DxOmark (Click here) published the full 16-35mm F2.8 ZA SSM II A-mount lens test. The performance is virtually on par with the predecessor:
New coatings rarely bring improvements under ideal conditions, such as those found in the labs, but it’s good see Sony update premium lenses like the Zeiss 16-35mm f2.8 ZA SSM II. Even if it’s just a minor upgrade, it’s more than either Nikon or Canon have done with their models, at least as far as we know. While there isn’t any real improvement in our lab tests, the Zeiss 16-35mm f2.8 ZA SSM II remains a competitive model in terms of optical quality, although at well over $2,200, it’s even less accessible now than its predecessor.
One more news: That 16-35mmII lens got an issue warning from Sony Japan. A few lenses from the first batch have some problems with the filter mount. Sony will repair those lenses for free.
The new Zeiss A-mount lenses are in Stock in USA:
Zeiss 24-70mm f/2.8 ZA SSM II in USA at Amazon, BHphoto and at Adorama.
Zeiss 16-35mm f/2.8 ZA SSM II at Amazon, BHphoto and at Adorama.
49 Responses
Seems like there isn’t much of a difference, not enough to warrant someone to switch if they have the first generation…
SSMII is four times faster than SSM. Performance aside, there are just to many other options out there for far less. You don’t charge more when there is less demand for your product. It’s insanity.
Pretty much agree. Although the AF improvements, while welcome, are not all that meaningful in such ultra-wide. Essentially this update warrants virtually no reason to upgrade, unless your MK1 copy is sheit, which in my case it luckily isn’t. Yawn…
Really? What are the other options?
Tamron 15-30 f2.8.
Well…the logical option would be for Sony to consider the number of A-Mount users out there and price products accordingly. Hey…perhaps Sony could even consider releasing a new camera for the mount, produce perhaps a roadmap for their customers..to give them a sense of security so that they invest in your system and new products. There hasn’t been a new A-Mount camera in years….even die-hard A-Mount users are going to have to think very hard about splashing out this much money for what is only an updated lens, when the further of the entire A-Mount system is up-in-the-air (and has been for a very very long time).
We need a 16-35/2.8 e-mount!
PS – Priced around $1500, please.
you’re so funny.
The old version of the A-mount 16-35 2.8 is $2000, so it certainly wouldn’t be cheaper than that
While I agree that $1500 is a fair price, logically why would a 2.8 e-mount version be priced 1/3 less than the a-mount version?
To facilitate the new Sony pro mirrorless revolution! 😉
Sony e-mount has gained a lot of traction, and I’d like to see it become so appealing we see a larger Canikon conversion rate and new photographers see e-mount as a no-brainer. If the volume for e-mount continues to pick up, more third party lenses/accessories/equipment will become available and it will drive innovation forward and prices lower as it becomes more competitive.
Lens prices have risen across makers. As dSLRs exploded, canon lens prices have risen. It does not seem to work the way you suggest. Sony undercuts the prices of their camera bodies, probably more flexibility.
Except that market surveys have shown that the farther away from $1k USD you price your lens there is a rapid fall off in volume. One grand (~) is the sweet spot for lens prices. I suspect A-mount lenses need to be more because there is a smaller & stagnant user base. It doesn’t matter what Sony prices them at, they won’t sell many. E-mount is growing so it makes sense to price competitively and pick up more volume. Of course making sense was never Sony’s style…so we’ll see.
I would like a A99m2 to go with that Sony!
I have the first generation version and it is such a special lens to use. The quality of the images and the colours are amazing. I’ve used it on an A850 and my current charge the A99, fantastic combination.
“…although at well over $2,200, it’s even less accessible now than its predecessor.” I love this lens (first gen), but its cost is what has kept it as rent-as-needed lens for me so far. With this new version costing even more, I guess that won’t change for a while. I love using it, though.
It’s supposed to be weather sealed now, but mine, which is the older version, has taken several beatings, gotten soaked under heavy rain and waterfalls and works as new. I think they have always been weather sealed anyway.
I gave up on version 1 after three purchases. One had noisy focus ring, scraping sound during manual focus… but it shot very sharp. Another had bad focus on right side of image wide angle. Another had slop in the zoom and focus rings… tick tick tick.
All were purchased used and returned. Perhaps a new one would be better before the abuse. None of the ZA16-35 lenses are known to shoot sharp at 35mm midfield, where portrait crop is typical. Tested against my Minolta 17-35/G and the ZA was very bad focus at 35mm. The ZA was great at 24 to 16mm, better than the Minolta. The ZA color, contrast and flare resistance better than the Mino.
I have 24-70ZA and 70-200G. Not bashing Sony here. Just wish the 16-35 could take more abuse and or shoot sharper at 35mm zoom. Perhaps the II model is better.
It’s worse than the previous version in several of those tests, and imperceptibly better in others. What a total waste of resources when Sony desperately need to provide more food lenses for E and FE mount.
So the new coating made the performance worse in overall score, vignetting and chromatic aberration. Great.
Also, the improvements that Canon brought between versions 1 and 2 of their 16-35mm were far more substantial. Although it has not been updated since 2006, they subsequently released the 16-35mm f4 and the best of all wide angle zooms – 11-24mm.
Hello Admin,
“DxOmark (Click here) published the full 16-35mm F2.8 ZA SSM II A-mount lens test. The performance is virtually on par with the predecessor”
the link “16-35mm F2.8 ZA SSM II A-mount” leads to Amazon page of Sony 24-70 F.2.8-22 lens
Welcome to SonyAlphaRumors!
I’m thinking they must have had a bad sample. Just look at the comparisons of the two lenses on the A77:
http://www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Compare/Side-by-side/Carl-Zeiss-Vario-Sonnar-T16-35mm-F2-8-ZA-SSM-on-Sony-SLT-Alpha-77-versus-Sony-Carl-Zeiss-Vario-Sonnar-T-STAR-16-35mm-F28-ZA-SSM-II-on-Sony-SLT-Alpha-77__245_734_1537_734
Improved coatings, faster AF motor, and added weather sealing wouldn’t make it take that much of a step back. Equal or better, but not worse.
Substantially worse results on A77 than the older version.
A mount zeiss lens are not extremely famous for high resolution. Their color rendering is what makes them great.
You’re talking zooms right?
I bought an 85 1.4 za, and the chromatic aberration was so bad in the center of the lens that it was unusable below f2.8. Sony said that was normal, so I returned it. Alternatively, I’ve been very happy with the 24-70za. It’s sharp, with great contrast, and no issues.
I’ve been using the 85ZA for 2+ years now, doesn’t seem to see what you’re facing though. Could be a lemon copy you had back there.
I think so, but it doesn’t help when I get Sony’s standard customer service response.
I dont know what to say, i am speechless, waiting for illuminated observer to write some insightful essay on this subject.
“the difference between 2.8 and f/4 are only noticed when the sun is here but gone, what i like to see is not the difference in light but the sameness in darkness when light is present in an aps-c giftbox triangle reversed to counteract the several stop difference. . coatings, coatings are coated on the inside of our minds when judgement is clouded from a cloud of images in the sensor and only then is when you take the perfect picture of nothing.”
>coatings are coated on the inside of our minds when judgement is clouded from a cloud of images in the sensor and only then is when you take the perfect picture of nothing
That’s pretty deep.
I was hoping it would come in machine gun grey. It would fit that Hassleblad A99 edition really well. You know, gotta make sure they match.
Why do people always think that an update (of anything) is supposed to entice them to upgrade? It’s an updated model to keep the line more current, that’s it. If your existing lens is fine, then it’s fine. These updates aren’t to try and make you buy it as a replacement as such. Same with releasing model updates of bodies and everyone moans that it’s not different enough to the last model.
Besides all the A-Mount folks have always been banging on about how these are the best anyway, I guess it’s hard to make the best better 😛
That’s what makes lenses so interesting. Without changing the lens chassis or substituting glass elements that would have presumably increased the cost dramatically, they couldn’t actually make the 7 or 8 (?) year old design any better (by DXO’s 2 dimensional standard). I’m sure flare issues and such were improved. But still, lenses evolve (in a technological sense) even slower than bicycles, which is actually nice.
Maybe the best thing that comes with the new 16-35 is that the old one probably becomes a cheaper in the near future… 😉
I hope so.
The old one sells for around 800USD on eBay second hand. Pretty good IMO.
They’ve both been selling for $1,299 refurbished from Sony for at least a month now. That’s a pretty good deal.
There’s a lot of very silly people here getting all upset with fraction of a percent differences in the scores. It’s as if people haven’t heard about copy variance.
Barely a change in performance and over double the price of the previous version. A sure fire way for Sony to continue to kill off the A-Mount even further. 🙁
It may be that the lens is being optimized for the next generation of a mount cameras. Thus the salient DXO measurement of the lens would be with an a99mII or whatever the a99 replacement is called.
I own the first version since 2010. It’s still a very good lens for a hobbyist like me. I cannot afford to change to a newer version when my previous one still in good working order even it dropped before but every thing still alright after repair. Now I just need a newer A-mount body with IBIS so that I could max out my 135mm F1.8 too even I got a A7r.
I guess the main point of introducing mkII version of this (and 24-70, and 70-200) lens was not to improve the optical quality, which seems to be comparable to the competition, but rather to smuggle some improvements, primarily the weather sealing, which at this price point is a must, but also with regard to AF drive. With introduction of A7rII Sony is finally close to delivering a coherent “alpha” system with both A- and E- mounts, so the refreshed A-mount mkII lenses may be in fact primarily targeted at pro E-mount users, with faster AF drive, better suited for OSPDAF use. I imagine that the next generation of E-mount cameras will have similar AF capabilities to A7rII, so they will allow seamless integration of both systems into one using a simple LA-EA3 adapter, which could even be bundled with next A9 flagship body. A99mII will still find its use for sport & action photography, but it’s easy to imagine also that at this point it may be very easy for Sony to develop also pro-grade, stills-oriented DSLR with OVF (aka A900mII), when the mirrorless cameras fully take over the role of current DSLTs. Body-wise, this would become the most complete and converged system :>
The main reason was so that the lenses work better with the A7 series of cameras. I actually know this for a fact but can’t really say how because I could get fired from my job.
Did you read the post you replied to? That’s pretty much what he said and more… fwiw
I think you’re right on point with everything you said, except Sony making a future DSLR (I’m sure they are done with mirrors and OVF’s for good). Like you said, though, I think these are the “E-mount 2.8 zooms” people have been asking for. They should be anyway.
If Sony ever makes a 2.8 zoom in FE mount it’ll be because the public demands it– and it won’t be much smaller than these Zeiss lenses– and if it’s smaller, the IQ will most likely take a hit. The point of the E-mount (among other things) was compactness. Though it looks like that’s gotten away from them a bit with the 35mm 1.4, the 90mm and this new 85mm– I think they had to prove that they could build very good lenses, everything else be damnned. I get that.
Yeah, the DSLR part is my wishful thinking, yet I can imagine in the future when Sony is really done with A-mount bodies, licensing body production to 3rd parties – e.g. Hasselblad, so this niche could be filled up too
This is a perfect example of how limited (and sometimes useless) DXO’s information is. In this case they’ve (sort of) shown that the new lenses aren’t an optical improvement based on their 4 test numbers and a sample size of 1. But the one monkey they have trained to test lenses doesn’t understand anything outside the paint by numbers template.