This is the first review of an FE lens. The Australian guys from Photoreview (Click here) published the Zeiss 35mm f/2.8 FE review:
“The review lens proved capable of exceeding the resolution expectations of the sensor in the Sony ILC-a7 camera we tested it with. Slight edge softening could be seen in shots taken at the widest apertures. For many subjects, this feature is desirable as it leads the viewer’s eye towards the centre of the frame. Lateral chromatic aberration was consistently negilg8ible at all aperture settings as shown in the graph of our Imatest results, below. The red lien marks the border between ‘negligible’ and ‘low’ CA.”
Here are the test graphs and here the image samples.
I forgot to mention that by using these links to preorder your At/A7r I will earn a small commission and you don’t have to pay a penny more for it! I deeply appreciate your support!!!
Specs and Preorders in US and Canada (Click on store name to see direct preorder page):
Dedicated Sony announcement page at Amazon US (Click here).
Sony A7r body at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
Sony A7 body at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
Sony A7 with 28-70mm kit lens at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
Sony RX10 at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
Zeiss 24-70mm at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
Zeiss 35mm at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
Zeiss 55mm at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
70-200mm A-mount at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
Sony A-Mount to E-Mount Lens Adapter at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto.
Sony A to E adapter with mirror at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto.
A7/A7r leather case at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
A7/A7r vertical grip at Amazon, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
Sony W Series Battery Charger at Amazon, BHphoto.
Sony FA-CS1M Off-Camera Shoe at BHphoto.
Semi-Hard LCD Screen Protector for A7-A7r at Amazon, BHphoto.
Specs and Preorders in Europe:
Sony A7r body at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, FI, WexUK, WexDE.
Sony A7 body at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, FI, FR, WexUK, WexDE.
Sony A7 with 28-70mm kit Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, FI, FR, WexUK, WexDE.
Sony RX10 at Sony DE, WexUK, WexDE.
Zeiss 35mm at Sony DE.
Zeiss 55mm at Sony DE.
123 Responses
I love SONY!! 🙂
To be honest I wouldn’t expect anything less from it! Just a shame there’s no oss…
no oss in 35mm/2.8 is ok, but 55mm/1.8
LOL “For many subjects, this feature is desirable as it leads the viewer’s eye towards the centre of the frame” – I seeee, it’s not an error, it’s a FEATURE!!!! Nice try, but I want sharpness all over the frame if possible thank you.
Well, do you really need sharpness all over frame at widest aperture, when most of the periphery will likely be out of focus?
Yes…espectially when shooting landscape.
Real man shoots landscape wide open.
hahaha … call Otus
troll accepted. LOL
Call me weird, but I tend to stop down a lens for landscapes.
Have you ever shooted landscape during poor light and no tripod?
Anyway, this implies that f2.8 is not usable aperture due to softness. Very poor design according to the price.
Wide open at f2.8 is not really wide. I would expect good sharpness across the frame at f2.8 for a prime lens at this price.
Then take a tripod.
You cannot shoot a sharp all over landscape without stopping down to maximise DOF. If you have to shoot wide open because of low light, then any lack of edge sharpness will probably be irrelevant because half your shot will not be in focus anyway due to limited DOF.
Expecting this lens to be perfect for landscapes in low light is like expecting a 16mm UWA to be perfect for portraits. Some of the comments here defy belief.
@lotus eater
With your statement, this lens is of course overpriced sadly.
OK, show me a wide angle prime lens that is sharp across the frame on a full frame sensor when wide open.
I agree Lotus!
Alfred – do you know of any 35mm alternative that is weather sealed and cheaper than $800? Preferably it should have a Zeiss badge on it as well. If you want consumer grade, then get a camera for which you can get consumer grade lenses. Simple really.
@Kyle
If anyone’s doing handheld landscapes in poor light they’re not serious about the shot anyway. Not saying it’s wrong but expecting a perfect image under those conditions is silly.
Then get the RX1(R) it has a much better MTF than this one but that’s the main point of a fixed-lens camera.
You think everyone are made of money?
Well, people investing in FA obviously are made of money if they invest in system where 35 f/2.8 runs for 800 euro while not even being the best lens at 35 f/2.8.
*FA -> FE (Full Frame E-mount).
They’re talking about wide open. All lenses have mtf’s that dip at the edges when wide open.
I know that it is not too realistic to demand optimum corner sharpness when a lens is wide open. I just found it remarkable how that’s being turned into a positive feature – I would still prefer better sharpness and do a blur vignetting in PP if I want it.
For f2.8 that is just plain bad, and at €900+ it is just outrageous.
They call the 35 f2.8 a fast prime, wtf?! this is a slow 35, one of the slowest out there. And I won’t even go into the abysmal sample images they put online.
Apparantly the p&s consumers is what this is aimed at and being reviewed for. Kind of the Hassleblad crowd but with less deep pockets. It says zeiss so it can cost $1000 no matter what they are shoveling us.
The DSLR lenses are faster and smaller, what gives with these overpriced beasts that zeiss is producing for sony???????
+1
Yeah, if I’m paying > $1000 for a 35mm f/2.8, it had better have *superb* optics.
A couple of truly great primes are what this system really needs at launch, I know I could get by with that until the gaps are filled in.
Perhaps sigma will make a 30mm 2.8 or maybe a f2 version of the one they have for nex. I am very tempted but I will wait until spring to get the A7. I believe sigma will save us from the madness. I can’t wait until they make some art lenses for this system.
Blowing up children with drones is outrageous. Complaining about lens that you can’t afford is just whining.
+1 !
Apparantly you couldn’t wait to pre-order it.
Bei g able to afford it is not the issue. Paying this amount for a slow not-sharp lens is just having too much cash to care, better spent donating to those drone victims you cherrish.
What is “plain bad”? This review shows nothing. And it’s an 800 euro lens.
Btw, what are these DSLR lenses that are “smaller and faster”?
I knew it’s too good to be true to have a $1700 full frame mirrorless body, turns out you have to buy these premium Zeiss lenses to get AF. Not everyone is fond of spending 50% more to get 5% boost in performance.
You need to learn about equivalence and context… the The Zeiss FE 35 2.8 on FF is equivalent to the Zeiss E 24 1.8 for APS-C. The 35 2.8 is definitely better than the 24 1.8 at equivalent apertures. No one ever whined like this about the 24 1.8… in fact everyone is still praising it.
The context you don’t understand is these lens+body combos are aimed at portability. If you want the highest image quality, carry the combo that gives that.
And it’s NOT a desirable “”feature””.
The normal terminology is to call it a ‘portrait’ lens with tons of character 😉
If it’s a Zeiss, it’s characteristics. If it’s Sigma, it’s low quality.
Whoever shoots a wide angle wide open and looks at corner sharpness… Needs to go back to the basics of photography. Forget about FF, it’s not for you. You’ll be happy with M43, or with a compact. Or keep the good money for a trip, or books, or hookers.
The price is silly all right, as well as the separate battery charger, which comes for extra dosh. All in all, this camera is NOT as cheap as it first looks.
I would agree with you 100% if this was one of the fast 35mm F1.4 lenses but for an F2.8 lens at a not cheap price I would expect a wee bit better. There are plenty of situations where I would be using a 35mm at F2.8 with the corners being important to the overall shot any distance over what 40 feet or so will have the corners and center are well within the DOF .
Although its bloody huge I will be using the Samyung 35mm F1.4 even wide open { on my D800} it is very good across the frame,by F2.8 it is excellent.The only thing the Zeiss has going for it{for me anyway } is its size
http://www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Compare-Camera-Lenses/Compare-lenses/%28lens1%29/359/%28brand%29/Samyang/%28camera1%29/792http://www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Compare-Camera-Lenses/Compare-lenses/%28lens1%29/359/%28brand%29/Samyang/%28camera1%29/792
I am after the A7r i am going to go back to old school basics and use it with just a sprinkle of my favorite primes the 28mm F1.8g Nikon , the 35mm F1.4 Samyung , Nikon 50mm F1.8g and 135mm { I haven’t decided which one yet }, for me the beauty of the Nex mount is the ability to adapt any FF lens to using the appropriate adapter.
If you are not afraid of a little manual focus I prefer it for my landscape and macro work, just imagine the camera bag you could have.With the best lenses in any given focal length from any maker assuming you have a heap of cash to spare
Very true, I might buy an A7r myself, I do old school all the times. And I am going to use my own lenses on it.
My personal priority lens for A system is wide zoom. F4 is enough for me. (i.e 16-35mm/f4)
Just buy Zeiss 16-35 f/2.8. It’s a brilliant UWA. One of the best on a market.
Sorry I mean A7 and 16-35 FE lens.
Oh… ok. Well, you still can use Zeiss 16-35 ZA through LA-EA adapter. Image quality from this lens is worth much more than every gram of it’s weight. 😉 🙂
It’s also big and heavy. Not the greatest choice for the A7.
Initial review seems to look like this 2.8 wont touch the RX1r. The 35mm on that is sublime corner to corner at every aperture..
Sharpness should be all around the frame for f2.8, it’s not f1.4.
And that lens is too small, it will drop trough hole in my pocket. Unusable!
I don’t have size issues. I rather feel the lack of DOF scale on its barrel. Also, being soft at edges for such an expensive but slow one is kinda unacceptable.
And I feel again, Sony really spoiled everything with this release: first (not very important) cameras are plain ugly. Second, they are not particularly functional: lack of touchscreen — I use that frequently for my manual optics especially in awkward positions. I prefer tiltable EVF because it gives me better stability, when I’m having a face above center of mass. With fixed one camera will be harder to hold because center of mass will be somewhere in front. Third, lack of electronic shutter for A7r will cause shakes.
Personally I hope another manufacturer will make camera which is free from these annoyances. I guess Panasonic can do one, I love how usable their GX7 is.
Ok, less stupid jokes.
What 35/2.8 lenses are around that are sharper wide open, and will be same size (with adaptor added) when put on A7?
Would you choose better looking camera over camera that is “ugly” but has much better ergonomics? And is the fact that that “ugliness” is anyhow important means that you look at camera more time than you look in viewfinder, when you cant see your camera exterior?
No touchscreen and tiltable EVF as main downsides? Especially when you first talk about center of mass and than about GX7 that has its EVF quite far off that center. Are you not capable of using tiltable screen for that shooting position?
And i’m just interested what are advantages of touchscreen when using manual optics.
Its too soon to judge camera functionality in absence of a good thorough review.
To date, probably the highest-performance modern 35mm lens is the Zeiss C-Biogon 35mm f/2.8 (Leica M-mount) – it’s quite exquisite across the frame at any aperture, and tiny to boot.
The big question many have is how much support the A7 cameras will offer for “symmetrical” rangefinder-mount optics because of the oblique angles that the light hit the corners of the imaging sensor at. But – provided it can do nearly as well as the Leica M9 – the (similarly priced, mind you) C-Biogon should be a stellar alternative, especially at reduced second-hand prices.
With Zeiss badge on it, the lens should have been sharp from center to edge. Softness at eage is a shame.
Samples so far have been soft and unimpressive
And my eyes telling me the color from the lens is a bit flat…
At the moment, they all using preproduction samples.
I have both cameras in my office today. There is no in camera correction at this time. So these sample images are showing the real optical lens performance without any electronical tweak. Sorry for my bad english…..
At these prices there should be no software tweaking at all. Consumer mentality to the max. Buy an overpriced lens and then just correct all that is wrong in software.
I hope sigma comes out with some lenses. Sony has never grasped good lenses in their entire nex series, so should not be a surprise that they botched the ff nex as well and just have zeiss pedal off their reject lenses for insane prices.
This is true. But wich lens with 120g weight can beat? I have also the Zeiss ZM C-Biogon 2,8/35 and its worse in every aspect. I have shot the new Zeiss Lens at different apertures an from F4 its really sharp across the hole frame. Its common that some lens errors are corrected via software. Also Nikon, Panasonic and Olympus do the same.
Fun fact: One of the reasons I picked Sony back in the date instead of Nikon was that Nikon tended to mess with it’s files much more than Sony or anyone else did.
I’ve got PC. I can edit my pictures myself. If I pay 800 euro for a lens 2.8/35 – I expect it to be superb, not corrected by a software.
The MTF looks better to me than the SEL24F18Z (but ok that still has a half a stop advantage in terms of equivalency)
You are wrong, they are about equal.
“For many subjects, this feature is desirable as it leads the viewer’s eye towards the centre of the frame.” – assuming you shoot with subject always perfectly in a middle of the frame – it might be true. Otherwise you probably want whole frame to be as sharp as possible, not just center. 😉
Zeiss is working very hard to piss their name away. Larger that other equivalent ff lenses by other brands, overly expensive just for their name branding, and mediocre image quality. This is a $200 lens being sold off at $1000 and people are actually defending it! sheesh
Yes, I think the worst part is that there are people actually defending that.
I love Zeiss glass, people called me “Zeiss Fanboy” in past, but I can’t stand seeing stuff like that happening. Yet all over the place I see people defending it – and I’m terrified by that.
So I’m a Zeiss fanboy than who they are?
To be fair, I think we need to see some reviews from well respected websites and photographers.
I know the Aussies are a positive and laid back bunch, but that Photo Review site seems to like absolutely everything they review, so I’m not sure the review can be relied upon either way.
+1
And we’re judging the len’s color by SOOC jpegs, why?
It’s not zeiss. It’s sony with zeiss badge. And in fact most these “zeiss” Sony lenses gives nothing over Canon and Nikon competitors, with the only exception: 135/1.8.
It is indeed just branding. most zeiss lenses are made by cosina in japan. $300 for the lens, $700 for the logo.
Very distracting bokeh for 800$ Zeiss
At this price and this mediocre performance, this is much overpriced obviously.
Do we know the price of the E-mount 70-200mm F4 yet?
i think it was around 1200 dollars
A7 looks so promising but these lens are really a disappointment. The whole point of interchangeable is to be able to use good lens. When there is non, who would want to buy into the system….
People who toy with adapters – That’s Sony’s logic: People will buy bodies, toy with adapters, but eventually they’ll get at least one overpriced AF lens, so Sony will be more than capable of returning back all of it profits missed on bodies themselves.
Great, so I can buy a camera for its compact size, and turn it into a rube goldberg device with lens adapters.
You must not have a NEX. I have adapters for loads of mounts to e mount, to lm for my helicoid, and to ef for my speed booster.
Well…. you can look for some small adapters? 😛 In general – there’s plenty of people who find adapters to be the best thing in the world. So don’t worry, they’ll buy it.
Yep that’s why I’m buying the A7, adapt everything and find out what works best. I really disappointed that there are no native ~50mm f1.4 on the e mount.
I’d like to toy my Minolta 2/35 onto the A7(r) and make a direct comparison to this Zeiss.
You’re being unfair. Sony comes with a totally new concept, doesn’t deliver a thousand different lenses at the start, but still they will sell well due to the possibilities the camera has for all-party lenses, and you complain about that? Of course you’re allowed to wait a few months for the dedicated lenses coming from all sides. I’m sure Sigma and Tamron won’t leave this camera alone and I bet the old Minolta factory still exists, with a bunch of very nice concepts kept well in their drawers.
I just think they should at least put out one good native prime at launch. Like when the panasonic m/43 gf-1 that first launched years ago began with a 20mm f1.7 which till this day is still an excellent lens.
I think body itself will sell well. Lots of people love to use A7/A7r with manual focus lens.
Totally agree, the A7(R) camera itself looks like a winner, but the lens line-up is mediocre at best, which always has been Sony’s weakness. Unless you have a bunch of MF lenses, the A7 isn’t a system you want to buy into. I nearly hit the pre-order button, but then thought, ok…I honestly don’t want any of these lenses.
I didn’t understand the graph. But the sample was on 15mpx? Is this the mpx that this lens solve?
This is like a kit prime. I don’t understand who is the target market is for this lens. When I saw the MTF I thought it was ok then I realised it was f/2.8 and not a fast prime and it isnt a zoom. However I like some of the samples mainly the fountain and the flowers.
Am I missing something, where are the full res samples? Where is the complete data supporting their claims? How is edge softening a “desirable feature”?
From some previous examples we saw, this lens is going to be great. Probably close to the ZM version in performance.
Agreed, this was a pretty useless review. Certainly nothing to conclude from this, move along.
steve huff likes it…. which means it is worth all that money :DDDDDDDDD
I think you would have to compare this lens the m mount zeiss biogon. It feels like Sony is going more towards “cheaper version” of M mount lenses rather than SLR lenses.
I´m really interested in how the kit lens for the A7 will preform, are there no reviews for that lens yet?
It’s a $200 FF zoom lens. What do you expect?
Sample images without 100% zoom tell me very little.
They appear more in the league of APS-C than FF.
Clever marketing or not, but I do not plan to buy a 2.8 lens under 70 mm.
Is’t interesting how we are going back to non-stabilized, fixed lenses and even more and more manual focusing… I just hope digital stays 🙂
🙂 , I was kind of think the same , I will be adapting manual focus options as to be honest I prefer it. However I think I will stick with digital and even with a background of using FF OVF’s I really am quite a fan of the bonus features that an EVF allows
Reminds me of the NEX-7 launch. All will be good in two years time, but then Sony has probably moved on with a new mount.
actually, sony did not change the mount .. but the sensor’s size!
I don’t understand all the people complaining about something not on the shelves and not tested, for days, by a real photographer yet.
Well duh! I know it’s the same mount, but what’s the point of having FF sensor if you don’t have FF lenses?
The NEX-7 was relatively expensive when it was launched and for long time there just wasn’t enough lenses for the NEX system. Same is true for the A7 and A7r. No matter how you twist it, $1600 is not cheap for a camera body. Not that the state of the art camera should be, but even so. Here where I live, the NEX-7 can now be bought for 5500 NOK and the A7 goes for 13 200 NOK.
Now when there’s finally a decent selection of E-mount lenses and some quality offerings, Sony is going to spread their resources and start all over with the FE lenses. In 2-3 years time, when there’s finally going to be 15-20 FE lenses covering different price points and use cases, Sony is most likely going to change the sensor size or the mount or something else, making current lenses incompatible. That’s the downside of being an electronics company and always innovating – or re-creating the wheel.
Now they have A-mount APS-C, A-mount FF, E-mount APS-C and E-mount FF. This is unnecessary and makes me at least hesitant to invest in their lenses.
Somehow people do not seem to understand that SonyZeiss Lenses are designed and build by Sony designers in a Sony factory and get a blue ribbon because Sony pays a shitton of licensing fees, only god knows who is doing QC.
Cosina Zeiss is designed by Zeiss and build in cosina factories, QC is done by Zeiss officials.
Yashica / Contax / Zeiss was designed by Zeiss Germany and lenses were build in Germany (higher grade lenses) and Asian factories (lower Grade lenses), QC was done by Zeiss officials.
CJZ lenses were produced by communist robots in the GDR
Sony Zeiss lenses utilize Zeiss, manufactured by Sony. Quality control is done by Zeiss and Sony.
– utilize zeiss optical designs (and coatings)
“Zeiss Alpha”, lenses for Sony Alpha cameras. ZA lenses are designed and manufactured by Sony in Japan, once the designs get approval by Carl Zeiss AG to meet their quality standards.
Please, take a look at the corresponding patents and discover japanese names of designers. Then shut up and check your facts next time.
Emacs, you’re a jackass. Look at the test results of the 50mm planar 1.4 ze/Zf lens vs the sony zeiss 50 1.4. Both are soft wide open and attain the same degree of sharpness at the same f stop. They share the same classic zeiss optical formula (which is unfortunate because it was long overdue for an update that apparently the Otus received. I have no doubt sony must make tweaks for their autofocus system and a-mount in general and their input is greater than zeiss’s however the original zeiss optical formulas and coatings are UTILIZED as I wrote.
Tha se gamisso, fasistaki!
You could probably drive nails with the Contax G Zeiss lenses, which were made in Japan. Build quality was exceptional.
nerdrage…
Why is the front element so small on this lens? It almost looks like a pinhole.
The faux outrage here is ridiculous.
One group of Aussies post Imatest data on preproduction JPG data and your hair catches fire?
Canon released a non weather sealed 35mm at the same price with wild vignetting and certainly not better at f/2.8. (OK, you get IS). Cynical outrage then as well. The price of the Zeiss will be discounted st come point. Early adopter tax.
YOU STILL DON’T KNOW WHAT THIS LENS WILL HANDLE LIKE. Relax.
faux outrage describes it perfectly.
Perhaps many complaints are from people accustomed to used full frame lenses on aps-c bodies. Expecting uniform sharpness wide open on full frame is unrealistic.
Indeed.
You only need to look at something like the Canon 35mm f/1.4 L. That lens’ edges and corners don’t sharpen up very much at all on full frame, even when stopped down heavily. In fact, the much cheaper Sigma 35mm f/1.4 beats it, but even that lens isn’t sharp across the frame stopped down.
Expectations of performance sometimes verge on the ludicrous.
Personally, I think it’s ridiculous at this price this lens can only be obtained in black! I desperately need a set of three primes: 24, 35 and 100, in yellow, blue and red on my ivory/green camera! What, Sony doesn’t offer that? Outrageous!
As far as I can tell the lens is tested on the A7 and not A7r, wich have a sensor optimized to give sharp corners despite the short flange-back distance. Hopefully this will yield better resaults.
I will just have to accept that this i a manual focus camera for now, because the lenses presented now do nothing to me (because of price and aperture). Although 35mm is my favorite focal length, I wish they wouldn’t have presented this camera with a 35mm lens. I think the fact that there’s already a 35mm lens lowers the chance that any other lens maker will start making another 35mm. They will try to fill the other gaps first.
Please Sigma. Give us a reasonably prized/sized 35mm f2.0. That would make me very happy.
I recently shot with a Summicron f/2 for a day and took almost every photo at both f/2 and f/2.8. You might be surprised at how few of the images one could really tell a difference let alone pick the f/2 from the f/2.8.
While understanding the desire for wider apertures – and falling for it all the time myself – I’d be willing to wager that the images these two primes produces will be fairly stunning once in capable hands.
Don’t be too serious with the test samples
If you check her test on other famous lenses like Canon 24-70 F4, the test samples are even much much worse
Is it possible to create an APS-c to FF adaptor with a lens to spread the image from APS-c on whole FF sensor? It would make the Lenses Pool more important…
APS-C lens
If you look at the reviews on that site, you have to go back 50 reviews or so to find something that didn’t get at least 8 out of 10. Not very critical critics. I think it’s safe to say we shouldn’t overreact and wait for a competent reviewer.
I think the MTF charts on the 35mm look pretty good. Are there 35mm (or equivalent) which are actually better? I’m talking technical measure not subjective since the Aussie test is a little premature for that (pre-production, OOC jpg only).
it’s pretty obvious, this lens is a rebadged standard lens to a ridicoulous fantasy price, like most sonyzeiss. sigma can make a tack sharp 30mm lens across the frame for $100, sonyzeiss seem not be able to do it for $1000..seriously sony?!
What! I want that Sigma! Oh, is it only for APS-C? Aaah…
still, the (z)scheiss 24mm apsc cost $1000…how overpriced can a lens be!?
Yeeee, the “CZ” 24/1.8′ story is such a buffoonery.
Just take a look at Canon 22/2, it is:
1. 4-5 times cheaper
2. twice lighter
3. 3 times shorter
4. It is better performer
I’m sure we will have the same story with these new lenses. Sony lens ≡ no buy, they discredited themselves.
The problem is that you don’t really have something to put that 22 on 🙂
The review was fine but whats the point of posting such small pictures that look like they were taken with a good point and shoot??
It always surprises me how much time and energy is put into discussing things like this, be it lenses or cameras.
It’s very simple really, if you don’t like it, don’t buy it. If you like it and have the money, then buy it.
When it comes to lenses, not everything has to do about sharpness, do your research and buy the lens you feel will help you get the images you like.
Some lenses have soul, some don’t, but this again can be a very subjective thing,
For me ZEISS lenses have soul Canon lenses has not, this is just MY opinion.
but I am excited about the new lenses and cameras from SONY 🙂
Just my 2 cents.
Take care, now go out and take some pics 🙂