Zhang QianLi, a Chinese travel photographer who got early hands on with A7 and A7R has done a quick test of adapting an array of M mount lenses with pre-production A7 and A7R (referred as engineering version 0.90 in his post) and posted his comment on Sina blog and images on flickr.
His post on sina blog: http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_643b266c0102e33e.html
test images with A7: http://www.flickr.com/photos/inikon/sets/72157637688730425/
test images with A7R: http://www.flickr.com/photos/inikon/sets/72157637668801615/
All images taken with tripod and magnified live-view manual focusing, and direct jpeg output and upload. File names are Camera body–Lenses model–Aperture value. For example: A7R-VM125.6-11 means Voigtlander 12mm f/5.6 lenses on Alpha 7R with aperture set to f/11″
He tested the following lenses and you see lenses and image samples on the Flickr links I posted on top:
[shoplink 22592 ebay]Voigtlander Ultra Wide-Heliar 12mm f5.6 Aspherical (click here to see acutions on eBay).
[shoplink 15490 ebay]Super Wide-Heliar 15mm F4.5 Aspherical II (here on eBay)[/shoplink].
[shoplink 21607 ebay]Voigtlander Color Skopar Pancake II 21mm F4 (here on eBay)[/shoplink].
[shoplink 21606 ebay]Zeiss Biogon T* 21mm f2.8 ZM (here on eBay)[/shoplink].
[shoplink 10899 ebay]Voigtlander Ultra 28mm f2 (here on eBay)[/shoplink].
[shoplink 21793 ebay]Voigtlander Nokton 35mm f1.2 Aspherical VM II (here on eBay)[/shoplink].
[shoplink 22603 ebay]Leica Summicron-M 35mm f2 ASPH (here on eBay)[/shoplink].
[shoplink 20202 ebay]Leica Summilux-M 50mm f1.4 ASPH (here on eBay)[/shoplink].
[shoplink 21848 ebay]Leica Summicron-M 50mm f2 (here on eBay)[/shoplink].
[shoplink 22846 ebay]Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f1.1 Aspherical (here on eBay)[/shoplink].
[shoplink 12485 ebay]Zeiss Planar T* 50mm f2 ZM (here on eBay)[/shoplink].
[shoplink 12505 ebay]Voigtlander Color Heliar 75mm F2.5 MC (here on eBay)[/shoplink].
SAR reader Aero” was so kind to provide us with a translation (Thanks!):
“Not a real test, just that we pooled the lenses I and friends had with us at the time and did some simple test shot. The results does not present official conclusion, it just represent the result on the two pre-production models, to provide some reference for ppl interested in adapting lenses.
Both bodies are version 0.90 pre-production model, one A7 and one A7R, first generation Kipon adapter was used in this test, I brought this adapter when NEX-5 was first releaseed. After test shots were taken, it was found out the vignetting issue are pretty apparent. I was able to purchase the newest voigtlander adapter in Hong Kong couple days ago, the build quality of the voigtlander adapter was way better than the Kipon one, but the vignetting issue did not seem to improve by much.
The leica m9 and type 240 performance are not better than A7R/A7. (Aero’s note: “I assume he’s talking about color shift and vignetting issue without software correction”)
Overall it can be said the result are not really good, for all wide angle under 35mm the results are hardly acceptable. Voigtlander 35 f1.2 II has magenta shift under big aperture, it gets better after f/2.8, and become acceptable. The performance of Leica 35 f/2 was disappointing, Leica 50 f/1.4 has a little bit of magenta shift for aperture larger than f/2.8 as well. On the other hand, Leica 50 f/2.0, Zeiss ZM 50 f/2, and Voigtlander 50 f/1.1 performed acceptable. For tele-focal lengths there’s not much issue from magenta shift. In addition, it is also confirmed that color shift issue are much worse on A7R than on A7, strange since it is the A7R that supposedly have the micro-lenses adjustment.”
Specs and Preorders in US and Canada:
Dedicated Sony announcement page at Amazon US (Click here).
Sony A7r body at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS. TheCameraStore Canada.
Sony A7 body at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS. TheCameraStore Canada.
Sony A7 with 28-70mm kit lens at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS. TheCameraStore Canada.
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, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT, WexUK, WexDE.
Sony A7 body at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT, WexUK, WexDE, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon FR.
Sony A7 with 28-70mm kit Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT, WexUK, WexDE, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon FR.
Sony RX10 at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT, WexUK, WexDE.
Zeiss 35mm at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT,
Zeiss 55mm at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT
Zeiss 24-70mm at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, SE, PT
Asia:
A7r at Digitalrev.
A7 at Digitalrev, Amazon Cina.
A7 with 28-70mm lens at Digitalrev.
81 Responses
That M6 is so pretty next to that Sony, isn’t it?
Ha! No. But an M9 would be 🙂
I’m still thinking about getting M9 or M-E. The reason behind it is that I think I’ll stop shooting 35mm film and that would render my M6 as a paperweight but I know myself, there’s simply something special about Leica and I would miss it 🙂
I see. Personally, the Leica is too expensive for what it is for me. Even if I am willing to pay the price asked, that would mean going to an OVF (I prefer EVFs), fixed LCD, average video, etc. I just wish someone will make a proper modern M-mount camera with a FF sensor. Be it Ricoh or Zeiss or Epson.
The only thing special about Leica is the fact that fools like you pay their price. FOOOLLL!
Leica Lenses + Sony Cameras = Epic FAIL!
you never used either
I didn’t know you are such a die hard sony fan. to the extend that you will symobolize yourself (epicfail) as leica lenses + sony cameras. *clapping hand*
I’ll just wait for Mr Huff’s in depth review before jumping into any conclusions. A matter of days…
Thanks for the great Sony Alfa converage though!
Which i’d found such a rumour blog on every item i ever purchased in my life 🙂 Keep up the good work!
I don’t know… He’s been a bit strange lately with his opinions
by “strange” you mean you disagree?
nope, by strange I meant that he seems to be becoming a bit rockwelish and also even if somebody points out where he’s wrong he refuses to admit it – don’t know, don’t like the way he behaved lately, definitely stopped paying attention to his ‘reviews’ and go there mostly to for ‘daily inspiration’ articles instead – I think he’s lost some credibility (never had much of it but still)
I think in this day and age, you either gain credibility by having hard data from tests, charts, numbers, whatever.. or you try to gain it by being frank and stating that it’s just your personal opinion, and you aren’t going to produce hard data. Steve obviously goes for the latter.
Ken Rockwell is pretty far over the line for me. He’s gone to ‘snobbish and pushy’ rather than honest. And some of his claims are flat out wrong. Steve on the other hand just seems to be pointing out what he likes about things. He seems to have a lot of positive things about a wide variety of cameras. I like the attitude that you can find good qualities in a lot of things if you want to, so I like reading Steve Huff’s stuff. But yes, it’s not very objective at times, and he does seem to be throwing out a lot more heavy opinion in more recent articles. Usually it’s easy to see why he likes something, but sometimes for a lens or something similar, he just throws out that it’s ‘just better’, but can’t seem to communicate (with me, at least), why. Maybe I’m just not that deep into image quality understanding to see it like some people can. But that’s off the topic, a bit.
The psychology of socialized media.. interesting stuff.
@ Amp – if that was the case it would be all good (and it used to be like that) but the problem is that he is often wrong and he knows it 🙂 I believe it just became link bite blog – it’s sad but that’s the way i started to look at his reviews and reports – to stir a lot of hatred in the comments, that equals to more page impressions and possibly click throughs
+1
@amp – Why don’t you just pull out Steve Huff’s tiny manhood and slather it with your saliva. You, sir, are an apologetic fool.
@hexx I know you have commented here many times that you have Fuji cameras. I don’t generally comment on their cameras as I dont like to troll. Is it that you don’t like his opinions on them? As I agree with what he is saying about them.
+1
Steve Huff has never been a good reviewer. He became popular because of his friend Seal who used to let Steve play with Leica cameras. Since then Steve Huff has been getting access to a lot of cameras but his reviews are useless to most people but him.
No I think he means strange in that ” he talks to ghosts”
Seriously??? wow!
I often see Steve as the kind of individual that, regardless of whatever he is reviewing, will always end a review with “well, but you know me guys, I’m a Leica fan and there is nothing like Leica out there” as if he is making sure Leica keeps on loving him.
Even his RX1 and RX1r reviews, where he built a whole case for the Sony cam ended up with a comment saving Leica in one way or another.
I think he just likes compact performance which is Leica’s niche. He was happy to give the RX1 the camera of the year accolade this year. If the A7 and A7r had performed as well with RF lenses I’m sure he would have given it the camera-of-the-year accolade instead of the Olympus.
Any one can give awards. Ironically, he hasn’t received any from any credible source.
His early shots with the 35/1.2 seemed to be quite nice and didn’t have a hint of magenta cast. I wonder what version of the camera he has? Can’t wait for more of these to be out in the wild so we can stop relying on all of these “testing” sites. Seems to me all they ever do is make things more confusing 😛
This!
Not specifically a great fan of his work, but just comes across as a little more reliable than the random tests from unknown people or sources which all end-up here thanks to SAR’s hard work.
I’d wait for reports from Sean Reid or Tim Ashley
Yeah, that’s true, he did used the 35 1.2 and commented that it works well and we all know how much of a Leica fanboy he is, not that it’s a problem of course 😉
This is the original version of the VM 35/1.2 lens. NOT the current version II lens.
Time for the Nex fanboys to collectively wake up from their wet dream of strapping any lens on their A7’s.
Better than those who are hellbent on the Alpha E mount system failing. Furthermore, this is only testing Rangefinder lenses, which it was already assumed would have some issues. You should probably hold judgment, as I’m sure it will be a different story with all the legacy SLR lenses out there.
BTW, What system are you a fanboy of? With the negatively of your nonconstructive post, you must be one of another system/brand…
I’m not rooting for it to fail, I’m just tired of Sony splitting their resources for the Nex system when they can’t even properly support/develop for the A-mount.
Nex users have been clammoring for a full frame camera on this page forever and really.. the results are not amazing. So far it’s just a smaller version of a D800 where you can throw some 3rd party non native lenses on for poor/mediocre results.
you get pdaf and the best image quality available for your a mount lenses with the a7r. apart from that there will be another 15 lenses made for the system in two years.
Be careful what you wish for. Sure, it doesn’t look like the A7/r is going to be a Leica M replacement (unless you shoot 35mm+, which it may be). But the amount of buzz this camera has generated hasn’t been matched by any other sony camera. Following the forums or even talking to friends that use other systems, there’s quite a bit of interest from canon/nikon users who aren’t familiar with sony cameras. Almost all the reviews out there have been fairly positive with everybody agreeing: unparalleled image quality. This is only going to help sony with sales. IMO the biggest thing hurting sony is the sony name. People haven’t attributed it to great cameras, yet. This will change if they keep producing cameras like the A7/r.
If the next A-mount camera doesn’t generate as much buzz, you know where resources are going to go. Judging by the response to the A99, there’s a lot of ground to make up.
Why would you even post this? i understand rooting for your favorite brand but wishing for another to fail… that’s just twisted! As for adopting lenses to the E-mount… well there are a lot of lenses that work beautifully, including just about any SLR lens ever made. Try doing that with a Nikon DSLR! EOS is a bit more comparable in this regard but still not as versatile and much bigger (and this is ignoring sensor performance). So seriously, what is your problem?
Your wet dream?
Thank God the VM35mm 1.2 II works well!
After seeing the Leica 35, my heart really began to sink.
Having said that…his tripod technique is pretty poor.
tripod technique? The screw / mount you mean? Not following you…
Even if he is using a tripod, for some reason some of his images are very shaky.
There are a lot of tripods out there, many are pretty crap but more crap are the people that don’t pay attention to the way they release the shutter, or realise that the wind is strong enough, or that the tripod isnt absorbing the vibrations from the ground and take measures to correct this.
Using a tripod is not just a “put-cam-on-head-and-fire” affair.
I was also looking at some ? one of the CV lens was quite good at 1.8 or something next ones all shaky blur ?
almost every image has shake blur not sure what his shutter speeds were did not bother looking because so many seemed flawed in focus with movement ?
nice of him to do this 🙂 so two thumbs up if you read this and thank you but sadly not sure I can take anything away from it other than the sever color on some of them
Lol your steve! I do enjoy your work!!! I love the camera stuff and also enjoy huff paranormal.
I think he just messed up the focus point. Wider aperture shots appear blurry, even though they were taken with higher shutter speed/shorter exposure, while narrower aperture appear to be more in focus… If it was due to shaking, then the results should have been the opposite.
Overall it’s a half assed attempt, but thanks anyway, I guess…
and the large aperture photos are not consistent with what was tested before on the A7, and I get better results with CV35 on nex7 (which has higher density pixels than both A7 and A7r)
none of the lenses he tested are in focus wide open, which makes the results stopped down probably not optimal
tl;dr: that test is crap
I wonder what adapter did he used. Ones, that passes lenses over the infinity, are troublesome.
the original poster (as can be seen from translation on this page as well) did say he used first generation Kipon adapter. He also commented that voigtlander adapter which he purchased recently, is much better in build quality but did not improve vignetting issue.
Supposedly he focused using magnification. So that rules out a misaligned infinity stop.
Well, I always appreciate contributions to the body of knowledge, but the only 2 images I looked in their full size (A7 with wide open CV28mmf2 and wide open CV35mmf1.2) were very far out of focus. As usual, very difficult to understand how any equipment will work in one’s own hands until the equipment is actually in one’s hands. But if there was any information for me to glean from those downloads, it is that maybe the CV28mm won’t we too bad – fingers crossed, since I have the CV28mmf1.9.
Are they too far out of focus? or they can’t perform that well at infinity at WO? There is also an adapter misalignment issue. Stopping down, they look ok-ish.
The CV35 seems to have almost unnoticeable magenta shift.
Do we know for certain if it’s possible to make custom color corrections via in-camera software? I’ve seen it in a video but nothing more.
wides certainly look better on A7…
I’ll go with that…
This guys results go against a lot of other peoples results and the vignetting is simply horrible. I don’t expect these cameras to be perfect but based on what I’ve seen from other testers, there is something wrong with this guys setup (either faulty camera or a very crappy adapter).
the original poster did say in his blog that the A7 and A7R he used in this test are pre-production models… not sure if production model will be any better though
I disagree. This guys results conform with Ron’s tests and Huff and others.
When did photography turn into some damn science project!
its a camera for goodness sake.
you turn it on, do your settings, and take a picture.
Henry Cartier Bresson would be appalled at all these so called reviews and test.
and a tripod for a 35/50mm lens? are you serious! get a life.
HCB used what was available to him at that time, who knows what would he use these days 😉
The corner performance of many of these lenses are worse than what HCB had available to him.
Photography always had a “science project ” element be it tweaking developers just so { I can still smell Rodinal from my Agfapan days }or complex post processing in Photoshop . Ansell Adams was very very technical in his photography.
While one can pick up many cameras pop them in to P mode and shoot away with no knowledge of the processes involved, you may even achieve some wonderful images .There is little doubt that taking time to understand at least the basics of exposure and mastering the technical aspects of your photo equipment will greatly improve ones abilities to catch the shot.Of course none of this should detract from the composition and timing rather it should help us to catch what our mind sees as much as what our eyes see.r
You are right – I never mount a 35mm or 50mm lens on a tripod. I only do that with the 70-200. The 35 or 50 I mount on the camera.
let’s just wait for this: http://www.getdpi.com/forum/sony/49027-sony-a7-r-built-lens-corrections.html
So something like Fuji’s camera? (I do have something like that on X-Pro1 but never used it :))
Processing out magenetta shift is fine. But It won’t fix smeared corners.
Admin, please kindly note that the very last sentence of the comment “In addition, it is also confirmed that color shift issue are much worse on A7R than on A7, strange since it is the A7R that supposedly have the micro-lenses adjustment.”, is my (the translator) observation from uploaded images only, it is not what the original tester has said.. (I think I didn’t put quotation marks around it when I said that), not a big deal, but just want to set the fact straight and not put words into the original poster’s mouth.. thanks!
The offset microlenses in the A7r can’t overcome the smaller pixel pitch of the camera. It’s the same story as the higher-resolution Nex7 versus Nex-5n so far as magenta fringing is concerned.
Andrea is often repeating the same mistake, that A7r has micro lenses and A7 not. The truth is that BOTH have microlenses, but only A7r has gapless design. (even old 5n had microlenses…
The results esp. with Leica M lenses 50/1.4 are very disappointing. Can cornerfix fix the colour shift?
http://www.sony.net/Products/di/en-us/products/o4j5/index.html
under site – camera apps – comming soon -lens correction for 9.90 usd !!!!!!!
thanks sony
The M9>M240 in terms of casts and corners. Guess what? Even the 35/2 has funky edges without correction. It is still an awesome camera and the pair still blow me away.
Let’s just wait for people to put these cameras into a real workflow and make prints, etc.
I would not bet the farm that any wide angle lenses will be particularly good SOOC or shooting JPG.
Time to buy an expodisc and download the Adobe corner fixing plugin.
If you don’t want to deal with such a minor issue as magenta corners (cornerfix, adobe profile creator .etc) you might as well not use an FF camera at all.
The biggest advantage of FF is post-processing ability. I downloaded some of the pictures, and could not find smearing in any of the lenses except those under 21mm. The wide CVs do have bad corners, that’s noticable even on film.
So it looks more and moree these cameras require native lenses toexploit their payed for potential.
No surprise there.
Sony could have solved this though.
Those lenses are not infinte in their numbers.
They could have made internal profiles for each and make lets say 10 programable place holders in the menu to select lens you own from.
1-3months worth of r&d, tops.
But its not in their interest, really thas for sure.
While Sony is no saint, it’s unfair to say that they want to discourage people from using adapted lenses.
If you have been following/using the Nex series, Sony has added features that were not there in the first release of Nex bodies via firmware, like peaking focus, to help people who use adapted lenses. Sony has also had displays with Nex bodies with adapted lenses in their official booths at exhibitions, etc.
Finally, Sony Australia is giving free Metabones adapters to those who pre-ordered the A7/A7R to use their existing lenses from other mounts.
So don’t say it like they intentionally made these bodies to perform badly with adapted lenses.
The images all look very very flat only the 50mm lenses seem to give any contrast and depth and that’s not much. There is no zip or pop in any shot. Just flatness.
Open platform for onboard apps is promising. I would pay $40-$90 for a good app that profiled RF glass
I agree, I hope they’ll allow 3rd party ppl to make lens profile app since it wont cost them anything except making the SDK
The A7 seems like it is the better camera. I really don’t understand the big fuss over RF lenses on NEX cameras. They perform the same way on Leica once you turn off the lens profiles…
Something seriously wrong in the photos. Here’s one where the focus is on the right side. Clearly an adapter issue:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/inikon/10867015113
Looks like shot with an old phone.
Srsly, can flickr be any slower? The guy who posted all of those lens comparison shots two weeks ago really gummed up the works when you do a search for A7 images. Come on man!
One wonders how Sony/Zeiss will succeed with a designing super-wide zoom. How can we ever get clean RAW files unless the camera itself can be designed in firmware to do a CornerFix simulation, both for RAW and for jpegs?
Cannot LIghtroom be tailored to correct these coloured corners automatically in the camera profile menu? (And preferably some other software too, that can still function on Mac OS Snow Leopard 10.6.8 — after which all legacy software becomes useless!)
Does the new Zeiss 35mm, super-sharp according to reports, also show these colour problems?
Glad now, that I bought a ZF 21mm Distagon, despite a little extra weight.
SLR lenses wouldn’t be a problem, this problem only appears on rangefinder lenses with the focal length less than 35mm.
Apparently they’ll be a PlayMemories app that will allow custom lens fix, but if it’s only available in JPEG and or RAW remains to be seen.
I have now tried the A7R with both Metabones and Novoflex adapters and a selection of M lenses, and done a back to back comparison with the results from the Leica M(240). The lenses I tried were: 21mm Supe Elmar, 28mm Elmarit, 35mm Summicron, 50mm Summicron (non-asph), 50mm F1 Noctilux, 75mm Summicron.
Colour fringing doesn’t worry me, as ot can be corrected in post, but I can see noticeable fall-off in sharpness and detail (smudging of fine details) from about 1/3rd of the frame outwards on either side – on ALL M lenses I tried, even the 50mm and 75mm focal lengths stopped down to f5.6. This is not evident on the M. It really highlights the challenges that the Leica engineers faced when designing full frame camera hardware and software that would yield decent results with the “old” M glass.
The A7R offers incredible IQ (some of the best I’ve seen), a very well thought out user experience that I am super happy with even for professional use, and it’s a game changer for sure. The results with Zeiss a-mount lenses are nothing short of incredible, and I am confident the body will work superbly with legacy SLR lenses like Leica R-mount, but it’s no M-lens camera and it certainly isn’t a viable alternative or pro backup body for an M user. The A7 may be different, but after hearing people online stating how well the A7R works with longer M glass, I am now very sceptical after having done my own tests.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/109239305@N04/10949142995/
Over the last two weekends I got the chance to test the new Sony A7 and A7r cameras with a Leica Elmarit 28mm aspherical 11606 f2.8 lens.
The results are rather dissapointing to me.
While sharper in the image center tt the image corners the 1800 Euro Leica lens at f2.8 performs much worse in terms of resolution on the A7/A7R than the A7 kit lens 28-70mm FE at f3.5.
A comparison shot between the Sony A7 and Leica M9 revealed that the Elmarit performed better on the M9.
Unfortunately, the resolution issues of the lens at the Sony A7/A7R can not easily be fixed in software such as other lens characteristic (radial distortion, chromatic abberations).
I also made test shots with the Leica Summicron 50mm f2.0 and an Leica Summicron 90mm f2.0 and those lenses perform much better on the Sony A7/A7r (no images, yet).
The full resolution images of the Leica Elmarit 28mm aspherical 11606 with the Sony A7 + A7r + Leica M9 can be found on my flickr set here:
http://goo.gl/BeHHqu