Quick note for Germans: Since today you can preorder the Batis lenses at Amazon: 85mm (Click here) and 25mm (Click here).
Digglloyd is the first site publishing the full graph of the new Batis lenses! Links:
Batis 85mm MTF at Diggloyd.
Batis 25mm MTF at Diggloyd.
Here are some of his early conclusions:
BATIS 85mm:
– Overall contrast is superb wide open, even into the corners.
– Stopping down a bit more delivers outstanding micro contrast at f/5.6, far exceeding most lenses and no less good than the very best Leica M lens.
Has some pincushion distortion. Seems that distortion was traded off for uniformly high sharpness and a smaller/lighter design, knowing that the camera can correct for it automatically (or the raw converter).
BATIS 25mm:
– Modest micro contrast at f/2. However, overall contrast is superb wide open, even into the corners, and that very high overall contrast is critical to visual impact of the image.
– Most notable, the performance is exceptionally uniform at all apertures from center to corner. This is highly unusual for a 25mm lens.
Both lenses are now available for preorder in USA and Europe (UK/Germany)
Zeiss Batis 85mm f/1.8 lens in US at Adorama, Bhphoto. In Eu at Amazon DE, WexUK. In Asia at Digitalrev.
Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2.0 lens at Adorama, Bhphoto. In EU at Amazon DE, WexUK. In Asia at Digitalrev.
Lens shade for 85mm at Adorama, Bhphoto.
Lens shade for 25mm at Adorama, Bhphoto.
60 Responses
All about the graphs:)
Ill get the popcorn, you guys start the arguments.
hungry 🙂
I’ll sell popcorn, $20 for a box
That must be the Sony/Zeiss popcorn, the Zeiss/Zeiss popcorn is $40
Popcorn with Zeiss badge is $120 🙂
OH, you must be talking about he German made Zeiss popcorn, or as I like to call it, the Zeiss/Zeiss/Zeiss popcorn 😛
The 3D Pop justifies the price!!!
But does it have the micro contrast ? ;D
As long as the Box has OLED I’ll take one!
The Sony/Zeiss popcorn is slightly mushy on one side.
Is that optically corrected popcorn or software corrected popcorn?
Its probably a software corrected optical correction.
if I remember it right, zeiss invented the current MTF standard,
just like the conversation in fast and furious 7
Letty: “we used to come here?”
Toretto: “come here？we invented it!”
1. There is no current MTF standard.
2. Zeiss is one of the very few that publish real world MTF graphs – measured physical lens. Most manufacturers publish virtual graphs, calculated in the lens CAD system.
Conclusion: These MTF’s are relevant.
Does it still do that now? That’s the question.
*Homer voice* “Mmmmh, MTF graphs…”
Impressive, wide open it is very similar to the OTUS 85 at f1.4. So indeed we have another mini-OTUS at a fair price.
Otus has giant 3/4 long throw manual focus ring. Exquisite. Fly wire has extra short 1/5th throw focus ring with mandatory accelerometer. Torturous.
For once UK buyers aren’t being forcibly bent over on the prices.
It’s actually £10 more expensive to order from Amazon.de than it is from WEX. Considering the currently weak Euro, it seems almost reasonable.
Thanks, just put my order in with Wex
That’s an unexpected amount of distortion.
Off-topic: I see a number of sites have become subscriber sites, including Diglloyd. I wonder when SARS will become one too?
Probably never. Who’s going to pay for rumors which may or may not be true?
You would be surprised for what kind of stuff people are ready to pay… starting with rebranded wooden sony cameras and ending with air guitars.
When the new layout will be online.
Wait, you’re going to start charging subscription fees?
A no sorry. Misunderstanding. Mailing list for subscribers. That is what I meant 🙂
LOL phew!
And then ruin it all with fly wire focus.
It’s posible to turn focus ring so slow that lens doesn’t respond. Fine for you enthusiasts and brand fans… but you wont find a seasoned working professional who WANTS fly wire focus. We only use it if forced to.
Emount equals… forced into adapters or forced into fly wire focus. Must choose the lesser of two evils for a glimmer of good.
Bunk. Zeiss offers both. Zeiss offers a Loxia line of lenses with world-class manual focus.
None of the Nikon or Canon AF lenses offer a nice manual focus experience anyway. Especially the AF-S ones are garbage for MF.
True, but where is the Loxia portrait fashion lens? Of course there is Samyang too. Fly wire fine for AF, so lets get the Tokina clutch for better MF.
There must be a better way.
SSM/USM lenses dont have accelerometer. They do have tactile feedback for end stops. And they respond to the slightest slowest user control.
Fly wire is a cheap game controller by comparison. Pros dont want it. But pros use and enjoy SSM/USM every day.
Does it matter? Are these lenses released in Loxia versions?
Zeiss doesn’t offer AF lens with a mechanically coupled focus ring. Which is what we are talking about here. All mechanically coupled AF lenses on the market today are useful in MF mode. Fly-by-wire on the other hand are close to useless in MF mode.
If you are for real and the hardcore MF guy you pretend to be then use the Loxia’s. Superb and on Cron level. But I’m sure you are one of these guys who want a Leica lens with OSS and AF and small size and F1.4….
I’m sure you’re not as sure as you think.
Now if only they would make a 16mm fisheye! (yeh i know probably a bit niche) Looks like a good range though and I hope they make many more lenses like this 🙂
The sample shots look sharp, but there are major vignetting issues happening. I’ll pass.
I’m not even sure which lens he is talking about when he says it has 2 stops of vignetting. The graph he posted in the article for the 25/2 shows 85/1.8 at the top and 25/2 at the bottom. His site is a mess TBFH.
I will assume he was saying the 25/2 has 2 stops of vignetting, as he mentions that is at f/2, so I assume wide open.
Yeah, he messed up the title. There’s no vignette graph for the 85/1.8.
Phenomenal 25! Best correction is wide open. This could be good for low light landscapes and astro provided OLED shows horizontal 8 correctly.
Son of a biiitch. Looks like I’m going to have no choice but to move over to FE mount now.
At 3% pincussion in 85mm lens, I don’t know what you’re so happy about. The resolution will be lower if you turn on distortion correction, and pictures will look funky if you don’t. Shouldn’t matter much for people using 12mp and 24mp, but with a 36mp crowd, who are always after “more resolution”, this will be an issue.
But yeah, other than that, the 85mm focal length will be much sought after. I only Sony fixes the darn focus-by-wire lag. That’s when I’ll join the E-Mount train.
If I were you, i’d use SAL85F14Z instead, with EA4 adapter. Even though that lens is screw driven, optical quality is way better than in this thing.
The 25mm however does look decent.
That’s the only A mount Zeiss I don’t own. Well, I might as well check it out then.
I don’t own it either, but for the price, it seems as a much better value. Pros: 2/3 of a stop faster, very sharp, almost no distortion(no need for LR correction), mechanically coupled focus ring.
Cons: Not a native mount, 30% more expensive, screw driven AF is not exactly quiet
I’ve seen it go used a few months ago for 650 in excellent condition- very sad. From what I’ve seen, it is extremely sharp with a bit of CA down low- which is of no issue to me. Only “negative” is screw drive. Never bothered me and I have a few SSM to compare. For the right price…say 800 or less…yeah, hard to deny the value there.
Distorsion is the first, and usually only thing that superficial people notice about a lens’ rendition.
Suppose that a lens has a 3% barrel distorsion, and that structures near the edge of the picture frame are 3% shorter than what they’d be with a distorsion-free lens.
If the distorting lens had a MTF50 resolution performance of, say, 2060lpph, then, correcting the distorsion by stretching the length of the structures by 3% would result in a 2000lpph MTF50.
To the naked eye, the difference between a 2060lpph and 2000lpph MTF50 is next to impossible to discern.
Giving more weight to the correction of aberrations like field curvature, coma, astigmatism, spherical aberration and longitudinal chromatic aberration which
1) typically visibly affect the picture’s sharpness, unlike, say, an imperceptible drop in MTF50 from 2060lpph to 2000lpph
2) are, unlike distortion, next to impossible to properly correct using software
is thus a reasonable move for the optical designer, if he/she doesn’t want to increase the cost, weight and bulk of the lens by adding even more glass elements to the optical formula.
How is the distortion? Will it be be resolved in the lens or will it be all software based corrections. I mean sure its fine to turn on the lens corrections in camera but that only solves the issue for the LCD, the screen in the viewfinder, and the JPEGs… not the actual raw file. Not to mention Lightroom isn’t going to have a profile for these lenses.. just like it does not have a correct profile for the 28mm F/2 that i own, which has really bad distortion if your not straight on level with what you are shooting.
It’s because your LR is old or not updated. I can see support for the FE 28mm f2 in my LR. And the Zeiss Touit and Loxia lenses are all supported too, so there is absolutely no risk that the Batis will be overlooked.
I have the most recent version of LR, not 6 of course. But my main point is.. this being a software fix verses having the correction in the lens itself instead of relying on software to do the work.
That’s how modern optics are made. Even the revered Leica does it. It’s a smart way to manufacture lenses smaller and cheaper. Accept it or stick to pre-digital era lenses.
Per your comments about my LR being out of date.. it is 5.7.1
There are three Settings in Lens Corrections for Sony, they are as follows… Sony, Sony E, and Sony FE. Only under “Sony” is there a 28mm lens selection, and this does little to nothing for distortion and warping.
There are sample images below… showing the three selections mentioned above, nothing under FE as you stated.
The other photos… first showing the image straight into Lightroom, no corrections, the other two showing the settings of the corrections and the third showing just how much of the image has changed
My point to all of this, is the distortions and warping in this lens are significant, and isn’t worth the money people are paying for. If it takes this much work to correct a 28mm image, thats pretty bad. I would expect this out of maybe 24mm or wider.
Please bare in mind I’m trying to be civil here and have a normal conversation about the things I’m experiencing with this lens.
I apologize, some of the images are not in order.. but i think you understand
I repeat: your LR is not the latest. This is what it looks like in a fresh LR (attached screen dump). There are no less than three profiles depending on if you used a converter or not. And sticking to pre digital era lenses was a serious suggestion. I will also attach a photo taken with an old Rollei Carl Zeiss 85mm f/1.4 wide open. I have done zero corrections to it except fixing the horizon and turn it b/w. I have a tendency to angle my camera a tad bit to the left at times. Look at the pillars. Looks pretty straight don’t they?
So basically I’m going to need to get LR 6, just to get a lens profile it seems.
While non digital era lenses are nice, and i use them from time to time.. they are not best suited for my everyday needs.
nice image btw 🙂
use capture 1 instead. Thanks to SAR comments, I recently changed from LR 5.7.1 to Capture one which is free for sony and only $30 for the pro version. The first you notice is its much faster speed and better color rendition (more saturated).
Thanks to SAR commenters I recently switched from LR to Capture one, which is free for Sony cameras and only $30 to update to pro. First thing I noticed is its much faster speed and better color rendition (usu. more saturated than LR). Give it a try, it takes a couple of days to get used to it.
Ha! That explains why I had trouble focusing at the Store. Don’t recall whether that was a 55/1.8 or 35/2.8. Could have been a zoom lens too, it’s been a while….
The 85mm @ f/1.8 looks pretty close to the Otus 85 @ f/1.4 (infinity): http://www.zeiss.com/content/dam/Photography/new/pdf/en/downloadcenter/datasheets_otus/otus_1485.pdf, but 3% pincushion seems like too much (~0.7% for the Otus)… But it’s almost 1/4 of the Otus’ price. Time to pre-order 🙂
I agree, an MF lens is much nicer to MF than an AF lens. Luckily the Batis has AF which is very accurate on the A7 bodies.