The Zeiss 16-35mm is still leading the order ranking at Amazon US (full list here).
VeryBigLobo is so kind to share the first RAW file 16-35mm samples freely for download. He also made a quick comparison with the A-mount 16-35mm and says the A-mount lens performed worse and has more smearing on corners. But take such conclusion with a grain of salt. You need proper time and location to make a fair comparison.
Cameras.reviewed shared their hands-on thoughts about the lens and do write:
It’s made of metal, has a pleasant heft, and feels like it’s meant to be used—not just put on a shelf and admired.
Zeiss FE 16-35mm preorder links:
Zeiss 16-35mm FE at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Sony Store US.
Zeiss 16-35mm FE in Europe at Sony DE, UK, ES, IT, FR, CH, AT, NL, BE, FI, SE, NO, PT.
0 Responses
First….Whats happened to Pancanikonpus?…….Tut!
Pancanikonpus is dead!
“First blood”, ran out of blood !
There are 2 months to go before the lens will be available. No rush.
Delivery starts on 4th November in Germany. So only 6 weeks to go here. 🙂
I still refuse to commit 1400 Euros for 6 weeks. After 2 months (January 2015), the demand/price will ease up. Not a big deal about waiting for a few months when using the A7r for > a year without one.
Have you ever noticed gnats or flies buzzing around your camera bag? Togs often pack a banana or cookie sandwich in the kit. If left to rot, the vermin will pay a nasty visit.
Those buggers didn’t stop bombing my bag until I removed all forms of fly-by-wire focus devices. Worse than rotting fruit, poor design philosophy can make a stinky situation out of that which is supposed to be enjoyable.
Sadly all AF lenses have this poor design philosophy. Nobody’s trying to make an AF lens with decent MF, not even out of pure love of optics.
At least our CaNikon friends enjoy a detent where the focus limits end. Original Maxxum screw drive is very precise, with hard stops. All of those honor the speed ratio the photographer turns the ring with.
But these fly-by-wire systems, at least Sony’s, is run by an accelerometer, with no end limit indicators. Just awful, like a spinning ring which could be repurposed for any function. I prefer dedicated and tactile controls.
The hard stop does help, a little.
I don’t know about the Maxxum’s screw drive but another screw driven lens I tried once and didn’t like it any better than E-mount lenses, I didn’t like the noise, the weird vibrating feedback, and the focusing range was surprisingly short.
I don’t think there ever was a zoom lens that was meant to be put on a shelf and admired 😆
”feels like it’s meant to be used”…
Hmmm, to me that means that it’s not quite crafted finely enough. When I have a Swiss Army Knife in my hands, that’s what I feel. When I have Mcusta’s Damascus Steel scissors in my hands, I feel that it’s meant to be “put on a shelf and admired”. XD
Is English a second language for you? Your interpretation of that phrase is incorrect.
Yes I would say that it’s a second language to me. But how is there a matter of ” interpretation” about that phrase? I’m talking about how I feel, it’s more like a matter of personal understanding. If I feel something is crafted well enough for me to really appreciate its craftsmanship, then I would handle it with delicate care, or, just put it on a shelf and admire it. If I feel I could use something anyway I like, then I certainly don’t care much for its quality.
Maybe it’s a cultural thing, that’s probably why American products are often so…unrefined. They’re usually content with the build as long as moving parts move and fasteners stay in place. An easy comparison would be American cars and German cars. Do American cars fall apart? Not really. Are they well built? Depends on how you see it.
Do some searching and see how the phrase is used in context ”feels like it’s meant to be used”. Your personal understanding is incorrect and your analogies are also wrong.
You’re the one not understanding me here. You see good quality as the ability to take abuse. I’m telling you I see good quality as the kind of precision manufacturing that one would like to treat with care.
This in fact stands for the comparison between American and German cars because American cars are sturdier while it’s German cars that are known worldwide to be of higher quality, but require more care to use.
“If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.” Interpret that one, it describes your situation exactly.
Except I’m not in a hole. You need to stop mind-burying other people.
Non sequitur.
Yes, yes. Says you.
I will repeat myself one last time and will not follow up on your nonsense anymore.
You insist that the initial phrase meant good quality. So if something’s to be used then it is of good quality. With use comes wear. So something that stands wear is of good quality-> sturdy means good quality end of debate. That’s what you’re trying to say. Now American cars absorb less shock on impact and retain their shape thus take more punishment->sturdy->good quality, according to you. I’m saying everybody knows that German cars are not as sturdy as American cars but are of better quality. So sturdy does not mean good quality or at least less sturdy could even mean better quality end of debate.
There’s no obvious flaw to this logic and it’s you who’s keep ignoring the flow of conversation and keeps getting stuck at step 1. Maybe they have internet in the psych ward.
Dude, just chill out and stop feeding the troll.
ADMIN – this forum sucks due to very poor moderation so a bunch of schmucks like “S.FYu” is bullying and trolling normal users just for lulz. I understand more comments means more traffic and $$$ for you, but look at the reputation side, right now the forum reminds a stinky city dump.
Cry Baby………….
Great selfie!
It became like this since Disqus has been added to the website… Troll on troll..
Non sequitur ^2.
Yo dawg, not everybody speaks your native ebonics, sorry… 😉
Why aren’t you using a real name? Do you also wear a paper bag on your head IRL because of you are f-king hideous or just afraid of people?
Yo Dawg!
Yo waddup homie! Waz gud in da hood?
Actually youre misunderstanding. That term was used as a compliment…
I know what that reviewer meant. I’m saying that that phrase, taken literally, is not a compliment as I see it. I’m saying that to me, something that’s worthy of being treasured would seem to be better made than something that only has a practical use.
As a photographer, I would prefer something that feels like it is made to be used than something that is made to be treasured. These are tools at the end of the day. That doesn’t make something less well built, quite the opposite, but may not be ‘finely crafted’.
Well…Yeah…I was just fiddling with this Taylor & Hobson C-mount cine lens made at least 30 years ago yesterday and you just gotta have it in your hands to really see how flimsy modern lenses have become. Back in its days it was a mere tool too but now with practicality and cost control over everything else it’s just become…something more. Yes aluminum shell over plastic makes a very useful tool but if you know how well it could actually be made then…it becomes very…lacking, to hold in the hand.
IMO Leica’s the only one in the position to be experimenting on new materials. If anybody’s going to start using titanium alloy it should be Leica. If it adds 50% to costs they’d be able to charge twice as much. I personally won’t be able to afford it anytime soon, but at least people see that somebody actually loves their own work and is trying to perfect it(I know they say “nothing’s perfect” so let’s just leave it at “perfecting it”) instead of looking for a hundred different ways of shaving off corners.
But they’re sitting on their a$$es making rehashes of old models.
Interesting – I wonder if that means they took the criticisms about the 24-70 to heart?
Hide all your Sony logos with gaffers tape. Tape them all up this weekend. Hide those logos until Sony gives us the high res Barry cam I was promised by Sony executives. Sony execs are calling it the Barry cam privately and in talks with me. Matt Granger needs to replace Andrea. Andrea can’t get access to Sony leadership like Matt and I can. Sony executives admitted to Matt and me that the Barry cam has been shelved indefinitely. Tape up this logos until Sony agrees to put the Barry cam in production. Join the movement.
I’m not surprised that the FE 16-35 performs better on the a7r than the SAL 16-35 at 16mm (also the higher ISO is a bit of a disadvantage for sharpness). The a7r has proven fickle with very wide focal lengths. Some showed pretty awful smearing in tests on here. It’s great to see that a super wide designed specifically for FE sensors can achieve solid corner sharpness.
Personally, I have achieved very good corner sharpness with the SAL 16-35 on an a99.
In one of the Zeiss interviews at Photokina, a Zeiss person said that to get the most out of the a7R, a redesign of traditional lenses is necessary due to a glass layer Sony puts over the sensor that has to be compensated for. He suggested that this is the reason some lenses, especially the wide M lenses don’t perform well on the a7 series. There may be at least a little bit of that going on with wide lenses adapted to the a7R like the SAL 16-35.
He is talking about rangefinder lenses rather than retrofocus DSLR lenses like the SAL. Actually never thought very much of the SAL to be honest. Canon lenses were worse though.
Oh I realize that but what I am speculating is that the glass on the sensor may have an impact on some SLR/DSLR lenses.
Yeah maybe, I haven’t seen anything to suggest it does between using an A7 and A850 with the same lenses, but A7R has offset micro lenses which may have issues with Longer registration lenses more.
I agree. I’ve used the 16-35mm f/2.8 on the A850, and A99 for over five years, and its a sharp lens. Maybe the 16-35 f/2.8 just doesn’t perform well on a adapter.
According to Sony’s own MTF charts for both lenses, the new FE lens should be performing better than it’s older, bigger brother; particularly with respect to the corners
I suspect ultra wide lenses are more challenging to design & optimize for FE. It’s reassuring that Sony was able to succeed at a sharp lens at 16mm. The SAL 16-35 would probabl show better zoomed in a bit (or with an equal ISO on a tripod.
Without the benefit of OS, when mounted on the adapter, a SAL1635 is at a severe disadvantage. Plus it’s a SLR, and not optimized or even designed to be used on a mirrorless camera.
So it is really a BS review.
It could be that motion blur is part of the equation. I think he shot at 1/60th which should be sufficient for those with a steady hand but that’s not everyone.
I have personally adapted canon 17mm and 24mm ts lenses on an a7r and the results were excellent (better than using them natively on a lower res canon).
Wow! Comments get CRAZY on the weekends! Go out and take some pictures people! It’s all trolls trolling trolls in here.
This looks seriously good, glad they didn’t rush it like those bashing their knives and forks on the table seemed to have preferred. Also all the nay sayers that have been saying it HAS to be cr@p… your comments are as useful as always.
What I find curious is that the Zeiss guy is named ANDREAS
ADMIN: WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ???
!
Great result….I love it 🙂
His assessment of both lenses is pretty dumb. The review would have been credible had the comparison been done with the SAL1635Z mounted on a A99, and the SEL1635Z mounted on the A7.
Why?
In order to be considered a fair comparison, each lens should be tested on their native mounts. The SAL1635Z f/2.8 is optimized for its SLR mount, and it will not perform up to spec on a mirror-less camera, that it was never intended to be paired with.
Why?
The a7r has shown that some ultra wide lenses, despite being of high optical quality (particularly RF lenses) do not perform up to their potential (due to either the diameter of e-mount being so small or the glass layer in front of the a7r sensor or both). This for those who purely want to compare the lenses to one another independent of sensor performance comparing using an a7 and an a99 makes sense since they share a sensor.
To add my 50cents:
I worked my day through busy Saturday at Photokina to check out all the new options for my Sony A7R. Here are a few thoughts based on hands on and test shots that I could take.
Leica Summarit Lenses
Entry price for Leica, still quite expensive beasts. I was able to test the 35mm and the 90mm using my Voigtländer VME Adapter (1st version). They both work very well, are mighty sharp and show even color across the entire picture. The 35mm seems to be a tad soft on the edges / corners, but I have only done a couple of test shots. The 90mm is a beauty and currently fills a gap that is not really taken by any other lens (at least not in such a compact form). Made me think, but still 1900€ is a lot of money to spend on one lens.
Zeiss
Loxia is both a positive experience and a disappointment. Starting with the positive: Loxia Planar 50mm is a beauty in use and has perfect picture quality in the few pictures I took. Sharp, nice bokeh, everything. I have also made comparing shots with the Planar 50mm ZM. I could not find any visible difference in my shots (again, just a few crap shots on the booth). Given that the ZM is significantly smaller than the Loxia I would probably opt for that one, even though the Loxia is really good and definitely not worse than ZM. I then tested the Loxia Biogon 35mm. The good news is that Zeiss fixed the color fringe and the heavy smearing of the ZM Biogon on the A7R. The bad news is that the edges / corners are really soft (I mean really! The softness on the Summarit in comparison is razor sharp!). It seems that Biogon does not go well with A7R. There are much better 35mm lenses for the A7R than this one (one I will come to now).
Voigtländer
They had all three new VM lenses to test. I also tested the close-focus adapter with some of my M-lenses and this thing is a gem! It works great. And so are all three of the new lenses. According to the lady on the booth, Voigtländer has designed / re-designed the lenses with the A7 in mind and that really shows. The 15mm shows no visible color fringing and no corner smearing at all (sharp edge to edge). Some distortion is visible as is to be expected with such a wide lens. I also had a little bit of CA, which was corrected in Lightroom with minimal turning of the correction slider. The 35mm f1.7 is great, too. It really is sharp even in the corners. Definitely a different world from the Biogon and (more of a gut feel than scientific proof) also sharper than the Summarit (definitely not worse by 1000+ Euro…). It is quite fast and still a very small size. Looks like an almost perfect 35mm for the A7R to me. The build quality of both lenses felt quite solid as well (metal bodies, nice focussing and aperture rings). What was the real surprise for me was that the 40mm Heliar Pancake is actually exlusively designed for E-Mount. Even though it is a VM lens it only works with the Voigtländer close-focus VME adapter. Why? Because it does not have a focussing ring itself. It only can be focussed with the focussing ring of the adapter. Therefore you cannot use it on an M-Mount camera, but only on E-Mount. The image quality was also very nice, although you would not need a 40mm, if you have a 35mm. But the size of this one is really tiny. A true high-quality pancake and that might make it attractive to many people. They did not give prices for the lenses, but did expect the prices to be between 500 and 600 Euro for each. I really wish Voigtländer would do a 90mm or 100mm in this quality…
Sony
I could test the new 16-35mm Sony / Zeiss lens. Unfortunately I could only do it on Sony’s camera and their SD-Card as it was still a pre-production version. It does seem to be a very good wide-angle zoom. The quality I have seen was good at both 16mm and 35mm. There was less CA than on the Voigtländer 15mm (though not zero CA), but it seemed a little bit more distortion (again, could not really compare it as I could not take the Sony pictures home). If you are prepared to carry big lens (as it is really big compared to the M-Mount lenses) this could be a very solid, well built wide-angle zoom with very good IQ. I will not buy it due to it’s size.
Sigma
I did not test any lens at Sigma, but I did ask the guy, why Sigma did not do the Sports version of the 150-600mm for Sony and just the “consumer-grade” contemporary version. At first he said that this could be due to the lack of performance of Sony cameras (definitely bullshit!). Then he said that Sigma might not be interested in pushing Sony as Sony holds a big stake in Tamron and gives Tamron better deals on their mount license fees… that would not be good, but I also don’t believe it. What I actually think is that for the Sports version the target group is clearly professional photographers and not amateurs and that group still uses mostly Canon and Nikon…
Many people have complained that this year the Photokina missed some true innovations. That might be true, but for an owner of the A7R it definitely had a lot of new things to try and consider.
Really awesome to hear about the Voigtlanders, was really curious about these and the older 35mm f1.7 was supposed to be excellent (and better than the ‘classic’ Nokton, although slower). The pancake looks interesting enough but one of the things I enjoy about these lenses is the presence of a focus distance scales. 15mm is a definite bonus that it is improved for the A7 series (and similar digital cameras) I wonder what downsides that causes for film?
And then on the Loxias, the feature that I find interesting and probably worth the extra size is the electronic communications with the camera, specifically for the focus distance scale (digital on screen one) and automatic focus magnification, which I find to be a big plus with native and EF lenses.
I agree, the handling of the Loxias is really nice. They feel very solid, automatic focus maginification is really good as is the electronic information in camera. So these are really points to consider against the size / weight + versatility of the M-Mount (for different cameras).
Thanks for your report!
Very happy see a +ve report on the CV15/4.5 II (anyone has a picture of this lens?) and the Ultron 35/1.7.
Very disappointed that Zeiss would persist with the Biogon for the A7r.
35/2 is obviosly compromised for compactness. ZM 35/1.4 looks perfect.
Not sure it is worth its name compared to the alternatives available.
Found the pics of the Cosina 15/4.5, 2014 version:
http://www.ephotozine.com/article/voigtlander-15mm–35mm–40mm-lenses-announced-at-photokina-2014-26217
Thank you very much for this report. This confirms my fears about the Loxia 35/2. It is disturbing that they would ask >$1’200 for a lens that is so soft in the corners. Quite a bummer as I would have liked a 35/2 in that form factor.
Thanks for that! And I think Voigtlander doesn’t disappoint as usual, real gems when considering what one gets for the price. I hope they reintroduce the 125mm macro and the 180.