The 16-70mm lens image by phillipreeve
The very negative conclusions drawn by Photozone created quite a buzz here on SAR. Our reader Victor pointed out that most of the reviewers out there actually gave a high score to the 16-70mm Zeiss lens: Sonyalphalab, ePhotozine, Photographyblog, Imaging-resource, Admiringlight, Kurtmunger, Stevehuffphoto, Phillipreeve.
I am pretty confident Photozone is a serious review site and so are most of the reviewers I linked to now. This just proofs that reviews are not an exact science and depend on various factors like, personal preferences, lab test quality, scoring system and quality of the tested lens samples.
Zeiss 16-70mm deal: You save $150 on the lens if you buy it refurbished on [shoplink 35043 ebay]Secondipity eBay US (Click here)[/shoplink]
–
A funny note: Some readers keep saying I am just a Sony fanboy. After yesterdays negative post about the Sony APS-C strategy some of them said that I am bashing on Sony. Just to be clear. I am a free-thinker and I take no side based on non rational arguments. I love to openly discuss positives and negatives about Sony. Because I think that at the end no company is perfect and that critics can (sometimes) help to improve the company behavior.
64 Responses
Kurt Munger did not particularly like this lens. His review was polite way to say don’t buy it. it is very similar to photozone.de.
SLRGear had very different review. To me this shows sample variations in the tested lenses. Sony must fix that. It is unacceptable to take 50% risk of buying bad copy of a lens.
Agreed. He wrote: Personally, I’d pass on this lens if it meets Sony’s QC; It’s too expensive for the lack luster quality at mid lengths. if I got a couple of bad copies, then maybe I’ll take another look when they get things straightened out.
Also, Phillip Reeve specifically noted that his copy of the lens was decentered, the effects of which were most obvious at fl=70mm.
SLRGear basically only positive things, so you are right it’s sample variations. QC needs to get better.
Camera Labs review of the Tamron 70-200 F2.8:
– Both lenses showed clear signs of decentering.
– Both copies showed disappointing haloing in the center at 200mm at f2.8.
– Both copies required several seconds for the image stabilization to warm-up which almost certainly will ruin some of your shots.
So are we to assume all Tamron Lenses suck?
No, but for 80% of them, yes 🙂
I had to return 3 lenses for decentering/front/back focusing problem (1 17-50/2.8, 1 70-200/2.8 and 1 60/2 macro), so I switched to Sony/Minolta lenses.
When it comes to Sony lens reviews, Kurt Munger is The Man!
if i recall correctly, Admiringlight, Kurtmunger and Philipreeve all have same or similar conclusion as photozone.de.
Let me refresh your mind 😉
Admiringlight said: ”
The Carl Zeiss 16-70mm f/4 Vario Tessar T* ZA OSS is a high quality
lens with an outstanding range. The useful focal length and constant
f/4 aperture provide a lens with a huge variety of uses and provides
great convenience for the shooter. While it falls short of outstanding
with regards to image sharpness on the edges, the lens produces images
that are sharp enough for the vast majority of purposes, and produces
pleasing bokeh and outstanding contrast and color.
At $999, the 16-70mm is a relatively expensive standard zoom lens for
a mirrorless camera, and I think for the price, I expected just a
little more with regards to cross-frame resolution. That said, it is a
very enjoyable lens to use and produces very good output on the whole,
making it an easy lens to recommend for those looking for a high quality
standard zoom for their E-Mount APS-C camera.”
Admiringlight also said:
Sharpness
Carl Zeiss lenses are renowned for their image sharpness, high contrast and rich color. On the sharpness front, the 16-70mm f/4 falls a little short of expectations, though still puts in a solid performance. Images show good central sharpness throughout the zoom range right from f/4. Image borders and corners are a little soft at the widest aperture. Stopping down brings the central part of the frame into outstanding territory and the image borders to a very good level, though the extreme corners lag a bit and never really get sharp. That last remaining softness is of minimal concern in daily use, though it does limit the lens’ usefulness as a landscape optic for those who are picky about cross-frame sharpness.
I’ve been quite happy with the sel18105 f4. It’s not the sharpest thing out there but for the money, you get quite the range with constant f4.
In terms of the whole “sony doesnt care about apsc” argument I’d wait to criticize sony until they release the a7000. They are likely to release a lens road map at that time. In the meantime I feel bad for a mount users more than anything.
if you treat sony only as a travel camera, not a system, it is all fine. I am quite happy with a6000/10-18/16-70/24 1.8 as lightweight travel setup, and i don’t need anymore lens. i would even say it has the best price/performance ratio.
I also carry the Sony 10-18mm with me when I travel. It’s tiny and it comes in handy for big scenery as well as interior shots. However, I don’t think it’s intrinsically nearly as good as my Panasonic MFT 7-14mm or Nikon FX 16-35mm wide angle lenses. Too much anamorphic distortion in the Sony that has to be corrected in post-processing, I think. It takes a bit of work to get the most out of it.
I also own the 18105 f4. It’s the walk-around lens on my A6000, which I mainly use for taking pictures when I’m traveling. I agree with you it is not the sharpest lens. It has a fair amount of optical distortion, which can be corrected e.g. in DXO Optics Pro. All in all, the lens gets the job done. However, there seems to be a strange issue with my copy. Perhaps it’s my imagination, but I see a pattern of bright and dark spots, slight hills and valleys in relative brightness, across my images when I shoot with this lens. The effect is not large, usually just barely perceptible. It’s definitely not vignetting and the distribution of light and dark is certainly nothing like an Airy pattern. I see nothing similar when I shoot with my FE70-200mm lens, which appears every bit as good as my Nikon 80-400mm lens on my D800. I have no explanation for it and I don’t have the equipment needed to quantify it. I’m open to suggestions. It doesn’t really “spoil” my pictures; I’m only posting them on Flickr for friends and family to view. It’s just a tiny annoyance and a curiosity, that’s all.
+8
The 16-70 Zeiss just received the highest rating from the Raccoon Island Princess School for the Dumb and Blind journalism class.
That’s where you work right.
Admin, why so much fanboyism and the need to counterbalance the negative reviews? If Something isn’t good, it is not good. Enough. With actions like yours is that Sony can go away from this without considering being serious about lens designs from now on….
Well said internet troll rzero21.
Nope, all I want is Sony to keep the good quality from lenses like the SEL55F18 instead of giving us mediocre lens designs…
In the past, Sony used to create lenses that didn’t need to much post-processing optical corrections, but now Sony is being mediocre and are giving us flawed lens designs which requires a lot of corrections. That isn’t a good thing.
Don’t get confortable with acepting mediocre lenses. Ask for better lens designs.
You are an idiot. He stated that he publishes negative reviews as well. And you still call it fanboyism. What he did was simply gave us more info which is always good. Photozone have been known in the past to be wrong on many lenses including Canon and Nikon ones. If you want I can give you a list of lenses photozone said were garbage, but it turns out they were wrong.
I would like Sony to keep the quality they have showed with the Zeiss FE 55mm F1.8 ZA but I don’t like that they’re charging a thousand bucks for a mediocre lens like the Zeiss E 16-70mm F4 ZA OSS and getting away with it. I don’t follow Photozone but I do follow Kurtmunger and he is spot on.
Kurtmunger is rzero21’s daddy, and you’re his biotch.
So you’re okay with mediocre lenses?
Numbers don’t lie.
Revievers might have different opinions but the facts are there.
Check lens price, check lens distortion/sharpness/ca,etc figures – make your own conclusion.
This is not the first time I’ve seen the very same lens receiving highly positive and highly negative reviews from two different sights. Numbers are only as good as the equipment and technician making the measurements, and there is always the possibility of a bad sample being tested. Don’t put blind faith in a single source for either opinions or measurements.
I generally trust Photozone’s measurements since they seem to reflect my own experience with the few lenses I have. But I don’t pay much attention to the text and ratings – I’m just checking the charts.
Then different people read things differently – here Phillip’s review is given as exapmple of a positive review about the lens, while I consider it a negative review based on his comments about lens soft corners and price/performance.
here you go: http://www.ephotozine.com/article/carl-zeiss-vario-tessar-e-16-70mm-f-4-za-oss-t–review-24059 as you said numbers don’t lie: at 70mm f4 (weakest spot) sharpness on Imatest is between good and excellent wide open. At f5.6 it’s exceeding excellent across frame!
Ahh … “Excellent, good , bad” – these are not numbers but opinions
no need to counterbalance anyones opinion. what a generation y/z thing to do. lack of respect, frankly. just my 0.02…
I’ll show you a trash can, and I’ll tell you to respect that. Therefore you should, right?
Not understanding the nature of the Internet, the low threshold for info dissemination (as opposed to the high threshold of traditional media) and the ease/commonality with which people with dubious credentials present themselves as some sort of “authority” is such a generation-obsolete thing to do.
Wait, that’s unfair to our wiser elders. So I’ll limit the observation of such simple gullibility to merely you. Two cents in today’s dollars (i.e. nil) is all that’s worth, if even that.
Respect is EARNED, never demanded, never deserved.
by taking the time to address my admittedly black and white statement (there you go, i think ive employed some degree of net mannerism by generalizing…) youve already shown a most basic respect towards me, and for that i thank you. whats respectworthy or not is a matter of personal view.
no doubt the net is cluttered with untrustworthy info and a lot of it is to be rejected, most taken with a grain of salt. my issue is that im seeing even the people who genuinely try be silenced or shitstormed on a daily basis, just for putting their opinion out there. its one more voice for us, yes, but it may be a livelihood or at least a passion for them. in concrete terms, i dont think its fair to consider some ‘consensus’ (which will often be idealistic or business-driven) about the quality of a lens the norm, and batter or “counterbalance” any disagreeing voices just because one feels they need to be. photozone have in no way proven to be dubious so let them have their rightful word. it wont be the last one, im sure, and honestly- in this day and age some more respect surely wouldnt hurt.
I read Jay’s review and I agree that it is a very nice lens. ePhotozine also has numbers and they are much better than photozone.de I’m thinking sample variations and different testing approach methods.
P.S. What do you guys expect me to do with all my excellent photos I took with 16-70 lens? throw them out? Delete?
This is the same with the Mitakon speedmaster dark knight 50mm f0.95, I have got it and I compared it the zeiss stuff I’ve got, both the Contax Zeiss SLR 50mm f1.4 and the Contax Zeiss RF 45mm f2, the speedmaster is softer at max aperture but not that much softer, and I’m talking about extreme corners on my A7R, which is why I think people should concentrate more on the craft of photography than obsessing over the technical aspects of it.
PS my Russian lenses are great in the extreme corners too!!
I think the reality of reviews is that whatever is done, it’s a distorted view of what these lenses will be used for in the usual sense.
A photography hardware review “lab” distorts results because their photography subjects are always going to include something artifical to create something which is “measurable” towards the amount of distortion/sharpness and chromatic abberation. These are always going to be colour charts, sharpness charts and lighting effects. That already delivers an artifacial results of the product.
Only a very small amount of the product purchaser will ever be taking photos of these artifacial products and situations and these specifics will never be the only subject of photography. The great vast majority of subjects taken by the lenses and cameras we purchase will be of real world situations. Landscapes, portraits, street, architecture, people. Literally anything our personal eye sees as beautiful and want to create that lasting memory and that trigger to recall what we had seen at that time at that moment in history.
The big elephant in the room out of this is that all the things which I’ve just listed do not have straight lines. This will break the ability to view and judge lens sharpness. The lenses do not work only on their own they are done on sensors which are subject to varying differences and as our technological capabilities increase, the level of resolution able to be achieved on the sensors will improve and this will again further distort the reviewer’s view on a perceived level of sharpness, a colour gamut/representation and distortion. The more that can be resolved, the more you will end up being able to see as “wrong” and “imperfect”.
One driving instructor will fail you because of pecular traits you have when you are taking a driving test where as another will not perceive the same traits as fails.
These variety of reviews are the same.
The only way to be able to feel confident of your purchase of a product in this Information Age is to read widely, see the variety of review samples and consider how well the product results will match your want and need.
Me – I have this lens. I don’t read reviews, only look at example photographs and compare its results to what I would be taking. I’ve now taken a big bunch of photographs with this lens on my A6000. The photos of my son are all wonderful as they give me beautiful memories of these moments.
I own the Sony SEL1670 and I am totally satisfied with it. I have uses a lot of Nikon and Canon lens before. I really like the Sony 16-70. This lens is always sharp and good contrast from 16mm to 70mm. I also took many group pictures at 16mm F4 and everybody looked sharp across the frame. I don’t understand why photozone gave this lens very bad review? This is my favorite lens on the NEX6.
The reviewer criticised the corners mainly. Your people in the group photo should be well resolved and sharp.
I have now used this lens for a couple of months I can say that it produces quite good looking photos. Very impressive colours, contrast etc. However if you examine the photos closely the edge sharpness is downright abysmal considering the price of the lens. I paid about 75% of the retail price and I am still unhappy. If the lens was sold at 33% of the current retail price I would probably be reasonably happy with it.
The 16-70 is an optical turd. I returned that shit so fast.
like i said before : dont believe photozone if you have e-mount lenses… :), they always rated so bad, i dont know what standart they used when review an emount lens, but the result always so bad…
for examples, 50mm 1.8 oss rated 2.5 star and canon ef 50mm 1.8 ii rated 3.5 star…
but, with 50mm 1.8 oss i can shoot handheld with 1/8s or 1/4s while it’s imposible to do with ef 50 1.8 without tripod, and the result from 50mm 1.8 oss sharper then ef 50mm 1.8, and many aspect from 50mm 1.8 oss better then ef 50mm 1.8….
but photozone rated it 2.5 star! 😀
i know now, photozone not a good review site, its just a joke site LOL
Photozone is a good review site.
I rather think Photozone is the rarest honest about that lens. Lots of others said it was an average IQ lens for high price, but concluded positively, that s not honest. Btw, I think recent negative posts or bashing is only coz of Sony recent s***y policy.They deserve it and only narrow-minded fanboys can say nothing against;) … thanks for all Andrea and long life to SAR
Strange fuzz for a very convenient lens I used happily the last 15+ with my NEX7 when traveling.
Is it a excellent lens in optical qualities corner-to-corner? No. Is it good in low light conditions? Certainly not. Is it cheap? No, it’s far from being cheap. Is it a lens for pros? I guess no, but I’m not – so I don’t really care.
Is it well built? Hell, yeah. For those comparing it to the SAL1680Z: also have the lens and it is much better build and also has much better center sharpness … which is not a complete surprise, the SEL1670Z is a vario tessar, the SAL1680Z a vario sonnar – so a completely different optical base design.
My personal experience (you can ignore if you are bored already):
In fact, it is so sharp in most areas of the image that it helps my laziness and I usually put on my SEL24F18Z and SEL50F18 only for the low light capabilities (well, the latter sometimes also for the more pleasing Bokeh when shooting people). Travelled across all Italy last summer – shot tons of pictures I like with the NEX7+SEL1670 combo. Never regretted that my A99+SAL2470Z (and SAL85F14Z and SAL135F18Z) stayed in the car and only got out when I had to shoot the wedding of a friend in southern Italy. The latter I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to shoot on any APS-C camera – but for my personal travel photos, the NEX7+SEL1670 was just extremely handy.
My personal conclusion: the SEL1670Z is for me by far the best travel-friendly Sony zoom lens – with all benefits I can imagine of a lens of that category and also all its limitations. Certainly sharper than the SAL1680Z, which probably had a nicer Boleh sometimes but wasn’t all great in that regard either and much better than my former Sigma 17-80 f2.8-4? A-Mount zoom that would only win in close-focussing, max aperture and price. Don’t have the SEL1855 to compare, but the zoom range would be anyway too limited for my liking and SEL18200 most likely optically much more of a compromise to swallow.
If you expect more of a zoom for a compact camera, probably you shouldn’t get an APS-C sized Sony anyway – but a A7 or Fuji/Olympus/Panasonic/Samsung(?) who don’t have full frame cameras and therefore release whatever they have for their smaller form factors including F1.2 primes and F2.8 zooms. But those tend to be bigger and more heavy and probably also more expensive than the SEL1670Z that also conveniently includes optical image stabilization…
Kurt Munger also gave an only average rating for that lens! This lens is far from brilliant, except for the price tag.
Uhm, I checked one of the reviews, integral conclusion of that one:
“At 16mm, the centers and mid-sections are very sharp at F/4, with the corners looking a little soft. As you stop down, the isn’t much change, although the corners do sharpen up ever so slightly at F/8. Overall, good performance at the wide end.
As you zoom out, performance deteriorates across the entire image. At 24mm, the centers are relatively sharp, but the mid-sections are soft, and the corners are mushy. As you stop down to F/5.6, the centers and mid-sections sharpen up and look very good to tack sharp, but the corners don’t seem to respond to closing the aperture until F/8, which results in slightly less mushiness. The sides of the image from about 20mm to 40mm look quite soft, especially when you have very sharp centers. When viewing the whole image, there is noticeable softness on the sides of the image covering about a quarter to an eighth on each side.
At the long end, F/4 has a slight lack of contrast across the frame, especially along the sides, but stopping down to F/5.6 results in very sharp centers and mid-sections, with the corners lagging behind in contrast. Diffraction is noticeable at F/8. The sides are a little soft at all apertures, but not bad”
How is that positive?
So these are supposed to be positive?
Let’s see what they say about sharpness on the short edges and corners:
PhillipReeve:
Optical performance:
When I ran some initial tests I was quite disappointed by the lousy corner sharpness at 50mm and above.
It turns out that Sony had sent me a severely decentered copy. So while one corner turned in a lousy performance another one was quite okay.
KurtMunger:
When I first received it and took it for a test spin, I thought it was not up to Sony standards as it was noticeably soft along the sides at wider focal lengths, so I sent for another one, (both were brand new and not ‘loaner’ copies). Unfortunately, both performed about the same.
AdmiringLight, JordanSteele:
Corners are soft at wide apertures and don’t ever really get sharp. …and I think for the price, I expected just a little more with regards to cross-frame resolution.
ephotozine:
Sharpness towards the edges of the frame isn’t up to the standard set in the centre
imaging-resource (SLRgear):
The images are quite sharp, even wide open, though mostly in the center of the frame. …there is a varying degree of corner softness depending on the focal length. We noticed some odd, uneven corner softness that varied with focal length and aperture.
The reviews made by Sonyalphalab and Photographyblog are simply bad as they do not test the lens properly for corner and short edge sharpness.
SteveHuff did never review the 16-70mm Zeiss lens, which is quite telling as he written he usually doesn’t review products he doesn’t like!
What I can see all serious reviewers agree the 16-70mm Zeiss lens suffer from bad sharpness especially in the corners but also along the short edges of the picture frame. They also note CA along the short edges and complain about decentered samples.
While the lens may get high scores in other aspects. Sharpness outside the central area is not one of them. Unless one routinely crop the images to a square. Then the 16-70mm Zeiss lens will perform among the best!
i have the lense and I love it. I do not sell my pictures for a living, however i do create fun compositions. I create motion and displacement in the pictures. So the eye is not wondering to the corners really. Who goes into a picture and looks into the corners? to judge if its a good picture or not? Performance could be better, but that is with everything. In the end the camera size and work flow makes sense to me. You are paying for new technology which development cost gets attached to it. Go outside and take pictures.
>>I create motion and displacement in the pictures.
Can’t you do this just as well with the kit lens ? Why pay so much more ?
Stop bashing Sony you Sony fanboy!!
Hm… All I see is the corner is soft like butter from this review http://kurtmunger.com/sony_zeiss_16_70mm_f_4id354.html. And people think this is a great lens.
I am a disappointed owner of a 16-70 – but it is not useless,
New there was very soft edge on the right side. Sending the lens for a warranty repair resulted in a significant improvement of sharpness “everywhere”. Still the right side was the worst.
In real life photography, using f8, produces a sharp looking image at A3 (297x420mm), corners included.
Note that you do not always/rarely need perfectly sharp corners.
The lens has a versatile zoom range, mediocre sharpness and nice color rendering. Should cost 60-75% less.
(Using the 16-35/4 OSS on A6000 produces far better IQ, but ergonomically it does not fit well.)
Far too many lenses and sensors are optimized for test charts these days. Nikon tweaks their sensors to have a high score on DxOmark but in the end everyone looks yellow in recent Nikon photos and I’m sure it’s due to these optimizations.
Lenses are tested on a flat, black and white test chart and then a conclusion is drawn about the performance. But then a lens can perform great on said test chart and still deliver dull and flat images. For me, only real world pictures can speak for a lens.
And to me, pixel peeping on zoom lenses is one of the most ridiculous wastes of time. If IQ is that important to you, you should be using primes.
I have no experience with the 16-70, but I think the full frame cousin Zeiss 24-70 is a feat of modern technology being so compact, light, sharp when used right, together with lovely colors and rendering. I use zooms only for convenience, and anything larger than the 24-70 stops being convenient for me.
Can you provide a link directly from Nikon which supports your statement?
We are living in 21st century, why each copy of $1200 lens cannot be tested and ranked automatically so user knows what they buy?
finally someone is telling the truth about sony lenses…. THEY SUCK.
you can have a great sensor but when you glass is crap.. what does it matter?
overpriced stuff with a zeiss sticker… no thanks.
made on zeiss equipment does not translate into zeiss quality.
every photographer should know that.
same as buying a better camera does not make you a master photographer.
for years i complain about sony lenses (60% are just mediocre or crap)… finally someone in the testing biz dares to speak the truth.
I bought my 5N because I have GAS and I have fun adopting various crap to it
i have a A6000 myself but im not buying more lenses.
i need it as small P&S camera nothing more. the kit lens will do what i want.
i thought about buying one or two extra lenses but testing them and reading the reviews made me rethink that.
i rather buy more superb glass for my DSLR´s then spend my money on that sony stuff with a zeiss sticker.
i’d buy a mirrorless shutterless camera with T/S in a heatbeat. No lenses needed!
55f1.8?
can we always stop the 1491 fanboy age bla bla ( same archaic i-ph-xx-ne user tells you
that and so on) –have on my A5100 a simple but fine Sigma 18-35 f,1,8 and not one lense
more.. they worke fine.. if the A7000 ( 4k) comes out ( 600-700 $ if not a LX100 is my next
baby…) it will work with the sigma.. much for normalmoney and then you do look here next
in 2-3years… give the slow marketing a chance–they will not adopt 10.000 $ technicques to
a 299,- lense ore something else.. so waht..)??
Nevertheless, one thing is true. Something doesn’t work with Sony lenses at least since the
Nex 7.
And the best sensors need great glasses.
Photozone hasn’t been more kind with the FF Zeiss 24-70mm f/4. They find that the optical
quality is very poor (almost 2/5).
Sony must
offer a FF standard zoom really impressive or at least more useful.
That 24-240mm is too much heavy. Carry all the day 1300g / 2lb + 14 oz with the a7r
is a nonsense: if my body camera was made to give me a lighter gear.
A lighter and more useful 24-100mm or 28-135mm (or so and so) is a must. The FF Zeiss maybe is not so bad, but NO DOUBT it isn’t as good as one expects about the brand.
I hope the store opened the box before accepting it…
lol, amazon will take anything back
Bad reviews are the only reason that has held me back from this glass though I really wanted to have it and money was not a problem.
Sony needs to do more about APSC. FE mirrorless has become too big to carry around, not too much different from A mount.
Well, sorry to say this but my Zeiss behaves exactly as photozone shows. It’s insanely sharp and contrasty in the middle 60% but outer zones are as bad as Canon’s 350D kit 18-55mm. In fact, it’s as good as if not better than Zeiss 24mm f1.8 in the middle zone.
No, that lens does not deserve “Zeiss” brand.