The new Zeiss 24-70mm f/4.0 FE lens will ship from February 20 according to SonyStore US (Click here), 3-6 weeks at Amazon (Click here) and in March at BHphoto (Click here).
SAR readers Joseph wrote: “After being told by Sony on the phone that the 24-70 lenses were going to ship on Feb. 2nd (a strange date because that was a Sunday), with warehouse updates as recently as last Friday Jan. 31st, I was not told, finally, that the lenses have been delayed until Feb. 20th. I am pretty sure my order is in the first batch, so I don’t think anyone in the U.S. will be receiving this lens prior to Friday February 21st or so.”
The good news is that Sony Europe is shipping the lens and this has been confirmed by many SAR readers. It ships at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, SE, PT!
Darin sent me some images for download: “With the delays I couldn’t resist having a friend send me the 24-70mm f/4 from Japan. Plus Sony Japan throws in a free three year accidental water damage warranty. Not sure what to think so far, sharp until f/8 then this copy gets oddly soft, no idea yet what that is all about. There are raw images for download too: http://www.kayakphoto.com/darinmcquoid/Sony24-70.html“
Zeiss 24-70mm preorders: EUROPE at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, SE, PT USA at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
0 Responses
The so called “whisper date” has always been March. Nobody at the majors in the US ever believed the Feb 2 or even the late Feb date. You simply take that rodamap that Sony has and that keeps getting reposted here and add 5 months for US availability.
Not too sharp till f8…it’s a pitty if it’s poor at f5.6 considering the price. Hope f11 is not as bad as f4.
Troll
Go away!
Even plastic kit lenses are pretty sharp @ 5.6 from center to corners. Those are 250 euro lenses not 1200 euro like this one. Zeiss is supposed to be in a league superior to Canon and Nikon glass.
Made in Thailand? Kidding right? If it was made in Japan it would have been 1500-1600 euros just like the Canon 24-70 F4 IS (which is on sale at this moment for less than 1100 euros).
Andy, review the image in the link posted below. Are you sure we are talking about the same lens? If so, link us to these images you are referring to.
@ Andy – Just what I thought, all horn and no driveshaft.
The image is way too small to judge sharpness. At that size even a kit 18-55 f3.5-5.6 lens produces the same image. Can’t tell them apart.
So, you expect a superior league, but for the same or lower price? Anyway, your comment about Thailand already says it all.
The price is ok for the build (which it’s great) but if it’s only a f8 ok lens then it’s way overpriced. If it’s sharp from f5.6 to f11 then it’s a great lens. Simple as that. I’m considering the A7 – FE 24-70 f4 combo and I shall wait for the photozone.de review.
And yes, made in Thailand is crap. Just like made in China. Every time a big company is producing hi-tech stuff in China or Thailand, Indonesia etc, those products are bellow the build quality and the reliability of the same products made in Japan, Europe, USA etc.
I have never had problems with high-end products from outside Japan. By looking at the pics, the lens seems very decent, although I’d also prefer a better review. In any case for its price and weight, it seems to be a very nice lens.
@Andy: Made in Japan used to be a label associated with garbage, too. Don’t forget that the “made in” label just means that’s where final assembly took place. For all you know, the lens that’s made in Germany or Japan could be made from parts machined in China, Thailand, Malaysia, etc.
Andy you still are trolling!
I have a company selling highest IT stuff to countries within EUfro. The top suppliers. We have to supply custom declarations with among other thing country of origin. I can tell you that “everything” is made in China, Indonesia … these days.
That includes, electronics, optics, hard disks etc.
We are living in a global econony where all large corporations set up factories in the different places. They use the same standard systems same methods of quality control. China is an advanced economy whith advanced labor and companies!
Broaden your mind or maybe you don’t care – you just want to make noice?
And again: this is not a zeiss. Zeiss has no replation to ZA lenses.
It is pure luck we have good ZA 135 (obviously lags behind APO-Sonnar 135) and FE 55, which used some trick, so its performance degrades very much when using haze filter, for example. Other those “zeiss” lenses can’t even touch canon and nikon counterparts.
LOL! Every single ZA glas eats the Canon and Nikon counterparts for breakfast, with or without the blue sticker.
You are kidding, right?
Lol, seriously? The price? Poor at 5.6?
Don’t feed the troll !!!
Link to an image taken with the 24-70F4, settings 33mm@F4. Looks pretty good to me.
http://s1195.photobucket.com/user/2008SRT10Viper/media/CNYYearoftheHorse_zps866b6bf2.jpg.html?sort=3&o=4
I would be amazed if it won’t look good in this size.
“Plus Sony Japan throws in a free three year accidental water damage warranty.” wasn’t it weathersealed?
That is just a marketing gimmick. Products with more warranty usually means a well built product. If it is weather sealed the warranty shows they are not worried about water damage so people will feel better about buying the lens.
Don’t know of anyone in europe getting it yet. Only Asia and Australia.
Looking at the sony uk website, it says the 70-200/4 FE lens will ship 28th Feb…. Is that realistic?
Sharp like a plastic butter knife but with the cost of a golden spork.
Ok – I may be being stupid here, but surely in most photographic situations where corner sharpness is an issue, such as landscapes, you’re going to want plenty of DoF so will be stopping down anyway?
So in what situations (talking generally rather than specifically about this lens) is corner sharpness wide open an issue?
Shooting Wide Angle landscapes with the foreground in focus and the background a little out of focus maybe?
Studio portraits filling the frame but with very low powered lights so having to open up from f/8?
Suppose you’re in a museum during your travels and you’re using a good premium zoom like this one for convenience (flash and tripod forbidden) and you want to photograph a king’s room. The lights are not good and there are no windows. Also you don’t want to go beyond ISO 1600 and you’re using only 3 stops of stabilisation (one stop less than the producers are marketing just to be sure) and to take the picture you need f4. Otherwise it’s underexposed. Going to f8 is not an option because this means bumping up the ISO to 6400 and the dof it’s the same like the one at f4 considering the distance to the interior walls.
That’s OK. I may want to experience a museum but I never wanted to photograph in one. Not my Kodak cup of tea.
+1. Corner to corner sharpness is highly overrated. If the purpose is to document (e.g. reportage), then a bit of noise won’t really be an issue. I’ve been to lots of nice places that I consider once-in-a-lifetime experiences for me and when I look back at the pictures I took, I remember the experiences – I don’t linger on technical flaws.
It’s a fairly contrived scenario where you would need a critically sharp shot but unable/unwilling to put in the work to get that shot (e.g. it is fairly straightforward to get a permit from the museum to bring in a tripod and appropriate lighting).
Or – heck – buy a shot of the King’s room from the gift shop. It will likely be a better shot from someone who did put in the work and you will do your part to support the museum who provided you with this great collection to look at.
Edge to edge sharpness is what we are paying. Otherwise, cheap $200-$300 lenses would be OK.
I’m following this site since a year now and hardly ever made a comment. There aren’t many trolls here, but I’m 100% sure you’re one of them. Can’t you please waste your time somewhere else? Or just go to school and leave your smartphone at home?
Please! Thanks
@Emacs: “Edge to edge sharpness is what we are paying. Otherwise, cheap $200-$300 lenses would be OK.”
If you are looking to pay for edge to edge sharpness, then either wait for the 70-400/4G, or buy something like the 70-200/2.8G or 85/1.4 ZA Planar.
Lenses in that focal length are not affected by optical aberrations to the same degree that a 24-70mm lens is, and primes are easier to correct than zooms.
In general, you are not paying for edge to edge sharpness because it does not exist – at least, not without tradeoffs that would render the resulting image equally useless (such as complex distortion patterns, astigmatism, coma, and other optical aberrations).
A monkey would know to carry a tripod when they going into a museum to shoot Kings room rather than shoot it with f4 or bump the ISO…
Delivery in Europe has started. Mine is arriving tomorrow. Just received the shipment confirmation.
It’d be great if you could expand a bit on your first impression, here or on your blog 🙂
Oops, that was for Andrew Lynch.
Downloaded the raw files and had an edit on lightroom. I love this setup!
This lens is sharp and I love the colours I’m getting.
I have also downloaded the files and opened them up in Lightroom. 70mm is OK but for 24mm at f4 it is poor. It is not sharp on the 24mm sample when you start to get towards the edges. Yes the colours are nice but there are better lenses around than this that cover a similar range. At f4 at 24mm for a lot of stuff it is unusable.
I’ve had this lens a couple of days now and love the sharpness as well as the detail you can pull off it when matched with the A7r body. Unlike others here I have had no issues with Cnr to Cnr Sharnpness wide open and night shots were phenomenal. Attached is a link to a full res shot from last night
http://hlouey.zenfolio.com/img/s10/v101/p248955793.jpg
It’s OK but nothing amazing. It is not an ideal test photo as the edges are at different distances to the centre but you can still see issues which would most likely show up more if the subject was parallel to the lens.
I added in a landscape at f/11. For what I shoot (action sports) I do care about corner sharpness wide open. Whitewater kayaking often takes place in dark canyons where f/4 is just fast enough. On the whole I don’t know what to think about this lens, it’s good at all apertures at close distances but it seems to fall apart at infinity focus.
The corners and even edges are still soft at f/11
can’t we wait for a proper review of this lens? From what I see on other sites and forums the early adopters are pretty happy with the performance.
“Oddly soft from F8” is that a review? Was steady shot on? Tripod? Shutter shake? Anything else? I can’t believe the lens would be soft at F4 at any focal length, at least not in the center.
Agreed, you can tell from the pictures alone that this was not a situation where variables were controlled. Can’t wait to get a lens on the test rig and take it through it’s paces and form a data based opinion with no subjectivity.
maybe conditions were ok, but then he is comparing it to prime lenses. Primes will always be sharper than zooms in the corners as they are optimized for a certain focal length. A comparison to other F4 zooms would be fair.
I’m getting an early March ship date in the US. Ordered in November
@emacs of course
Just because Sigma brought a few specialty zooms like 17-35 that really could match primes, now every self-proclaimed reviewer thinks that zooms have to perform at the same level as primes…
It’s the same whining that was going on with the 24-105 that Sigma released recently. “not sharp as a prime whine whine whine”. Turned out the lens is just fine. I’d be interested to see how other relevant stuff like flare resistance, coma correction etc. are implemented in this lens (which is imo much more important than sharpness in a general purpose zooms lens like this).
Some people make it look like the corners are really the only relevant way to judge lens quality these days…
Some Chinese photos from the SEL2470Z here: (same content, two different links)
http://www.5i01.cn/topicdetail.php?f=254&t=3732365
http://www.chiphell.com/thread-947648-1-1.html
I got email yesterday that mine also is on it’s way. I live in Norway. I ordered from sony.no’s education store.
Mine (24-70mm) has left TNT warehouse just a few moments ago in Madrid, Spain, and I will be receiving it this morning at home.
SONY Spain contacted me yesterday to inform me of this new delivery date.
I will post when I receive it.
Had mine over a week now and its not left the camera, I think its a brilliant zoom lens. I do wish the focus ring and zoom had a gap between them though or the focus ring was wider.
Not trying to trollbait but if corner to corner sharpness is what you’re after from a zoom, why not use an adapted a-mount zoom? Even something wallet friendly like the 28-75 will give very pleasing results and is fast enough to use hand held in low light… Until size and weight stops being a priority for e-mount zooms, there’s inevitably going to be comprises.
SEL2470Z in Stock on Sony.no 🙂