Zeiss 24-70mm FE lens. Image courtesy Philip Reeve
Philip Reeve (Click here) tested the Zeiss 24-70mm lens and has mixed feelings about it:
From the perspective of a people/reportage photographer I think it is a decent but pricey lens. Looking from the perspective of a landscape photographer I am somewhat disappointed:
From 24-60mm most of the frame is super sharp from f/4, at 70mm you should stop it down to f/5.6 for really good results.
OSS, AF, the light weight and the useful zoom range make it a really handy lens which will give good results for most applications
From about 28mm to 60mm the performance is quite good, most of the image is super sharp from f/4 and the corners are sharp stopped down. The corners aren’t as sharp as those of some of my better primes but they are good enough in my eyes. The corners at around 24mm are lousy. Period. I don’t mind if corners aren’t sharp at f/4 as I am shooting at f/8 or f/11 anyway, but they never get sharp.
Our friends over at Photozone (Click here) tested the Zeiss 35mm FE lens. In short, the mechanical quality is top, the optical quality is high (with few flaws) and the only real flaw is the…high price.
Sony FE 28-70mm F3.5-5.6 OSS Review at Photographyblog and writes:
The Sony FE 28-70mm F3.5-5.6 OSS is a very competent, if unspectacular, standard zoom lens for the Sony A7R/A7 full-frame compact system cameras.
0 Responses
@ admin: nothing about a6000? It is only 2 days left now 🙂
admin reminded us 2-3 times in the last days and posted the main specs in the last posts.
I mean pictures
Take comfort in the fact you’ll know everything in 2 days. 😉
Monday starts the business week. I’m sure Sony corporate will leak some more prior to the pre-CP+ presser to keep us strung along… errr… interested.
One must be Che Guevara these days to make a leak during prerelease embargo period.
This should be an outstanding lens (24 to 70 mm F/4.0) for the price they’re asking, but that doesn’t appear to be case.
Are there any other reviews?
itsdankreview on youtube
It has been out in Korea for like… two weeks now. I am seeing mixed reviews from Korean users.. but i think most people were expecting a prime lens performance since it is f4 and priced relatively high.
And FE 35 (at this cost for such a slow one!) shows performance figures of Canon 24-70/f2.8 USM II. Well, Sony recently admitted they lost TV and PC market. Aren’t they told imaging business is now their priority? Well, with such an attitude they will lose it too.
Because a lightweight F4 zoom lens isn’t outstanding in wide angle in the corners wide open?
Lightweight? That’s because of the plastics they used. If you mean that they compromised performance by shrinking size, well, they didn’t. This one’s every bit as large as competitors. Also considering the price, this lens should deliver more consistent performance.
As should the FE 35, which again is too large for its specs, and has too much wasted space considering how small the front element is. It’s actually bigger than the old Contax G 35/2 yet one stop slower. Unbelievable.
I think it’s more that a flagship FE lens is bad in the corners at 24mm stopped down…
“As should the FE 35, which again is too large for its specs, and has too much wasted space considering how small the front element is.”
What are you suggesting they do with the space not needed for the front element?
Should they make the 35 smaller than the mount in diameter? Wasted space is when they designed your head and put a brain in bro
ROFL
Im more interested in the 70-200 F4 when is that one coming ?
+1
I was until I saw the size of it – its the same size as the A mount 70-200/2.8 practically.
My Canon 70-300 L and Metabones isn’t any bigger!
I saw them side-by-side in a display case, the FE70-/00 appeared shorter and has a smaller diameter (72 mm filter thread vs. 77mm). Not sure about the weight. I read somewhere it will be swirling for $1500 so half the price of the ridiculous a-mount price tag.
Based on the multitude of mixed results, could we have a lens with a large sample variation? Or maybe the reason the initial Europe shipment was pulled back was to address an issue that some of these reviews are seeing?
I think your right, it might be just a bad batch.
That’s exactely what I was thinking when shooting with the lens after reeding the review. Sometimes it’s good not to be among the first ones 😉
Lol, those sensor reflections in the cityscape shots are ridiculous. Point light sources are shooting violet-green laser beams of death.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5504/12350480743_c4379b0e4f_o.jpg
And that’s with native expensive lens that is probably coated accordingly. That makes the camera too unreliable imo. You always have to be afraid of strong light sources that could destroy your image.
I’ve been following the sensor reflections and they seem to happen on the a7 and not the a7r. One of the worst lens to cause the reflection seems to be the FE 35/2.8.
The sensor reflections are real nightmares. They are probably one of the hardest optical defects to correct in post and unlike regular lens flare, they rarely can be used as an effect.
I don’t think its a major problem as you have to know what you are looking for to see it. If you are a perfectionist then it is a problem and I agree it cannot be easily removed. It seems to affect a limited number of lenses + the A7 as they need to be close to the sensor to cause it.
Well, normally yes. But With the A7 it seems like almost every strong small light source that is not in the center of the frame will create this effect. At dpreview there are many samples in bright daylight where there should be enough light to override such reflections but they’re still very visible. To me that’s quite a major problem.
I’m not a perfectionist type and I don’t get crazy about a little bit of corner unsharpness or a some CA but I always hated that sensor reflection stuff. To me, they have a strong unwanted presence when they are there.
In your sample above the dust spot in the top center would worry me more as it looks out of place. I usually stay away from dpreview but I went and checked it out. There is a lot of people testing for problems over there incorrectly and it seems the lens cap is the worse than anything else.
Yeah, the dust spot is annoying as well but we all know how to get rid of that so that’s ok (this particular dust spot is gone in one click anyways).
There is a lot of nonsense at dpreview but there are still some perfectly fine non-brickwall photographs that are ruined by the reflections imo.
It’s an odd issue for a modern lens – could it be down to coatings?
As far as I know its due to the cover glass on the sensor of the A7.
Makes sense – looks like the 24-70 so does it under certain conditions (usually strong artificial light at night). 1st get teething probs, I suppose…
Well, the a7 has the same sensor as the a99 and rx1. I shoot with the former and there are no problems, but given the SLT and large flange distance it is probably not a valid comparison.
The RX1 should make a good control camera to test for these problems along with an a7 + FE35mm lens however. If the RX1 foes not exhibit it than the sensor itself could be ruled out.
I can not completely agree with the 24-70 F4 review.
Received my lens last week. Although sharpness could be a little bit better (especially compared to the 55 or the 35 fixed) I think it’s a great an versatile lens which can deliver quite impressive images.
See here:
http://500px.com/photo/60380872
What I like is the size together combined with the a7r AND what’s really incredibly well working is the image stabilization. I can shoot the FE-lens at F4 with the same exposure time and ISO as the Nikkor 24-70 at F2.8 and the results are absolutely comparable.
Verdict: Could be a little sharper but it’s complaining on a very high level.
Stunning photos.
Thanks a lot Varn!
its not stunning, gosh its 90% photoshop, you can do that with any type of lens.
Is the image RAW or post processed?
It’s raw an pretty much retouched… but to get good results during the retouching you need good raw files 🙂
“What I like is the size together combined with the a7r AND what’s really incredibly well working is the image stabilization. I can shoot the FE-lens at F4 with the same exposure time and ISO as the Nikkor 24-70 at F2.8 and the results are absolutely comparable.”
Hi John ,
While that is correct it is only really an advantage in very specific circumstances namely lower light and static subjects, low light moving subjects the faster lens will be of more benefit.In decent light shooting the Nikon at F4 will result in better quality for the Nikon delivers excellent results across the board at F4.If you do not need the F2.8 option there are a couple of alternatives such as the cheap and cheerful 24-85mm with VR. Though not a star lens the 24-85 is a very decent performer for the money.
http://www.ephotozine.com/article/nikon-af-s-nikkor-24-85mm-f-3-5-4-5g-ed-vr-lens-review-19724
+1
Totally agree.
Crystals are absolutely clear. Colors are fantastic. Great contrast. Superb electronic integration with the A7(r). No Chromatic aberration.
As with all lenses, you have to find the sweet spots.
See examples in http://www.flickr.com/photos/ignaciogarcialosa/
Your 24mm photos show bad distortion and very soft edges.
STUT5, You are probably looking at the ones made with the 10-18mm for APSC E mount cameras.
My 24 mm pictures look just perfect!. (See comments to my photos in FLICKR) ttp://www.flickr.com/photos/ignaciogarcialosa/
Specially take a look at my latest 24 mm picture here in FLICKR: http://flic.kr/p/jYQwJ2
Thank you.
The question is, where is the competition to the FE24-70? The only comparable FF lens is the Canon 24-70 F4, which is 30% heavier, 300$ more expensive and has a bad stabilisation and just okish sharpness overall and color and contrast are lacking compared to the Zeiss.
Nikon has a different zoom range (24-105) and is more expensive and heavy as well.
F2.8 zooms are all in another league as they pretty much double price and weight form all manufacturers.
No Hans the Nikon competitor is the Nikkor 24-70 F2.8 which is a brilliant lens!
which is exactly twice the weight, almost twice the length, has no IS and costs 1900$. NOBODY would use this monster of a lens on a A7 as a walkaround lens. That’s why I said it’s in another league. The Sony Zeiss Sonnar 24-70 F2.8 for amount is also a fantastic lens, but too big and heavy. There must be a tradeoff for being smaller and cheaper, and there obviously is…
There are significant differences in prices between the USA market and the UK/Euro zone, the Canon 24-70F4IS is roughly £90 cheaper than the Sony FE 24-70 f4. The Nikon 24-70f2.8 is only £180 more than the FE 24-70 f4. The Nikon 24-120 F4 VR is £250 cheaper than the FE 24-70 f4. For almost £200 less than the price of the 35mm F2.8 you can buy the Canon 35mm F2IS the Sigma 35mm F1.4 very good wide open and excellent corner to corner by F2.8 is £50 cheaper than the FE 35mm F2.8.
The bottom line is that the “only” advantage of the Sony 35mm and 24-70 lenses are their size/weight.The 55mm F1.8 though it costs 5x the price of the Nikon 50mm F1.8g its quality justifies its price premium.
Size and weight is pretty much the only reason to opt for a mirrorless system, yes. I personally wouldn’t want a 1kg lens on a 700g body if I can have roughly the same output with a 450g lens and a 350g body. I’m aware that there are faster and probably cheaper lenses, but I personally will take the lightweight one and carry one or two more optimized primes instead.
Let’s wait for some real life tests of the samples they deliver to Europe soon.
The SAL-2470Z has similar issues at 24mm, by the way. And that lens weighs and costs double.
Funny. The Canon 24-70 f/4.0 IS is almost as sharp as Canon 24-70 f/2.8 MK2 (http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2013/01/canon-24-70-f4-is-resolution-tests) at wide open (f/4.0) compared to Canon 24-70 f/2.8 MK2 stopped down to f/4. The price and performance of Zeiss 24-70 F4 make Canon’s much more reasonable priced. I would love to know how did you come up your conclusion.
24-105 is a Canon lens. Nikon has a 24-120
Hans, the competitor to this lens is the Nikkor 24-85 F/3.5-4.5. Yes, it’s not a constant aperture zoom, but in practice, it’s basically the same (less than 1/4 stop difference on the wide and long ends). Basically, they have the same sharpness characteristics, flare resistance, VR(OS) capabilities. The Nikkor is also the same size (just 30 gramm difference) and it comes in at half the price.
At the same price you get this Zeiss, you could also get the 24-120mm F/4 lens for Nikon, with a whopping 50mm advantage on the long end. I own this lens, and it’s superb in terms of colour rendition, micro contrast and flare resistance (thanks to nano coating). Sharpness is great across the focal range at F/5.6, wide open it’s very similar to the Zeiss. It looks like they also have the same compromise (distortions and dirty specular highlights in out of focus areas).
I’m looking for something more compact than my d800 + lenses, but it looks like it ain’t coming from SONY. The price advantage of the bodies evaporates when looking at the lens prices, and in fact, SONY comes out as the more expensive system. Size difference won’t be significant either, since FE lenses won’t be any smaller than DSLR lenses.
Only 10 days till the one (1) year anniversary of the last released A-mount camera. It was February 20, 2013 when Sony announced the A-58 SLT, and since then SONY has yet to release anything whatsoever on the A-mount front, nothing. Heck, even the not so popular brands have done some work in the last year. Sony’s fiscal year end is February 28, 2014, please make note. Technically, there books will show no work done by the A-mount division for an entire year, not less is any profits. Unless Sony is planning to release an A-mount in the next week and a half, how could any business minded corporation keep the division alive. No new products to sell, no innovations in a year, no command of market share. Massive losses in costumer base to other brands, or Sony’s own competing E-mount brand. Look, I would never, ever let my employees ride a whole year (pay them good money) and not turn a product. That isn’t business, that’s madness! I’ve never heard of a business model like this, ever.
If people think Sony is secretly innovating on the A-mount front, then Sony would have said so, but rather, what they have told us is they lost a billion this year(after selling a massive building in N.Y.) laid of huge, and I mean really huge volumes of workforce, and have said absolutely zero about the camera divisions. They have commented on their financial divisions, which does very well, and their phones, but cameras-nope, and A-mount? Well I said the same thing last year at this same time (When the first fake rumor of the A77 replacement was soon coming) A-mount is dead, dead, dead… and only the diehards want to Make.Believe. Ok, fanboys you all can now let the crying posts come forth.
Dan
I am going to save your post as a screenshot and lets see who is crying when Sony launches the new A77 replacement and FF camera. 🙂
You should write to Tamron, Sigma and Tokina for announcing that their new lenses are being launched in Nikon, Canon and Sony mount as well while most of them are ignoring the Pentax mount.
Maybe they didn’t get the memo that A mount is dead dead dead. 🙂
It’s sad that Pentax has great bodies but most of their lenses are optically mediocre (including some limited pancakes and some * – star – pro lenses)
I been a A-mount user since the film days and be be honest I see the rise of the e-mount as a good thing, in fact it give me more reason to adapt my a-mount glass, it would be worse if it was the other way around.
Lets face it, A mount is a fail. There is no point in not going with Canikon for A mount.
However I believe E mount is a success – easily the best IQ in any CSC….
Maybe Sony is realising this, or maybe they now have a few lenses out on A mount and are rightly so, spending more time on E mount…
hmm Zeiss AF glas maybe?
Sony has a real marketing nightmare in America. This picture I took of my local Target’s (I think it’s 2nd biggest big-box discount retailer in USA) sums it up nicely: http://tinyurl.com/mtyppx6. The only Sony for sale is the a3000. The only camera they market that isn’t SLR styled is the Nikon 1. DSRL styled cameras still rule here in that space.
Compact styled e-mounts grew fast because they were a new niche. Marketing 101 of a product life cycle. But the fact their sales are declining faster than DSLRs in a stagnant camera market proves it’s maturing fast.
In the DSLR space, Sony has less competition. Basically, it’s only Canikon. Sure, they’re huge but Sony can easily be a solid #3 beating out Pentax. Sigma is a no real competition in this space.
In the compact styled segment the competition is more fierce and growing. Sony isn’t the only unimaginative manufacturer who thinks they can’t compete in DSLRs so they’re rushing to this segment to flood the market. You’ve got Olympus, Fuji, Samsung, and Lumix. Not to mention Canikon isn’t going to give up this space either. Unlike shortsighted Sony, even if they aren’t market leaders Canikon realizes the importance of product diversification and competing on all fronts.
Sony is jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire by dumping a-mounts. Worse, I think they have made an assumption that everyone using a-mounts will flee to them if they only make the e-mount feature set more competitive (which they’re still struggling badly at). Wrong. The issue is ergonomics.
So even if Sony eventually offers as extensive lens support – hard to do now that they’ve thinned out engineering resources to pump of FE lenses as well – and fix IBIS and AF many a-mount users like myself still won’t take the bait.
If they’re going to get my attention the need to put out an e-mount body that doesn’t have the sucky NEX body ergonomics.
However, all of the current a-mount SLT cameras are only 1 year (a58) to 2.25 years old (a77). Only the a77 is 2+ years old and the successor will be announced sometime in the first half of this year according to SAR. The rest of the cameras are from 2012.
In moderation
It’s still better from an optical pow than the Pentax 20-40 f2.8-4 which has a price of 1000$, it’s not weather sealed, covers only an APS-C sensor and it has a stupid range.
I did some test shots with the 24-70 Vario-Tessar on my A7R and loaded full resolution architecture pictures processed with LR 5.3 and for comparison some of the f/4 in full res ooc JPEG without any further processing.
You will notice, that the pincushion distortions of the house are very!! poor and the ooc JPEG shows perfect corrected lines.
BUT: if the post processing has to correct so much, it has to “invent” many pixels :-((
And there is no profile for the lens in LR 5.3 or camera raw 8.3 jet.
And I did some OSS test, that show pretty good results down to 1/6 sec. Of course these images show only my personal results and are not reproducible.
You find them and some more “normal” images in my flickr album:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dierktopp/sets/72157640650459604/
dierk
Some photographers in Australia sent their 24-70 back for another copy and said the 2nd copy was better overall than the first. (from a dp review post).
If this lens was priced at $950 (where it will surely end up)and, instead of the blue badge, it had a “G” on it – we’d look at the performance of this lens and say “Meh, OK. This is the must-have zoom for the system. Not perfect, but pretty damn good”
Instead, they put the Zeiss badge on and offer it at a “WE GOT YOU BY THE BALLS” price. Heck, the kit zoom is $500!
Of course there will be complaints about the performance, which currently must be viewed through the lens of cost. I don’t mind paying a lot for a lens – but this is a semi-glorified kit zoom at a BIG premium.
Personally, I am strongly considering cancelling my preorder, and snagging a 28-70mm for $360 on Fleabay – get 90% of the performance for 1/4 of the price.
I would really like to see how it compares to the Canon 24-70 f4 L IS USM which is 300$ most expensive. We have to wait for the tests but my guess is that the L will be blazing fast but less sharp and with a more common build than this FE Zeiss.
http://www.photozone.de/canon_eos_ff/798-canon2470f4 this lens has a big design error (or poor QC) that was reported on Canon forums by various users…
You can re-visit the review again, photozone has corrected the optical quality from three stars to four. although it shares the same overprice issue with the ZEISS.
The Canon is about $200 more here in US, and is actually a solid performer. Nothing special… watch for it to be part of those frequent Canon rebate programs.
My understanding is that it is set to become the high end kit lens (replacing 24-105), but has not been terribly well received from a sales standpoint.
Here in Romania, the Zeiss Sony 24-70 f4 OSS is 1222 euros and the Canon 24-70 f4 L IS is 1555 euros 😀
There are some rebates from time to time but no more than 10-12% for both Canon and Sony (usually for lenses or discontinued bodies). Nikon has a more aggresive rebate policy and you can buy great lenses like the 70-200 f4 VR at 3/4 of the price. The only real drawback is that the “reduced” prices are comparable with the non-reduced ones in France or Germany 🙂 I guess here photo equipment is considered a luxury product and that’s why the prices are so high compared to countries where the medium income is 8-10 times more (like Germany or France)
Well this 24-70 is pretty disappointing for an f/4 lens at this price point, my EF 17-40 was much sharper and at 2/3 of this price. At some point I started to have some doubts about my A7 sensor itself, no matter what lens I put on it the corners still look bad.
I think I will keep the 28-70 kit, it’s the worst kit I’ve ever used, but still the ZEISS dosn’t worth the upgrade.
I get razor sharp images out of the a99 (same sensor) and I’ve seen very sharp rx1 photos ( same sensor). The problem may be that using full frame sensors in an e- mount configuration requires a specialized sensor for better results. The a7r sensor was designed specifically for its purpose.
This is exactly what worries me up, sony made a stupid move by putting FF sensor on a crop mount and the results are a premature camera system that dosen’t fit anywhere except for the old manual lenses users. Canon and Nikon did it the other way, as they bluit their APS-C system around their exisiting FF mount and not vise versa.
I agree. Since none of the previous E-mount lens covered the full frame anyways, there was really very little reason for Sony to keep with E-mount for their full frame cameras. People who buy the A7 or A7R have to buy all new FE lens anyways.
Maybe Sigma/Canon 24-105 w/smart adapter better choice (if they ever release the darned thing for sale)
I mean Sigma/Sony A w/adapter. (Although Canon maybe not a bad choice for now.)
One more day of e-mount news and one more day closer to dumping my a-mount gear. Much like a few on here, I won’t be going e-mount either. Dear Sony, you’ve got a few short months (and I mean like 2) before I say goodbybe.
There seems to be an emerging consensus that the A7(r) is very picky about delivering edge sharpness with lenses 28mm or wider, and it’s interesting to see the Zeiss 24-70 is not immune.
And that is exactly why I havn’t bought one yet and this news about the 24-70 sharpness at 24mm is very disappointing. I damaged my D600 a few months ago and have been waiting to see how the A7 turns out at ultra wide angles and it’s not looking to promising.. It sucks because I’ve been cameraless for a few months now and will probably just end up picking a D610 for the time being until if and when they can prove that native FE lenses will be sharp at 28mm and less..
I hate to say it, but the 24-70mm image samples make the lens look like a good standard zoom kit lens instead of an excellent high end zoom. Of course the 24mm wide and constant f4.0 aperture help elevate the lens, but in terms of pure image quality, it seems to fall behind its mirroless competitors(Panasonic 12-35mm, Olympus 12-40mm, Fuji 18-55mm), which are all sharp across the frame when wide open. Or even if you compare it to FF DSLR lens like the Canon 24-70mm F2.8L, which admittedly is more expensive.
I just wonder, have anyone try Canon 24-70 f4L IS on A7(r) and test out the sharpness at 24mm? I would love to compare Canon’s 24-70 f4L IS to Zeiss 24-70 f4
This might help: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mobile01.com%2Ftopicdetail.php%3Ff%3D254%26t%3D3743222&act=url
Thanks! I read the original of the article (Chinese) and the conclusion is pretty much have the same complaint: the corner of image is soft at 24mm wide open and doesn’t improve until F8. IMO, the corner still looks soft at F11. Canon 24-70 F4L is much better at 24mm wide open and looks real sharp at F8.