version it is much closer to the camera body and that might involve some ergonomic discomfort.

Unlike many other recent lenses, Laowa 12/2.8 features only full stop aperture clicks, it is however possible to leave the ring anywhere between click positions and get so fine tuned exposure if needed. Decision to go with full stops with this lens is logical IMHO, because the difference in relative opening is very small between apertures and it will affect exposure and DOF only marginally.

You might notice progressively decreasing space between aperture clicks. Aperture ring is very well dampened and click stops are very decisive but not distracting (not loud sound of click or heavy stops). The friction of the turn feels solid but not heavy. Laowa did very good job here.

Moving toward front element, we will find DOF scale for the apertures between f/2.8 and f/11 (for smaller apertures, DOF scale is not really needed). All letters are engraved and painted, which suggest longer lasting visibility.

Above DOF scale, there is all metal knurled focus ring. Focusing ring is nice and wide enough (around 16mm), easy to find and operate. Distance scale is printed in white for metric values and red (orange) for royal values. There is also red infinity mark. Scale starts at 0.18m and goes to infinity. The full turn takes approx. 180° with a massive shift toward close distances. (Between 0.18 and 0.25 there is almost 20° turn, while between 3m and infinity, there is less than 3°).

Focusing is smooth and well dampened, but not as silky smooth as with Loxia, Milvus or Otus e.g. Difference is hardly notable tough and I would certainly consider manual focusing mechanism of Laowa as a top quality, we should however see how it will develop in time (my main concern is used grease).

Right above focus ring, there is very nice little touch – red mark suggesting where the entrance pupil is.

This is of a great help for panorama shooters, making it easy to adjust camera on the panorama head in order to prevent parallax error.

Moving further to the front of the lens, we can see blue metallic line, AFAIK only design feature (not sure if it corresponds well with that red/orange color of lettering, but it’s maybe just me) and lens hood bayonet behind it. Lens hood is petal shaped metal hood, not very deep of course, but very well made. As the rest of the body it is covered by matte black color, from both sides. This finish has very good finger print and scratch resistance, but it is slightly more reflective in comparison to velvet like fabric cover that can be found in some deeper lens hoods of other producers. (That velvet like synthetic surface should also help to collect more dust on the side of the lens front element by creating static electricity field around.) Laowa engineers, showed great sense for detail here, making the inner part of the lens hood (and adapter for Sony E mount) roughened by dense rib pattern. This is sort of compromise to at least reduce light reflection from the surface, while keeping design simple and durable. I always love to see this dedication to the detail from the producers.

To mount properly lens hood, two red dots should be aligned and hood than needs to be twisted 15° until it clicks in locked position.

Lens hood can be also reverse mounted for transport. Venus Optics engineers shown their sense for detail again. On many of my other lenses, there is one red dot for mounting lens hood and one red line for aligning lens hood in the reverse position. Usually, dot and line have same thickness and they are on the very same contour line. I am rarely able to distinguish between them, when trying to mount the hood in the field and under time pressure. It all ends up by putting lens hood on the lens and rotating it until it somehow locks on. With those petal hoods, that can be costly idea, since often hood locks in the wrong position, with a longer wings on the shorter side, causing unpleasing vignetting in the resulting image. Laowa is using symbol of the entrance pupil position as the aligning mark for the reverse hood mounting and since that symbol is on lower contour line and it’s more like arrow end, it is easy to distinguish between the two.

Small things make big ideas.

Lens top part is made of a petal shaped metal frame, that serves like a dock for the lens cap and protects the bulbous front element. The “wings” of that metal framing protrudes just enough, that you can place this lens on the table on its front part without lens cap or lens hood and it will stay steady, still protecting glass element from touching the table surface. You can do the same with the lens hood mounted normally or in its reverse position. All that shows once again, how much care and thought designers have put in this Laowa lens barrel construction.

On the outer front element cover ring, we can read the following

Meet D-Dreamer Zero D which in combination with Magic Shift Converter and Venus Optics can put Deadpool into shame when it comes to inventing names. The fancy number 0003xx is only for those who supported original Laowa kick starter pre-orders. There is also logo Laowa on the other side of that ring, which is not exactly to my taste, but hey… add that at the beginning of the name above – Laowa D-Dreamer Zero-D Magic by Venus Optics and tell me that you don’t feel power all around!!!

Lens cap is the only plastic part of the Laowa 12/2.8 that I was able to find, (yes, even the “dreamer-D” ring is made of metal it seems) but it is very well made with roughened rim for better grip and accurate depth to fit the petal dock. It is push-in type, which means that it fits from the inner side of the petal ring, which makes it easy to mount also when lens hood is attached. Original owner however added a bit of a duct tape around the cap (not visible in the image bellow), to make the cap fitting tighter.

Overall build quality of the Laowa 12/2.8 is on a very high level. Assembling is perfect, nothing protrudes what shouldn’t, mechanical parts move well with nice tactile feeling and in the case of the Sony E version, adapter is very nicely incorporated in the rest of the body. While focusing is smooth with good tension, I have experienced smoother. Could be the grease or the material of the helicon itself, it’s hard to tell, but make no mistake, it works perfectly as intended.

Lot of well thought details, refers to the great dedication, experience and talent of the lens designers, working hard to deliver mature product to the market.
Thank you Venus Optics designers, you deserve great credit for your effort.

There is however one shortcoming which is not related to design but rather to production tolerances and quality control. This sample can’t focus up to infinity on my Sony A7 MII and A7r cameras.

I contacted Venus Optics regarding this problem and after sending them lens serial number, they asked me to send the lens to their address for replacement. Here is the answer from Kevin that I received after describing the problem and sending him lens serial number:

Hi Viktor, If this is the case, I strongly recommended you to arrange the lens back to us for a replacement in order to resolve this infinity focus issue. Could you please arrange it back to our warehouse address below?
(Please contact Venus optics to obtain address for shipping).

If you have similar problem I encourage you to write an email to Venus Optics and describe your problem. I got the impression that they will gladly work it out with you.

To E or not to E?

That’s the question… Well in this case, it’s maybe not as big question as it usually is, when you read through Sony E mount forums about what lens mount buyer should choose. I belong to the group who thinks that if the lens is fully manual, there is no reason to buy native E mount version. Why? Because if you buy e.g. Nikon version, you can use it on Nikon, Canon, Sony and many other systems such as Fuji or Olympus. The other group usual key argument is that with the adapter produced and calibrated by the original lens producer, there is higher probability to prevent problems with de-centering, light leaking or light reflection (from the inner surface finish of the third-party adapter).

Without promoting one or other solution, with this Laowa 12/2.8 we have 2 extra reasons to go with Canon or my favorite Nikon solution.

1. Sample of the Laowa 12/2.8 that I have borrowed from Jan in the native Sony E mount, can’t focus to infinity. You can turn the ring to the infinity mark but it needs to move the lens a bit closer to the sensor in order to focus accordingly. Some time ago, I had a similar problem with my Metabones Canon EF to Sony E mount adapter (version III I think). I couldn’t reach infinity focus with my Zeiss lenses, especially Distagon 21/2.8 ZE. Metabones sent me “thinner” adapter part (silver plate) to replace and that worked. Maybe similar solution will be possible for this particular sample too, but higher probability of perfectly calibrated lens with a native E mount from producer is fading out as a relevant argument.
   (BTW after thinking of this problem and looking to my Metabones adapters, I noticed quite high similarity in the designs, quality of used materials and some details (such as lettering and rib pattern) that I started to believe that Laowa might be somehow connected to the Metabones itself. This is pure speculation, but considering very good optics (later about it) and close relation between Metabones and Brian Caldwell, maybe there is something behind it…)
2. If you want to use shift capabilities of this lens, you will need Sony E mount camera and either Canon or Nikon version of the lens itself. Only then you can use Magic shift converter (MSC).

Considering both of those reasons above, and fact that the lens itself was originally designed for standard DSLR cameras, I would strongly suggest to opt for the Canon or Nikon version and to buy magic adapter converter instead of the native E mount.

Image quality

Since the sample that I had for this review can’t focus to infinity, I can hardly share experience with the sharpness of the lens. However, from what I have seen on Photokina, this lens is very sharp in the mid frame from f/2.8 and it shows reasonable decrease in sharpness toward edges to subjectively still very good results. In other words, looking at the images from Photokina, I can say, that sharpness is nothing to worry about.

To test the lens on my test chart was problematic, because the format covering distance is only around 20 cm from the target, which is certainly not the regular working distance for this lens. On top of that, it is virtually impossible to properly lit the chart, because of the shadows that camera and tripod cast over it.

But I did it anyway, because there are a couple of things that we should be able to read from test chart, except the MTF!

Infinity focus problem

As I wrote, this lens has issue with infinity focus. It is simply slightly too far from the sensor and in a result, it is impossible to focus properly on anything further than few meters.

Selecting smaller aperture, improves the perception of the sharpness, and even with this fault, images looks crisp and sharp in the usual web size.

Focusing problem in general

It worth mentioning, that while it sounds trivial, it is not easy to critically focus this lens, especially at wide open apertures. DOF is always rather large and it increases with the focus distance, but focusing accuracy (focus throw range) is decreasing toward longer distances. Electronic view finders will help with the magnification feature, but I still have been struggling to get proper focus with Sony A7 MII (apart of infinity issue). With the optical viewfinders, you might experienced even more problems. Calibration of the focus scale is more important than with AF lenses and you might use LCD instead of OVF (on DSLRs)  if you need critical focus accuracy.

Sharpness

Here is the official MTF chart from Venus Optics

This image is property of Venus Optics corporation – http://www.venuslens.net/product/laowa-12mm-f2-8-zero-d/

Image samples and more info – http://www.venuslens.net/product/laowa-12mm-f2-8-zero-d/

While we shouldn’t read MTF from my chart tests bellow, we can still notice few things.

a) Center sharpness is excellent at all apertures. There is very little gain in sharpness up to f/5.6. After f/8 we can see effect of diffraction.

b) There is slight field curvature. This is true at even larger focus distance from the subject. However, field curvature is well under control for such a wide-angle lens and at apertures of f/8 and smaller it shouldn’t be much of a problem, especially considering that corners will usually represent areas that are at infinity focus zone.

Following target was shot at the distance of approx. 1m

Distortion

Optical distortion is greatly corrected. There is barely notable barrel distortion, bellow 1%. This is magnificent result for this focal length!

Light fall-off

Vignetting is quite strong. It goes up to -2EV in my measurements at f/2.8. This can be an issue if you are shooting lot of interior shots and you don’t have time to expose separately for corners and mid frame (and to blend exposures in pp).

To get rid of light fall off, you’ll need to stop the lens down to f/5.6 or even better f/8

Chromatic aberration

There is visible lateral CA. This was surprise for me as I don’t see often this aberration with the modern lenses.

On the other hand, as far as I was able to distinguish (not so easy because of natively large DOF) longitudinal (axial) chromatic aberration (LoCA) seems to be very well controlled. Lateral chromatic aberration can occur in the real life shots, and you might want to remove it in the post processing. In the shot bellow, I still think that Lateral CA is the main problem, since the fringing occurs toward edges of the frame and rather within single plane in focus.

Flaring

There are only two serious issues with this lens for my intended use (architecture). One is already mentioned vignetting and the other is flaring. Laowa 12/2.8 on my Sony A7 can produce some nasty flares, and it is not always easy to hide those flares in the back-lit situations.

I made a lot of shots trying to find some pattern/angle under which flaring occur, but because of the extreme angle of view, it was impossible. On the positive side, Laowa succeed in preserving high contrast even against direct sun, so loss of contrast is not an issue. Problem is only flaring that manifests in strong red rings, followed by green flares and white blobs in some situations.

Sometimes flare will be well hidden so that you can’t see it on the set, but when you get back home, you might be unpleasantly surprised. Can you find red flare bellow?

For my intended use, extensive flaring in the form of white blobs is a real problem, since I often shot several exposures within interior in order to reduce huge dynamic range that occurs when windows or other light sources are in the frame (and they usually are). Bellow is example of the phenomenon that I have a huge problem to work with in pp. It happen to appear also with my Canon TS-E 17/4 when used with Sony A7 (A7r, A7MII). I partially managed to reduce it, using flicked Metabones SA IV, but I often can’t get fully rid of the flares. The only way is to use the lens on my native Canon body. This suggests that long distance of the rear glass from the Sony E sensor and reflectiveness of the sensor and its toppings, in combination with the inner finish of the extension tube (or third-party adapters), do create more issues with flaring than with DSLR systems.

All that being said, you can still fight with flaring, if you look for the flare free position, but it is not always easy to spot it.

Bokeh

Seriously? Because of the very short minimum focus distance, it is possible to separate subjects from the backgrounds, but this is certainly not the main purpose of this lens. I made just a few shots close to maximum magnification distance and from what I can see, bokeh is pretty decent for this type of lenses.

In studio I found slight traces of under-corrected SA and sphero-chromatic aberration, but because the highlight circles would be usually very small, there is nothing to be worried of. On the first image I boosted clarity in LR to help seeing highlights, in the second image I left everything as it was exposed, to show that “bokeh” is in fact smooth and it doesn’t show nervous tendencies.

Coma

Coma seems to be very well corrected too, which make this lens interesting proposition for astro-photographers.

Image quality conclusion

Putting infinity focus problem aside, Laowa 12/2.8 is enormously interesting ultra wide-angle lens, opening new possibilities for photographers. With it’s 122° angle view and almost no optical distortion it is also great lens for super wide panorama shots. I believe that adding dedicated Magic Shift Converter can challenge my workhorse – Canon TS-E 17 on my Sony E cameras.

From all above mentioned shortcomings, I see only two real issues for my intended use – excessive vignetting up to f/5.6 and not ideal flare control. The first one can be overcome by stopping the lens down or by taking two or more exposure for blending in pp. Flare control is something I am still not sure how to deal with, because I often simply don’t see it on the set.

Few words about 12mm focal length

I met quite a few photographers, who rushed into buying UWA lens for the landscape photography and who ended rather disappointed with the results. In my humble opinion, this happen because they wanted wider angle of view, but that makes their composition filled with more “empty” space and the result was disappointing. This is because they still focused on standard composition rules, thinking rather in one (2D) image plane.

Here is what you can get with this wide-angle lens, if you shot i.e. cityscape from the bridge

As you can see, the wide-angle by itself doesn’t mean much. What I got in this image is almost panoramic sight in the 3:2 format. The main subject of the image – the ship, is too far and too small, and while it helps slightly to get some basic dynamic into composition by opening diagonal, whole image is rather flat and static. On top of that, I put horizon line in the middle of the frame, because I was afraid that there is either too much sky or too much water and both are sort of “empty” space. This is because I composed having only wide-angle of view in my mind.

Bellow is even worse example – great light, nice river, but composing 2D I ended with a horrible image without any expressive value.

To discover the power of UWA lens, you should try to think in 3 dimensions, end even to force 3rd dimension above anything else.

Two images above are using 3rd (z axe) dimension as the main composition guide. Comparing those with the 2D based images above reveals, what is great advantage of UWA lenses – increased dynamics of the composition. No matter if you compose centrally or you use one of the standard composition rules, like rule of thirds e.g., you should think about depth and guiding lines. To master UWA composition it might take whole photographers life, but with the lens like Laowa, you will have one of the best tools to start with. My main advise for using such a lens is – THINK DEEP, THINK 3D!

One more word about distortion. We should differentiate between perspective distortion and optical distortion as an aberration. I probably won’t even mention this, but I am always surprised to hear comments such as – “that lens has huge distortion, you should see faces how they look” or “it’s not true that distortion is well corrected, all buildings that I shot are falling over!”.

I don’t want to go deeply into explaining what is what, there are already several great articles on this topic, freely available on the web. (Just search for “optical distortion”, “perspective distortion” or “camera view-point”.) I just want to say, that when you see face distorted as in the shot bellow, or building falling over, it is not because of the optical aberration, it is because of physics. (And yes, my friend in the image got his head slightly conned to the side, by collecting  legacy lenses for many years now. If you know about some cure for his LAS, please let me know, It might save his worthy life!)

Overall conclusion

Laowa 12/2.8 Zero-D is an amazing UWA lens. It does have its issues, professionals should think of vignetting and flare control, but with almost no optical distortion, it really opens new possibilities for photographers.

With more or less affordable price, I can only highly recommend this lens to all enthusiasts who want to enter world of dynamic, expressive compositions. It is one of the best recently available lenses for the task. I am seriously thinking of adding one to my collection, but before doing so (apart of saving money to buy it :-)) I would like to test new Voigtlander 10mm f/5.6 Heliar first.

In the sample gallery bellow, you can find sample shots that have not been post processed beyond basics adjustments. Most of the images published here, can be also found in respective original sizes in this Flickr album – https://flic.kr/s/aHskMDrimu

To read more about this great lens, you can visit official product site (lot of superb image samples there) – http://www.venuslens.net/product/laowa-12mm-f2-8-zero-d/

To help this page survive, your donation will be highly appreciated.

Introduction

I got a chance to compare few 85mm lenses on my Sony A7II and A7r cameras. This comparative review took much more time to complete than I expected and meanwhile another two interesting rivals hit the market – new Sigma 85/1.4 Art and Sony FE 85/1.8. While Sigma is rather DSLR designed lens, Sony FE 85/1.8 already got some good reviews, and I will try to put my hands on it, in the near future.

When thinking of a perfect lens for portraiture, 85mm focal length will probably appear on the top of the candidates list. While there is nothing like “perfect focal length for portraits”, also because there are many sub genres of the portrait photography, 85mm lenses seems to be most commonly used for the traditional upper half body or head and shoulders type of portraits. This focal length (on 35mm format) is a good compromise of a perspective distortion control, distance field compression, good subject isolation and not too excessive minimum working distance.

Historically though, fast portrait lenses were usually more expensive than normal (50mm) fast lenses, and thus they become rather luxury gear.

It is no coincidence, that three of four compared lenses in this review are designed by Zeiss, since Zeiss and their Sonnar design are probably most famous names in the portrait photography (not only), while fourth – Sony lens, certainly has a lot in common with the Zeiss signature within ongoing cooperation between two companies.

Following comparative review has no intention to find which lens is better than others, it is trying to figure out differences that might help readers to make more informed decision.

Lenses included in the review

(from back to front)
Sony Planar 85/1.4 T* ZA, Sony FE 85/1.4 GM, Zeiss Batis 85/1.8 and Zeiss Loxia 85/2.4

Specification

Comparative chart of main specification figures:

* AF on Sony E-mount cameras is limited by the functionality of the adapter LA-EA4

** Using SAL85F14Z on Sony E-mount camera require special adapter – Sony LA-EA4 (250/150 EUR)

Build quality

Sony Planar 85/1.4 T* ZA

Sony Zeiss Planar 85/1.4 is a premium build quality lens – basically only metal and glass. Lens hood is metal too and one of the heaviest hoods that I ever had (except the one for its bigger brother – 135/1.8). Manual focusing is mechanically coupled (I like that), but there is significant wobbling in the focus ring which I really don’t like. Another part that I certainly don’t like is the adapter for Sony E mount. If AF is needed, than the only recently available option is LA-EA4 with translucent mirror technology. Not only that adapter seriously limits Sony A7 native focusing features, but it is ugly plastic piece of gear that simply look like plastic wheel covers on your new Ferrari. On the other hand, from tested lenses, only this combination has built-in tripod mount on the adapter, which when used on the tripod improves stability and balance. This is my own lens, one of my choices for the Sony A platform which makes it through to Sony-E. I love this lens and while it has many reserves in the optical performance (mainly CA), it still can produce incredibly sharp images with distinctive rendering of OOF areas. With its hefty weight of 650 gr (with hood over 800), it feels substantial in my hand, the way I’d like my monthly fee to impress, but it never does.

Sony FE 85/1.4 GM

Originally I wanted to write that this is the newest Sony portrait lens, but preparing this review took me so long, that Sony introduced FE 85/1.8 meanwhile. Still, this lens belongs to the new premium Sony line, GM line, whatever that means (Generally Mean, Grand Magnificent, Gorgeous Monster or Grab Money till you can). The premium line starts with the premium price, but honestly, all contenders here are more expensive that one would like to see. There is another thing related to this GM lens – Great Mass. It weight almost 1kg (OK 820g without hood and hood is plastic so it doesn’t add much). All 11 glass elements are packed in a sort of plastic composite (mount is metal). While it is not light lens, it is notably lighter than similar lenses in the Zeiss line, such as Milvus 85/1.4 or Otus 85/1.4 still having same number of glass elements and AF system on top. I don’t really like plastic, my Planar is metal, but I must admit that this is rather my old-fashioned mental anachronism, than rational consideration. AF on this lens is better than with my screw driven Planar with LA-EA4 adapter, but it is not super fast. There is a significant amount of glass that has to be moved, so you should not expect sport appropriate speed, especially in the AF-C mode. On the other hand, AF is very accurate (unlike LA-EA4) and in the good light it is more than adequate for the portraiture purpose. Everything is precisely assembled. It is made in Thailand and Mr. Cicala Roger from Lensrental.com found very little problems with the sample variations/ – https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2016/04/sony-fe-85mm-f1-4-g-master-lens-mtf-and-variance/

Mount is all metal with a white mount aligning spot and rear element, protected by a plastic baffle with contacts.

Moving toward front of the lens, we can follow monolith body shaping toward wider body part.

The sweetest spot of the lens is its aperture control ring. Very well coupled it can be set for manual operation (aperture is manually controlled on the lens itself) or automatic operation – position “A”, with aperture control from the camera body. There is also AF/MF switch on one side, making switching from auto focus to manual focus easier and faster in some situations. Above AF/MF switch, there is functional button that can be programmed from the camera body (focus hold e.g.) The aperture ring is 19mm wide and has rib pattern for easier grip. This aperture ring is one of the most pleasing aperture control devices that I ever experienced.

On the other side of the lens, there is de-clicking button – one that can change the aperture to click every 1/3 of the EV stop and make it smooth in the entire range. This is great for the video makers. Zeiss has this functionality on their Loxia lens line, but the application is much more cumbersome, needing a special tool to switch from one mode to another on the mount side of the lens (has to be removed from the camera body).

Above is the 26mm focus ring, with the rib pattern which is electronically coupled with the focusing mechanism. While I prefer mechanical coupling, this ring has very nice feel and accuracy is very good.

Lens is supposed to be moisture and dust protected, but Sony is not giving any warranty claims in that regard.

Comparing the size of those two lenses (Sony FE and Sony Zeiss), we might first got the impression that FE 85/1.4 GM is significantly bigger, but we shouldn’t forget about adapter for the use on Sony E mount cameras.

We also shouldn’t forget that FE 85/1.4 GM has 11 elements in comparison to 8 of the planar. With the adapter mounted, size difference (and weight difference) becomes negligible.

Both lenses with respective hoods attached

Zeiss Batis 85/1.8

All Batis lenses looks very similar so I will just copy part from my previous review here.
Lens itself is made of a metal composite, with built-in OLED display which substitute for distance scale engraving as well as related DOF scale. Lens has rubberized focus ring, metal mount and plastic lens hood bayonet type. Being a native Sony E mount AF lens, it supports all advanced AF functions of the camera system and has electronically coupled manual focus feature. Implementation of manual focus is also very good and OLED display has some advantages, especially because it can be under-lit for better visibility in the dark surrounding. Unfortunately, displayed values have to be taken with some reserve and their accuracy is certainly not 100%.

Hood has small dot which needs to be aligned with similar mark on the lens for proper installation. Once mounted, lens hood looks like being integral part of the lens design.

Batis lenses are moisture (weather) and dust protected and 85/1.8 is no exception. Light modern construction ensures good balance on Sony FF and APS-C E mount cameras. Build quality of the Batis lenses is generally very high, but for the old dog like myself, they sometimes feels just too light or vulnerable. It is probably only feeling, not a real weakness, hard to say. The owner of the lens – Zeiss Czech Republic, didn’t let me testing it by dropping it from the 3rd floor. Next time I will propose 2nd, so they might soften a bit… Anyway, Batis lenses are perfect for the mid age generation of the enthusiast photographers, young professionals and freelance artists, non of where I belong unfortunately.

Zeiss Loxia 85/2.4

Build quality of the Loxia lens line is of the highest standards that modern production can offer. Extreme precision and high quality materials, perfect assembling and individual quality control make those lenses not only looking good, but also feel unique in the use. While I am really not a lens fetishist, I have to admit that Loxia makes me excited by simply holding it in the hand and turning focus ring here and there.

It is not everything great however, there is still one issue which I consider as a utterly useless design feature. Focus ring occupy basically whole body, therefore mounting and taking off the lens can be risky operation, especially if you wear gloves or your hands are somewhat slippery.

Since Loxia never heard of Autofocus, you can enjoy photography in the full beauty of your eye and fingers harmony. Mechanically coupled focus ring with a 220°turn is just about perfect compromise between speed and accuracy in the world of manual focusing. One of the things that I like is that reverse mounted hood, (which is otherwise very deep, probably as long if not longer than the lens itself) protrudes around 1 cm from the front element, still providing shading against incident light for most occasion, except for the direct front light. This means, that you can keep Loxia 85/2.4 within rather compact size (with reverse mounted hood) for most of your shooting. I have no idea if that was the intention, but it certainly worked for me.

Loxia has classic aperture ring which ignores camera and respect only your fingers. You can turn the aperture wheel on your Sony A7 all they long, but Loxia will remain utterly oblivious to your pathetic effort. Touch the aperture ring on the lens with your fingers and it will twist and sing moving at 1/3rd EV step clicks. Would you like seamless aperture change for video, you’ll have to take off the lens and use famous de-clicking tool (Remember that pin for your iPhone sim card slot? Yes, the one that you was so excited about when you opened the box and you never saw it again? Well Zeiss de-clicking tool is exactly the same – beautiful pin, which you will never have with you when needed.) See that little screw with a dot on the right side of the image bellow?

While I think that Sony implementation of de-clicking feature is far more adult and reasonable, there is something masochistic in the Zeiss approach but at the same time purist by refusing any sort of plastics or electronic.

Comparing all those four lenses in terms of design and build quality, I can hardly say that one is made better than the other. Oldest – Zeiss Planar 85/1.4 ZA is a bit shaky, but at the same time it feels very sturdy and competent for the professional use. Sony FE 85/1.4FE while mostly plastic on the surface, has certainly sturdy inner construction and used plastic is of the highest quality, making the lens very durable, scratch resistant and more pleasing for use (warmer in the winter e.g.) Batis is reflection of the modern CNC sort of design, contemporary artifact with artistic flavor. We will see how this monolith design will be perceived in a few years, but it might preserve its attractiveness, being very minimalist and clean. Finally, there is Loxia a small wunderkind of the functional design and modern production. With Loxia, size difference between those four lenses become very significant, mainly because of the smallest diameter, but it has substantial feel in the hand with its 600 gr. If you like mechanical toys, ultimate craftsmen and small size, your choice of the portrait lens for Sony E platform, shouldn’t take long.

Speaking about the size, Loxia 85/2.4 is not a short lens, but it is rather thin lens. Why this might be important is when you need to pack couple of primes for the trip, but you need to stay compact.

In the bag above, there are all four Loxias together with my Sony A7 MII, small umbrella, batteries, release cable, small tripod etc. For the reference, there is Sony FE 85/1.4 standing next. Try to put it, together with 50/1.4, 21/2.8 and 35/2 of the similar design, and your bag will have to grow proportionally. When you need to switch your lenses often on the set or on the go, thinner profile of the Loxia lenses is much more friendly for the purpose (except that design thing: my barrel-my focus ring).

As usual, the price for compactness (apart of the famous Zeiss-price itself) is in the moderate speed. But let’s be honest here, if you still believe that beautiful portrait (and those are portrait lenses at most), can be only shot with DOF of 0,5cm and less, you should probably skip Loxia, than skip any other lens and finally skip portrait photography in general. I mean, there are situations when you can creatively use thin DOF, but it is not that ultra thin DOF will make an artistic portrait of your mother in law. It’s not always great to guess which of those blurred spots is actually other eye of your subject, and if that is Quasimodo in the front, or just blurred nose of your poor model.

Loxia is small by today standards but bellow you can see few even smaller portrait lenses from ancient age.

Looking at those images, I asked myself, what would be most compact portrait set-up (based on Sony E platform) that I can come up with from my collection. The choice laid on the Sony NEX 5N with the Xenar 7,5cm f/3.8 from the Robot camera.

The funniest thing is, that old Robot lens can be mounted on Techart Pro and, not only it is super small, it can be super small with AF. Crazy times huh…

Image Quality – sharpness

The verdict is simple here – all four tested lenses can render technically much better images that I can artistically follow. In other words, all four are among best portrait lenses that you can buy today.

There are some differences sure, I will try to comment on a few, but this will be rather for the purpose of the review itself, than for any practical purpose. At the end, if considering one of those lenses, you should be more focused on other aspects than image quality itself. All that in my humble opinion of course…

ISO 12333

Formal studio test can show some of the lens rendering tendencies. I made a 100% crops for easier comparison, but you can choose to see images in the original file size on my service Flickr album

One thing is immediately noticeable – Sony SAL Planar 85/1.4 ZA has significantly more pronounced chromatic aberration, especially wide open. At f/2.4 where Loxia starts though, this aberration correction dramatically improves and in most of the portrait applications in the field, it shouldn’t be a problem.

Apart of CA, Planar is actually very sharp from f/1.4, I would dare to say that it is slightly sharper than Sony FE 85/1.4 GM in the center of the frame. At f/2.4 in contrary, Loxia seems to be overall sharpest, closely followed by Batis. The differences are however so small than in practice it will matter much more on the particular technique, lighting condition, distance of the subject and its steadiness than on the absolute MTF numbers from the formal testing.

I included few more lenses for the reference, where Zeiss Otus 85/1.4 remain sharpest (but new Sigma Art 85/1.4 seems to beat it in that regard according to DxO).

On the other side, you should see how Loxia, pulls away from older lenses in the similar focal length.

For the specific purpose of the portrait lens, sharpness doesn’t necessarily have to be of the huge importance. However the combination of sharpness, high micro contrast and character of the bokeh, certainly creates specific look. In that regard, I am still amazed by the look of Otus 85/1.4 images wide open, even if the bokeh shows onion rings in the highlights, but I rarely use this lens for my work, where more commonly used apertures vary between f/2.8 and f/5.6. At those apertures, all tested lenses are super sharp, and I need to spend quite some time in retouching skin imperfections of my dear clients.

Another story is sharpness toward image borders. Because I usually want my models to separate from the background so that the viewer attention naturally fall on them (usually on model eyes), instead of expecting sharpness across the frame, I prefer more pronounced spherical aberration, that usually helps in creating bokeh with certain specific, painterly look. My most often used portrait lens is the old Zeiss Jena Biotar 75/1.5 which has exactly those characteristics.

Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar 75/1.5 wide open

This is main reason why I don’t really care about sharpness in the image corners at wide open aperture, for this type of lenses. Nevertheless all tested lenses show well corrected spherical aberration and surprisingly good performance even at the extreme corners of the image at wide open apertures. Loxia is probably winner in the corners (by very small edge) at comparable apertures.

At f/4 it is hard to tell the lenses apart from each other.

In the album bellow there is a scene with focus set at infinity. Aperture starts at f/2.8 and ends at f/16, where diffraction affect sharpness. For the images in the original size, please visit Flickr album

As I wrote at the beginning of this section, all four lenses are very sharp. Loxia is really great wide open for all purposes, but so are others when stopped to f/2.5 (2.8)

Distortion, vignetting and color reproduction

Sony FE 85/1.4 GM

Sony Planar T* 85/1.4 ZA

Zeiss Batis 85/1.8

Zeiss Loxia 85/2.4

Zeiss Batis 85/1.8 shows some of the pincushion distortion, the other three lenses are almost distortion free. When it comes to the light fall off, Batis has most significant vignetting dropping to around 40% of luminescence in the corners compared to 100% in the center. Loxia is somewhat better with drop to around 50%, followed with Sony at above 50% while Sony Planar 85/1.4 is just a little better. Bigger light fall then expected seems to be trade mark of the recent Zeiss lenses. For the portrait lens, vignetting however doesn’t have to be bad thing, but if you want to shot at even luminescence across the frame, Batis will improve at f/5.6 but it won’t get fully rid of vignetting even at f/16.

Color reproduction

There is one thing that Zeiss should be rightfully proud of. Color accuracy across the product range. Zeiss Batis and Zeiss Loxia, both have almost identical color interpretation (at equal settings) and this is the case also with Otus and even my older Distagon ZE lenses. If you switch the lenses on the set, for the wedding e.g., you can easily use any of the Zeiss lenses at the same white balance settings, and unless your light temperature change, you can easily correct all of your shots (if needed) in a batch process. This is even more important for video creators, since dynamic corrections are much more complicated.

From the tested lenses, Batis and Loxia has typical Zeiss colors, slightly shifted to the colder range with a ted of green hue. The difference in the temperature that I measured between those two lenses was in average less than 50K. Sony FE 85/1.4 GM has similar color interpretation varying between 100-200K with a slight shift toward red. Sony Planar 85/1.4 ZA, despite having Zeiss label, shifts heavily toward warmer tones, with a temperature difference of more than 500K in comparison to Batis and Loxia. Part of the reason may lie in the adapter LA-EA4 with translucent mirror. Heavily shifted toward red/yellow hue, this lens was most difficult to correct for the skin tones that I like.

Chromatic aberration

As written in the previous chapter, while none of the tested lenses is fully apochromatic, Sony, Batis and Loxia are very well corrected for lateral CA and in fact for the axial too. Planar 85/1.4 with its simpler formula, can’t really compare in that regard, but in the real life it is usually not as noticeable as in the formal studio tests. Perfect (nearly) correction of the chromatic aberration is very costly in both material and size/weight. Just look at Otus vs Loxia e.g. Do you need authentic apochromatic lens with all those great software correction tools? The answer is yes and no IMHO. If you are only bothered by the purple/green fringing, you can get rid of most with a few mouse clicks. Because chromatic aberration is however caused by different focus planes for different color waves (either in planar or axial direction), by removing color we actually leave the monochromatic (luminescence) component. Therefore edges with color aberration will never be visually as sharp as edges optically corrected, even if we remove visible color deviation. This little extra edge contrast, might influence resulting image appearance in some situation.
It is one of the main reason why I still see Otus images being superior in subject isolation, despite Otus bokeh having lot of space for improvement.

Set bellow shows axial chromatic aberration (LoCA) at wide open apertures of few portrait lenses

Zeiss Otus 85/1.4 at f/1.4 – reference performance

Sony Planar T* 85/1.4 ZA at f/1.4

Sony FE 85/1.4 GM at f/1.4

Samyang 85/1.4 AS IF UMC (Canon EF mount) at f/1.4

Zeiss Loxia 85/2.4 at f/2.4

Zeiss Batis 85/1.8 at f/1.8

Carl Zeiss Sonnar 90/2.8 T* Contax G at f/2.8

Leica Summarit 90/2.5 at f/2.5

Sony FE, Batis and Loxia are very well LoCA corrected, and in practice the residual aberration shouldn’t make big difference. Especially Loxia IMHO is impressive (considering it’s size) but it is also slowest at the tested aperture.

Bokeh

Important criteria for the portrait lens selection is the way out of focus areas are rendered. For 85mm lenses there are few things to be taken into consideration when we look at the “bokeh”.

We should first differ between quantity and quality of the bokeh. When we speak about quantity, there are some differences related to the minimum focus distance, maximum aperture and related DOF and of course distances between camera and subject and subject and background.

Speaking about quality, we can look at the way how circular highlights are rendered, but also how smooth transition is between sharp and blurred image areas. Circular highlights can show darker or brighter outline inside or outside of the circle, suggesting under-corrected or over corrected spherical aberration. Color fringing at the edge of the bright spot suggests sphero-chromatic aberration, while deformation of the circles toward image borders is caused by mechanical vignetting. There is also ghosting, flaring and other potential attributes that are all participating in the final look of the OOF areas.

Since we will rarely shot blurred background as the only motive of the image, the importance of the bokeh is directly related to the lens ability to isolate subject from the background.

We can often read about swirly bokeh, soap bubbles bokeh, silky smooth bokeh, harsh bokeh, etc. That is fine until someone starts to speak about better bokeh. Better bokeh doesn’t exist, only different bokeh. In technical terms, the way bokeh is created is dependent on the lens optical correction, but its aesthetic is also related to physical values explained above, so it is not possible to qualify it.

Bellows are image crops showing rendering character of the blurred area and subject isolation capability of few tested lenses.

We can see here few things. Sony Planar 85/1.4 T* ZA shows most pronounced sphero-chromatic aberration but at the same time it creates larger highlight circles from the same distance, compared to Sony FE 85/1.4 GM and of course Loxia. In comparison to the Sony, it is because of relatively lower focus breathing, in comparison to Loxia, mainly because of the difference in-depth of field. Effect of “onion rings” is mostly apparent in the Otus image, while Sony FE shows least mechanical vignetting resulting in the “cat eye” shape of circular highlights toward image borders. Otus highlights are “outline” free, which refers to the well corrected spherical aberration, but other 3 lenses (except Planar 85/1.4) are not far away.

In the gallery bellow, there are additional sample shots of few other lenses for the reference. Larger files are on Flickr Album

You might notice some terrible ghosting and flaring in the Voigtlander Heliar and Leica Summarit images. I believe that large part of it is caused by inner reflection of the adapter. Adapters in general can cause much more harm  than I like to admit (since I have as many adapters as lenses I believe)

All of those studio tests should serve a purpose of a “fair” comparison when most of the condition can be controlled. In a real life photography, we can’t really compare absolute sharpness, because our subjects will usually move and unless we use tripod, we will move too. On top of that there are many different sources of light and unexpected reflections. In the following set of images, you can use slider in the middle to switch between images. With a small arrow bellow you can move to the next set. That should help you to experience bokeh appearance in the direct comparison.

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4 (shows the difference in the amount of blur at minimum (MFD) and infinity (IFD) focus positions)

Flare resistance

I tested lenses in the winter, so it was very hard to catch some sun light to check for flaring. I tested all four lenses though on the artificial light sources. All four lenses have great coatings so there is nothing much better that you can buy today in order to shot against light. You should expect some flares in the extreme angles with all lenses, but contrast will always remain very high. This is something that most people wants, but I love sometimes to lose a little contrast and get some flaring as part of creative interpretation of the captured moment. If you are like me, you should have at least one of those legacy single coated lenses in your bag, next to one of those modern high contrast instruments.

Sample Gallery and Conclusion

Sample Gallery

In the sample gallery, you should find portraits made on the comparative purpose. The intention wasn’t to check the sharpness or amount of the bokeh, but to try to get most out of each lens. Most of the shots were taken wide open, even if in the real life, I will rather used aperture stopped down to at least f/2.8. For larger files please visit Flickr Album

Conclusion

All four tested lenses are superb, especially for their main intended purpose – portrait. Sharpness should be for once deeply buried at the end of the preference list, since there is little to ask for. Nevertheless, there are many other relevant differences that should be taken into consideration. My impressions and recommendations are as follows.

Sony FE 85/1.4 GM

Superb portrait lens with slightly lower micro and global contrast (which might be a good thing for portrait), very smooth out of focus rendering, high quality plastic coat on metal framing, that seems to be very durable and is lighter and more pleasing to hold than metal. This lens comes at the premium price, but you can enjoy all benefits of advanced Sony AF features, such as eye AF (very useful for arranged portraits). It is big and rather heavy though, so if you are shooting portraits casually, you should consider some more compact solution. While in my testing, Sony FE 85/1.4 GM wasn’t sharpest of the bunch (could be sample variation?) it was always more than sharp enough. Color accuracy was very good and at right WB setting, skin tones were pleasing. Auto focusing is fast enough for portraits, but not for sport or fast action, where massive optical elements are limiting its speed. Lens has least mechanical vignetting which results in nice regular circular highlights toward image borders. There is some focus breathing though that might be a problem for video creators. All in all, this is lens for advanced, demanding photographers, who are looking for both – speed and beautifully balanced rendering for portraits. Highly recommended if you can afford it.

Sony Planar T* 85/1.4 ZA with LA-EA4

This is today, sort of budget option, if you go with second-hand market. If you have adapter, lens itself can be found in good condition for around 900 EUR. That is great bang for the buck, because Planar has plenty of sharpness and character to deliver. Beside cumbersome adapter, which also limits most of the advanced AF features, its main “problem” is purple fringing. Otherwise it is surprisingly sharp already at f/1.4 and it has very smooth bokeh with least focus breathing problem. Without adapter it is much more compact than Sony FE and also somewhat lighter. More compact size for transport (with the adapter packed separately), can be very important sometimes. Color accuracy is however shifted toward warm tones. Flare resistance is exceptional. I can recommend this lens (I own it myself) for everyone who wants high quality optics at great speed and reasonable price. There are some limitations as listed above, but sharpness is explicit and overall character rather unique.

Zeiss Batis 85/1.8

AFAIK the only AF portrait lens from Zeiss. Contemporary design made of light metal, lot of glass and soft rubber, makes this lens outstanding in appearance. Batis is fastest auto focusing lens in this test, suitable not only for static but also for medium speed moving subjects. It has somewhat more pronounced vignetting and traces of pincushion distortion, but it is very sharp up to the corners, with great contrast and accurate color rendition. It features slightly slower aperture at f/1.8, but it’s ability to isolate subjects is not affected. Batis is a great choice for every photo enthusiast especially for Zeiss lens lovers. New Sony FE 85/1.8 might come close in optical performance ,but with Zeiss you have guarantee that your lens was individually inspected to fulfill most rigorous production demand, that colors will be matched not only within same product line, but across all older, recent and hopefully future product lines and that you will always get great product support if needed. This would be my lens of choice for the family portraits.

Zeiss Loxia 85/2.4

Loxia is unique lens in many regards. It is made for those of us who enjoy manual focusing at its best. It is clearly addressing video makers, offering attributes of a great importance – compact size, superb build quality, ensuring longevity, greatly dampened focusing , Zeiss geared rings accessory , de-clicking of the aperture ring, full exif recording. Loxia is bitingly sharp from its widest aperture with great contrast, color accuracy and flare resistance. It does show some vignetting though and I would like to see improved grip for mounting the lens (whole body is focus ring which rotates when you try to mount the lens) but those are very minor issues. Loxia is also very compact, it is made to be carried and used instead of displayed on the shelf. It fits Sony A7 series so greatly that you simply don’t want to put other lenses instead. I own Loxia 21/2.8 and 35/2. Loxia 85/2.4 is out if my budget recently, but I have no doubts that it will find the way to my bag sooner or later. Loxia 85/2.4 alone, or as part of the Loxia collection is a superb lens for travel photography.

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This is first partner review with the http://jantichyphotography.com.

The original review can be found here – http://jantichyphotography.com/pages/prvni-dojmy-sony-fe-85mm-f18/ but it is in the Czech language, so I tried to translate it in English.

Jan Tichy is respected Czech Photographer and big fan of Sony E mount cameras. He is also legacy lens freak and one of my good “photo” friends.

Here is his short review.

Today I was lucky to put my hands on the new Sony FE 85/1.8. It is lens that lot of people were hoping for, because at the price of just around 650 EUR (598 USD :-() it is slightly above half the price of comparable (by specification) Batis 85/1.8, so it can be a great portrait alternative with AF, for Sony mirrorless system.

How does it perform, is it worth it?

Build quality:

Build quality is rather solid. Barrel is made of light metal composite so it is light but sturdy. Filter diameter is 67mm. On the barrel we can find switch for AF/MF and multifunctional button that can be mapped for one of the user functions. Manual focusing is electronically coupled (focus by wire) and it is smooth, though it doesn’t react instantly when turned, but it allows graduated change of speed related to the speed of rotation.

Optical performance:

I didn’t make any complicated or controlled tests, I rather captured few casual portrait shots during one afternoon, in the different lighting conditions (direct sunlight, shadow, reflected light). I haven’t noticed any worrisome vignetting. Chromatic aberration (except when shot against direct sunlight) seems also well corrected, there was nothing terrible that would caught my eye or that I would need to correct in the post processing. Lens is in the center (I shot portraits at f/1.8, so corner sharpness wasn’t important) very sharp right from wide open aperture and rendering of the fine structures is great. Together with high edge sharpness, it helps creating very solid 3D effect. Colors are neutral without noticeable shift, saturation is very good.

Bokeh:

At short focus distances, out of focus areas are very smooth and pleasant. At middle focus distances, blurred background starts to be a bit nervous but at the same time, light 3D effect is more apparent. At longer focus distances (whole body e.g.), bokeh become rather nervous but 3D effect is strongest.

Autofocus:

One of those important things :). It is hard to make any definite conclusions. Final firmware version which should optimize speed and accuracy of the lens on Sony mirrorless system, wasn’t available at time of testing, but when I went through all photos at home, considering that I shoot most with wide open aperture, there were very few blurred images, keepers rate was pretty high. Autofocus was accurate also in direct sunlight and deep shadows. It happen that it miss the target and run through whole focusing range and back, being not able to lock-up (which can be annoying), but overall impression suggest that autofocus works better than on Sony FE 50 1.8.

That was it, no more talking, take a look at images in the gallery.

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Disclaimer: All images were lightly processed without extensive processing that would affect character of the lens. Colors were left as they were without further adjustment (except for B&W of course). Chromatic aberrations weren’t corrected during processing. All images taken with Sony A7II. All images taken by Jan Tichy.

Author would like to thank model Evey for posing and Foto Skoda for lending the lens.

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