DxOmark (Click here) tested the Zeiss 35mm FE lens. The lens is the second best lens teste after the Sigma 35mm and Samyang f/1.4 lenses. These lenses score better mainly because of the greater Transmission (they ahve a much larger aperture). It has not the stellar performance of the Zeiss 55mm FE but the 35mm Fe is also made to be compact and not to be the best 35mm lens on market. And that’s exactly what DxO writes in their conclusion:
Although the Zeiss FE Sonnar T* 35mm f2.8 ZA doesn’t have the consistent performance and sharpness in the outer field of its sibling the ZE Sonnar T* 55mm f1.8 ZA, the fact that it is very close to the Sigma 35mm f1.4 DG HSM A in IQ (over the same aperture range) is a plus. On the downside, it lacks that model’s versatility in low light, naturally, but at least it’s a fraction of the size and weight and complements the small size and inherent portability of the A7 models.
P.S.: Also Lenscore (Click here) tested the 55mm and 35mm Zeiss FE lenses.
Zeiss 35mm FE store links:
USA: Zeiss 35mm at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
Europe: Zeiss 35mm at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT,
Zeiss 5mm FE:
USA/Canada: Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonyStore US and Sonystore Canada.
Europe: Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT
0 Responses
That is great news.
Indeed great news! I have and use it and it s – awesome!
You would figure that it should not be tied for being the most expensive out of those given that it is two whole stops slower than its cohorts. It could have partially made up for that by being great wide-open… but it’s not.
FE 35 is not the most expensive 35mm.
Reading is fundamental, Ethan.
I HAZ EDUKATION!!!
No dude, you can has cheezburger.
If you want it great wide open you will have a heavier and bigger lens, but that’s not the point of this lens. And indeed wide open is far from bad actually, just not outstanding. If I use it wide open for portraits or sth, the corners are never in focus so I couldn’t care less. And landscape at daylight stopped down to F8 of course. At nigth at F2.8 if without tripod, but then the limit in picture quality will be eyther high iso noise from the sensor or my handheld skills. Correct me if I forgot anything, but you don’t seenm to like it for it’s slow numbers so what…
Hans: the point is, the FE 35mm should be cheaper for its combination of speed and quality. The FE 55mm easily justifies it’s price. But the FE 35mm costs the same as the Sigma 35mm Art while being two whole stops slower and does not offer better IQ-on-the-whole.
I suspect if you slap an EF 40mm f/2.8 STM (a $150 slow lens that offers comparable IQ to the Sigma 35mm Art when mounted on the same sensor) on an A7R, it would be somewhat humbling.
The FE 35mm is necessary for the A7/A7R, and is a good lens in its own right… but it is exorbitant given its performance.
Everything in this world should be cheaper…
I AGREE!
…and some things have a greater need to be cheaper than others.
Buy from eBay … they have 99 cents version of everything in the world 😀
The 35/2.8 represents poor value for me money compared to the sigma 35/1.4, which is cheaper, faster and sharper wide open. It’s surprising, considering how good the 55/1.8 is…
Value is subjective. It may be overpriced to you, but not for others.
The Sigma isn’t whether sealed and is much larger and heavier. If you want to use it on the A7(R), you also need to add the LA-EA4, which adds to the weight, size and cost.
Those that don’t need f/1.4, but need a light and compact lens with very good image quality and weather sealing to match the A7(R) body, will find the FE 35mm ideal.
The Sony and Sigma lenses are quite different from one another in many respects and serve different needs and requirements.
+1
I ain’t no rich, but don’t think this lens is overpriced for its size and iq that match the a7/r compactness.
I paid $590 for my FE 35/2.8. The Sigma is more expensive. Either way, apples and oranges as the FE is a tiny lens.
Mike: And I paid even less than you did for my Sigma 35mm Art. But what does it matter what you-or-I paid in bro-deals when few-to-no others can get it that way?
The common street price for just about anything is defined by what you can get at B&H and Adorama, big respectable national dealers. And there, the FE 35mm is a bit more expensive than the Sigma 35mm Art, but roughly comparable.
If you have to bring shady deals and/or obscure dealers into consideration… consider that the other side can do that too. And I suspect Sigma will win in that equal comparison simply because it is more commonly-stocked than the FE 35mm.
Or, if this whole idea is only about justifying your own choice… then hey, congratulations, you scored a sweet deal. *pat on the head*
I got it for that price from Amazon Japan. No bro deals involved. I don’t know why US dealers are asking such a premium for this lens but it’s probably just because it’s new and the price will go down in a few months.
Regardless, your argument is nonsense. Like I said: apples and oranges. I don’t see how the Sigma and the Sony are interchangeable. And I really don’t see how Sigma’s price-wars with Canikon can be any benchmark for Sony/Zeiss pricing.
+1 Mike.
+2
“Regardless, your argument is nonsense. Like I said: apples and oranges. I don’t see how the Sigma and the Sony are interchangeable. And I really don’t see how Sigma’s price-wars with Canikon can be any benchmark for Sony/Zeiss pricing.”
Uh, the nonsense is purely yours. You were the one to conjure up this false dichotomy. Notice that in this same message thread I brought up the EF 40mm f/2.8 STM, which is completely comparable in size and weight to the FE 35mm, at less than 1/4th the price. You were the one to exclude it in discussion.
No dSLR lens is completely interchangeable for an E-mount native lens… but at the same time, to think that your world needs to revolve around Sony is itself folly. Helpful hint: you can own two (or more!) camera systems and select the lenses which make the most sense for each. To give in blindly to whatever a given manufacturer wants for a key lens is to encourage them to price recklessly.
This is what makes your Sigma vs. Canikon price-war comment so priceless. You mean you *DON’T* want that to happen in the Sony sphere? The brainwashing is complete, apparently.
Dewt, When you look at lenses there are more criteria then IQ alone. For the 35mm Zeiss lens there is size that was important. Look at the size of the sigma and that of the Sony/Zeiss lens. It is amazing that they got that lens that small and that good for a price $100,– cheaper as the Sigma.
And then there is an other thing: Sigma designs lenses to sell them on all mounts, so they can spread the development costs over all the mounts, Sony has just one mount (the E-mount) to put the lens on, so the development costs goes to one mount.
Again I think it is amazing that this lens is so small, so good and at this price compared to the Sigma…
+1
The Sigma, compared to the Zeiss, is 5.5x the weight and 4x the volume. This doesn’t even include the added weight and bulk of the LA-EA4 adapter you would need to use the Sigma lens on an A7/A7R, nor the extra bulk when using the hood.
The other issue with Sigma has been the long term reliability of their HSM lenses. These lenses frequently have required re-chipping in order to maintain compatibility with newer bodies. The FE 35, being a first-party lens, isn’t subject to this uncertainty.
+1.
Having known you from DPR and generally being a supporter of what you do, I don’t want to argue with you, nevercat.
However, it needs to be considered that Canon was able to do a EF 40mm f/2.8 for <$200, and Sigma was able to do a m43/APS-C E-mount 30mm f/2.8 for <$200 that apparently *almost* covers the FF light circle, and perhaps with a little cropping will get you exactly the 35mm PoV. The Canon is obviously not cross-mount, and the Sigma 30mm, although cross-mount, covers a small market. Sure, the FE covers an ever smaller market. But 4 times the upcharge is a bit insane. I would not be making this argument if the FE 35mm was in the $400 neighborhood.
Why does it make sense to compare a 1.4 lens to a 2.8 lens? What would the size + prize be of a Zeiss 35mm 1.4?
Ridiculous comparison. If you don’t need the speed it’s a fine lens. However there are issues (see leicaboss blog post
http://www.leica-boss.com/2013/12/the-problem-with-sonys-zeiss-fe-sonnar-t-fe-35mm-f2-8-za-sel35f28z/).
Additionally, why not using a D800e for comparison? I think a Nikon D610 vs. Sony A7 comparison is more accurate in rating the lens. Nevertheless both are excellent choices.
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I think it’s interesting the T stop is matching the f stop again. I have this lens and i am very happy with it on my NEX 7. But my camera and this lens struggles to af in low light.
AF problem is due to the NEX-7, the lens is pretty quick to AF on the A7/r. I use it on NEX7 and A7r and must say that the A7r has a lot far better AF with all e-mount lenses than my NEX7, also with this one.
I agree. That’s an interesting fact that’s been usually overlooked. It means that the FE lenses are actually 1/3-2/3 faster than they look when compared to the competition. No is doubting that the Sigma 35mm is a great lens. What Sigma has done with their ART series is amazing. It is too bad that they don’t develop for the FE mount since the specs are open and they wouldn’t (theoretically) have the compatibility issues.
I just find it frustrated how much the “Sony makes bad lenses” has become a meme. The FE 35mm has a good value compared to most M lenses out there. The manual focus CV Skopar (f2.5 for probably the same T-stop rating) has an MSRP of around $500. $300 more for a native AF lens with *T coating seems like a deal.
Do I wish it were cheaper? Yes.
Looking hat the whole A7 and E-Mount FF concept that Sony brought to the market one get‘s the feeling that it is much better thought through and build than anything they did with NEX before. I dearly hope we will see the same thing happening for the smaller Alpha cams…
And yet, I have noticed in several posts of photo’s taken with this lens, the concentric circles that Leica Boss posted about.
I assume you’re talking about the sensor reflections? They are not specific to this lens (unfortunately)
No it’s different to the ray gun reflections that happen with this and other lenses on the A7. When leica boss increases saturation the rings become more prominent. Here is the link http://www.leica-boss.com/2013/12/the-problem-with-sonys-zeiss-fe-sonnar-t-fe-35mm-f2-8-za-sel35f28z/
Possibly related: http://3d-kraft.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=151%3Aadorable-50s-otus-noctilux-summilux-hyperprime-sonnar&catid=40%3Acamerasandlenses&Itemid=2&limitstart=1
The frequency of the stripes in the images (corner) are much higher and they show without increasing saturation though.
I have to concur with the “purple target pattern”. Suffering from it… In otherwise perfectly good shots. it’s a real downside and despite the excellency of the lens in sharpness, contrast, color rendering i am on the fence returning it.
It’s not a flare or a traditional CA – but it has characteristics of both. if you take a sky with a lot of greys (stormy clouds), a lot of color/value depth/resolution and try to nudge contrast in PP the pattern will appear. That’s a major downside for a landscape lens.
I found it pointless to take light transmission into consideration while rating a lens and summing all the characteristics into a single number.
http://www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Ratings
Have a look at the list. All the lenses have f/2 or larger apertures. How cool is that?
Btw, Nikon’s 14-24 scores worse than Samyang’s 35/1.4 because its aperture is 2.8. It’s also worse than Canon’s 50/1.8. Didn’t know that.
this whole ranking list is pointless from consumer view as it compares lenses with different focal lengths.
Sony now come out with a 85 and 135 and a nice 14 with just as nice performance 🙂 good news on two nice lens so far though 🙂 still might wait for V2 of the A7 series ? but looking good for mirrorless !!!
So when is the Hasselblad FF E-mount being launched to put these great Zeiss FE lenses on 🙂 .
The most interesting lens to compare it with would be the Canon 40/2.8 pancake… too bad Canon don’t have a high enough resolution body to make a fair comparison 🙁
Stick it on the A7R… Done!
Second best?
There are 4 35mm lenses with higher DxOMark:
Sigma 35mm F1.4 DG HSM A
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX1R lens
Carl Zeiss Distagon T 35mm f/1.4 ZF2
Samyang 35mm F1.4 AS UMC
Great scores! It’s good to know that Sony is building a great system from 0. I really hope that the roadmap will be true and all those lenses will be very good if not great. The second generation of the A7/A7r will be the best to buy because it will be more polished than the first.
I hate the way that DXOmark just dumb everything down to one number.
That is not correct, if you look at the DXO data on any lens they give you 5 parameters – you can see that clearly in the graphic at the top of this page. Also on their site, you can rank lenses and compare lenses based on any of those 5 parameters. They most certainly do not just give you a single number.
So there are two great lenses for Sony FF E-mount. Great news for Sony and for those who own/consider the cameras.
If there are one or four lenses for other cameras that scores even better – who cares?
DXO will give their truth which is not the full truth. There are other lens reviewers out there to study. ring them all together and you will have a very good picture (!) of the lens.
DXO lens tests should be treated with a huge… distance. Their testing methodology is in most part huge unknown, and more than often these tests got very little to do with other tests.
Like Jenny wrote:
Second best?
There are 4 35mm lenses with higher DxOMark:
Something a lot in here have misunderstood. FE 35mm is great as IS IT sharp wide open and give a sharpness is quite uniform edge to edge even on a 36mp beast.
Great Zeiss Sonnar lens and it is compact.
Meanwhile, Sigma’s 35mm f/1.4 is actually CHEAPER than the FE 35mm f/2.8.
E-Mount, home of dark expensive lenses 😛
Nevermind apples to oranges, comparing the Sigma to the Sony is like comparing watermelons to grapes.
Not cheaper, mind … B&H is selling $900 for the Sigma …
But if Sigma going to release this for e-mount anytime soon, people will think twice before buying FE35.
Heck I may even consider the RX1R lens (f2) or the Distagon, if Zeiss going to release the e-mount version.
My point is, FE35 is compact and the optics is quite good … but I feel it’s not the best that Zeiss can make for e-mount. Maybe they have to follow some restrictions, e.g. make it small, competitive price, etc. Hope a better version is in the pipeline.
@Lotus Eater
Nope, it’s like comparing one 35mm FF lens to another 35mm FF lens.
@Jenny
I used local prices here in Moscow. $735 for the Sigma, $799 for the Zeiss.
Negri Electronics sells Sigma for $765.50 http://negrielectronics.com/sigma-35mm-f1-4-dg-hsm-sony-lens.html, most likely imported from Moscow 😉 Looks like a good deal if anybody needs them.
“Nope, it’s like comparing one 35mm FF lens to another 35mm FF lens.”
*whoooosh* <– that was my point going over your head.
One is natively designed for a compact mirrorless camera and is designed to be light and compact. The other one is designed for DSLR cameras and can only be used on the A7(R) via an adapter. They are very different lenses for different types of camera, despite the common focal length.
OK, you hit me with your point 😀
Sooo… E-Mount – home of lightweight compact dark expensive lenses!
I think that’s great but the A7R is the factor here. That’s the only reason for the rediculously high scores.
Yes, the A7r sensor makes every piece of glass look cool and shiny 🙂
The A-mount would definitely benefit of getting such a great sensor, and the ZA lenses will start climbing the rating charts as well.
Yep, but a crappy lens will still be crappy on a FF hi-res sensor.
They not all that crappy. Look at the LensCore.org Sony ratings – the 135mm f/1.8 is marginally worse than the 55mm FE in terms of resolution, and slightly better in general. IMHO they will shine again if you use them on a better sensor. I really like the 85mm f/1.4 as well (don’t like its unreliable AF though), but for some reason it took much lower place in the chart.
Looking at the results and the sizes of the 35mm and the 55mm it seems to me that Sony/zeiss compromised IQ for size and weight. Not that the 35mm is bad lens at all, but with the 55mm in mind I was a bit disapointed. Maybe there will be 1.4 version on the level (and size) of the 55mm or the Sigma 35mm.
This is somehow a “desgin flaw” or the challenge (to use a more positive wording) of the FE “system”: It wants to be small and deliver the best IQ. I’m really curios what the performance of the 24-70 will be …
I’m not sure why people complain about f/2.8 for a wide angle. You won’t use it for individual portraits anyway, and you won’t need shallow depth of field for landscapes – I would say I never go below f/5.6 for those.
You might want seperation. Seperation of a background is not only interesting for portraits. A faster lens gives you more options to create an image. But there is nothing wrong with a slower and more portable lens. It’s just achoice you (or in this case Sony) has to make.
And it measures 2.8 Tstop. Second tested FE lens with Tstop equal to F-stop, which is simply not possible (there are always light losses in the glass and especially in the coatings). I guess Sony broke DxO’s testing method somehow. But it costs them more “DxO” noise than exactly the same sensors in Nikon cameras (which is also BS).
Looks like DxOMark becomes less and less reliable.
I like smaller and faster. Just do it !
I’ll buy it !
By the way I have always wondered what type of glass was used in high quality camera lenses; standard optic grade, high index, grinded, molded, mineral only, organic… So what’s inside these lenses ? Couldn’t we get smaller, lighter, faster lenses with high index extra thin glass like used for spectacles ?
Let’ talk optics. Lenses are about optics.
Sweet lens. Wide open it’s sharper than Touit at f/2.8.
Once, when open mount FF camera will be announced, the world will immediately forget about any crappy sony camera.