On left the Loxia 35mm corner at f/2.0. On right the [shoplink 9808 ebay]ZM[/shoplink] at f/2.0 (Image 3D-Kraft)
Last week 3D-Kraft proved for the first time the Zeiss Loxia are not just modified ZM lenses. These deliver indeed a major image quality jump forward. A “source” now told me the following:
I spoke to one of the (Zeiss Loxia) designers who confirmed that it needed to be designed specially for the A-7, which presents problems for lens manufacturers due to the glass layer over the sensor.
Great to hear that!
Zeiss Loxia preorders:
Zeiss Loxia 50mm f/2 Planar T* Lens for Sony E Mount at BHphoto, Adorama., WexUK, CameraPro.
Zeiss Loxia 35mm f/2 Biogon T* Lens for Sony E Mount at BHphoto, Adorama, WexUK, CameraPro.
Zeiss Lens Hood for Loxia 50mm f/2 Planar T* Lens at BHphoto and Adorama.
Zeiss Lens Hood for Loxia 35mm f/2 Biogon T* Lens at BHphoto and Adorama.
Zeiss 52mm Front Lens Cap for Touit and Loxia Lenses at BHphoto and Adorama.
Zeiss De-Click Key for Loxia Lenses (5-Piece Set) at BHphoto and Adorama.
Zeiss Rear Lens Cap for Loxia E-Mount Lenses at BHphoto and Adorama.
0 Responses
What is so great about that?! All I hear is the A7 produces problems for lens manufacturers because of its design. Maybe that is why there are just a few lenses. Admin, your attempt to frame these issues for A7 owners as a positive thing is really starting to get annoying.. I like Sony products and own a A7 myself, but I really cannot see the bright side of the lack of lenses and the problems that the A7 design brings for manufacturers.
Plenty of manufacturers make lenses for the a7… The issue is you can’t just bolt a new mount on an old rf design.
Please Andrew enlighten us as to which manufacturers you are referring? Al we have are lenses from Sony, Zeiss, Mitakon and some modified tubes from Samyang. Clearly you are ignoring the widespread dissatisfaction by A7 owners because of the lack of lenses.
I do not quite understand the widespread dissatisfaction remark. I f.e. use Tamron 90mm VC, Canon 40mm USM and Canon 70 – 300 IS, with a Metabones adapter and are very pleased with the results. Suddenly there is a problem with 3rd party lenses because of a slab of glass on the sensor. Yes, not all glass works well with the A7’s but, come on just use google a bit and you can see from other users experience what old and new glass does work. I would suggest people to go out and shoot, instead of “creating” problems that are not there.
U don’t understand the remark because you do not feel the need to shoot without an adapter. If you are only capable of using a certain lens if you place an adapter between the lens and camera then isn’t that enough for you to understand the statement? It is a poor choice of strategy. Since Sony doesn’t show enough confidence in her own system other manufacturers are reluctant to develop lenses in e-mount.
How has Sony not shown enough confidence in its own system? Sony released 3 FE camera bodies, 7 FE lenses, and a host of accessories all within a year.
Do you want Sony to pay competitors to design lenses to compete with?
Given that FE is less than a year old maybe it goes to show you that it takes time to design and manufacture lenses and 3rd parties do not want to invest until there are a sufficiently large user base to recoup an investment.
How many third party apps were available in the first year of the iphone?
Well being FF camera’s, with a lot of bells and whistles, I think it’s fair to assume that a large number of these camera’s are bought by prosumers, who are capable of shooting manual. Beside the large choice of Canon lenses together with the metabones adapter you could also opt for the A-mount lenses via the excellent A-mount adapter.
As Christopher also mentions the system is only 1 year old, what do you expect a new system introduced with 20 lenses and rather in one go?
Look at the FE roadmap, I think that it is quite promising what Sony is delivering and it shows clearly a lot of confidence in the system.
And while the Metabones for Canon transmits electronic, and I assume the Tamron is a Canon mount, most other adapters, including for Nikon, don’t transmit electronics. Nothing ‘wrong’ with fully manual lens, but what this means is, the A7 is blind to an lens being in place. Aperture reading by the camera is simply reactive to the light transmitted (which is nice viewing live) but focus I a pain as focus peaking doesn’t activate when holding the button an turning the focus ring like an electronically communicating lens, essentially, the A7 interprets as no lens attached.
Finally, read elsewhere that lens manufacturers taking shortcuts and minimize expense, relying on external software to correct lens issues rather than extreme optical design. Jpg typically corrected in camera but RAW is a different story. Adobe will design profiles for specific camera/(popular) non-adapter lens combinations but you will have to either design your custom profile or manually adjust every photo an adapter and who knows what lens that isn’t specified in the metadata.
Zeiss, mitakon, Voigtlander (not native but the new 15mm is designed to accommodate the a7). All managing to make lenses without production problems. Who are you saying can’t make a7 lenses because of production problems?
Early adopters know what they are getting into. If you want a mature system, buying into a camera system that is less than a year old is less than ideal. Expecting more lenses than have been released (an amazing number in such a short period of time) is incredibly unrealistic. It’s not as though there aren’t other options if you need dozens of lenses to choose from.
Doubt that as the A7 was just released last year and do you honestly expect they’ll be no problems adapting lenses that wasn’t designed for cameras like the A7 in mind?
2015 will be the year where Sony fulfils most of the demand regarding lenses.
I don’t expect that there won’t be any problems to adapt lenses for the A7 system. But I am just surprised that Sony doesn’t pursue a more aggresive strategy to push lens manufacturers to adapt to the system and design lenses specifically for it. Also, by releasing so little lenses for the A7 system Sony doesn’t show any confidence in the succes of its own device, which is in my view a poor choice of strategy. The admin tries to frame this as a positive thing which is ridiculous. Instead of pointing out that it is too bad.
They released more lenses than any other system to date in such a time frame after initial introduction. Does that mean there was “no confidence” from other manufacturers in any of their systems?
Way to spin an article addressing questions regarding the differences between RF designs and the Loxia line, into another rant about your wish for more lenses.
So when they discontinue the design of the sensor used on A7 but with another kind of sensor, design and sell another set of tailor-made lenses? Then we buy a whole set of lenses again?
Sony, just give us an a7 successor with IBIS already. It would be the perfect combo with this the Loxias!
I think the takeaway is that film era lenses may perform less as well as newer lenses. I have adapted Canon 17mm and 24mm ts lenses (on a7r), designed for Canon dslrs, with excellent results. Image results were superior to what I would have expected from a 5d2 or 3.
Diglloyd has discovered that the rangefinder lenses (e.g. ZM 35mm f1.4) tend to have severe field curvature when coupled with the Sony sensor (with a thicker glass layer in front of the sensor than the Leica M240)
Hmmm…”lenses… needed to be designed specially for the A-7, which presents problems for lens manufacturers”
Does that mean the FE35, FE55, FE24-70 and FE70-200 were not ‘specially designed’?
To argue that the Loxia lenses have much better performance for this reason is to blow a hole straight through the credibility of every other lens released thus far. I really don’t know what to think, as it can only mean one party or another is either stupid, lying, or just plain bonkers.
Well you’re just assuming that and they didn’t say that, all they are saying is the Loxia need to be specially designed, in particular the 35 Biogon as many people has tested (the ZM version) and it just doesn’t work properly with digital sensors.
FYI: The Loxia line is based on the ZM lens, hence why they need to specially designed it for the A7 to take account of the glass layer thickness.
No, there is a clear implication in the short article that the great improvement shown by the Loxia is down to it being designed especially for the A7. To assume otherwise from what is written would make no sense at all.
The starting point is irrelevant.
If lens A is specially designed to suit the A7, and lens B is also specially designed to suit the same camera, the relative performance of each lens should not be attributed to it being ‘specially designed for the camera’.
The Biogon design as far as i Know is a symmetric design which is known to create problematic corners on the A7. They are however lenses that were designed for RF thus allowing small and light lenses compared to SLR retro focus designs not exhibiting problem on the A7.
Zeiss chose that design because they wanted to produce small lenses to remain in the philosophy of the system. But people using legacy lenses know well about the problem caused by Biogons and symmetric design. Hence the need for Zeiss to reassure their potential customers by comparing two Biogon designs.
I own two Zeiss Contax G lenses using the Biogon design and know they are very bad performers on the A7. So I was really surprised when Zeiss announced that the new Loxia 35mm was using the Biogon design. So these explanations were welcome. Although for me I will believe it when I see it (aka read the first tests).
This gas nothing to do with the other Sony Zeiss lenses : of course we can assume that every native lenses should rake the body in account. But this concerns the Biogon design.
everyone is comparing the ZM with the Loxia. no comparison is being made with the FE 35 which is a great lens.
Improvements are of the loxia with respect to the ZM when mounted on the A7. the ZM was obviously not designed with the A7 series in mind. The loxia is.
The FE 35 produces better edges at f/2.8 but it is…
…simply not f/2.
yes indeed, but that’s my point: we are not talking about the FE 35.
obviously, ZM 35/2 and loxia 35/2 are very comparable:
– both 35
– both f/2
– both manual focus
– both zeiss.
Which makes the whole article about it being better an utter nonsense! Why would anyone think that an old lens, not designed for this use, would be particularly good?
If I put four bicycle wheels (even excellent and expensive bicycle wheels) on my car, no-one would expect them to perform well. If I then put specifically made wheels on, no-one would be the least surprised at the improvement. This is just such a case.
As Mony Python would say, “They’re just saying the bleedin’ obvious!”
nonsense or not, that’s what it is…
Well whoopy do!
I thought the idea of this site was to examine the possible direction of Sony cameras, not have witterings about things that are self-evident!
Nonsense.
It never implied that no other lenses make these corrections or that it performs better than all other lenses because of that. No idea how you get that notion.
Of course FE lenses are tailored to FF E mount cameras. The same doesn’t have to be true though of lenses simply using an adapter, but designed for film or other digital mounts/cameras.
It’s not even compared to native FE lenses for image quality in the article, it’s compared to RF designs and as such, comments regarding image quality are made in that context.
It stated “These deliver a major improvement” and then “It needed to be specifically designed for the A7”. There is a clear undeniable link between the two statements.
Indeed, they are the only two statements made so it is perfectly reasonable to infer that one leads to the other.
I merely questioned why the need to make the statement as I would have assumed the other lenses were designed specifically for the A7.
improvement over what?
The context is pretty clear from the body of the text: ZM lenses. Improvements over the ZM lenses. Specifically designed for the A7, where the ZM lenses are not.
Why would you infer that Sony, maker of the a7, didn’t optimize FE lenses with this in mind?
I have no particular reason to think they are, but these could still just be ZM’s with a compensating element for the A7/r/s’s fairly thick cover glass, which the ZM – designed for film – lacked.
http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2014/07/sensor-stack-thickness-part-iii-the-summary
They did not do to a good job withe 35/2. The corner mush is still there and they released it as such. What a shame!
From the article: “The extreme corners are still not perfect at f/2.0 but if you stop down a bit (which you would do anyway in such a situation), everything is fine.”
Zeiss’ own sample images (on Flickr) shows the corner mush at f/8 or so. No, they aren’t getting my money for this.
Any particular examples you can point to?
What 35/f2 lens do you recommend that’s better and cheaper? I’d like to get one.
tailor-made lenses to Sensors? I do not quite buy the idea. throw away the lenses when the design of sensors changes in future? Buy other set of lenses?
P.S. Please support umbrella revolution in Hong Kong.
You can’t mount E-mount lenses to other cameras anyway, so no problem there 😀
if sensor design changes, that’s a problem for Sony, but they will keep cameras reverse compatible
What if future e-mount camera use different kind of sensor structure. It is not logical when the current sensor is not reverse compatible so that needing new lenses design but the future sensors are reverse compatible.
A7x have same “structure” as earlier digital cameras. They are not fully compatible with film, through (for which ZMs were designed).
The structure of sensor of A7R and A7 are already very different, so that A7 is more easy to get ghost flare at night shot.
Maybe new sensors are compatible to that tailor-made lens.
It is not really a revolution. Anyway the police prepared rubber bullets. I’m not sure if the HK government are prepared to kill innocent civilians tonight. The communist party isfamous in that.
This is a negative for a purchaser who plans to principally use a Loxia lens on e-mount bodies other than a7: VG900, NEX 6, etc.
And will this tell Sony that it always needs to use thick cover glass in future body generations? Zeiss buyers hope to use their lenses for YEARS (and they will hold up). On the other hand, the a7 isn’t exactly a Leica. How many will be using the a7 body in 2020?
Andrea’s reaction is indeed weird.
I guess we need a test with the same lens mounted on a vg-9000 and an a7 to see if optimizing for a7 series adversely affects other e mount bodies.
In all e mount bodies, cover glass thickness is approximately the same, so it will work ok or them too.
Sony has their own lenses designed for thick cover glass, so they will keep that.
The cover glass thickness is also very close to Canon EF bodies. Roger at lens rentals has done some articles on this, Canon, Sony and Nikon all have glass around 2 mm (varies a bit between bodies), m4/3 around 4 mm thick and film 0 mm thick. So lenses designed for film often have some issues on modern digital bodies that have cover glasses. Leica cover glasses are thinner which helps with older Leica lenses designed for film. The effect is stronger at wide apertures and short focal lengths.
Sony glass is most thickest and strongest! No wimpy glass in procamera.
You know about the thickness of filterstacks in front of sensors used in Canon or Nikon DSLRs?
Huge difference between the two. We have to take into account three important facts:
1.Both are primes and are used wide open – so corner sharpness can’t be very good like in the f5.6-f11 range
2.Foliage suffers from windy blows so it can’t be super-sharp.
3.Adapted lenses usually suffer from CA and sharpness loss vs. native lenses.
I think this Loxia line will be great indeed considering the EVF advantage when using MF. Add a 20/21mm and an 85mm and the line is kinda complete for most shooters (for others seeking more reach there are the 70-200 f4 G OSS and other lenses that are in develompent by Sony).
http://photobyandrei.wordpress.com/
2. it’s daylight photo at f/2, so exposure HAD to be very short
Depends how powerful was the breeze and how fast was the shutter speed…If no breeze then forget about my second fact.
Update: the speed was 1/4000 so the wind had nothing to do regarding sharpness.
Breeze moves canera too, so doesn’t matter!
LOL wot?
Camera and breeze are both moved then everything is fine again. Like taking picture of boyfriend on paddleboat. Everything moves but the same!
Because the wind speed is exactly the same everywhere, right?
If you read the article, the comparison shot was made at f/2.0 and focus was set on the center, not the corner. So strong field curvature here. If you stop down, or focus on the corner, the result should be also much better. However at f/2.0 then the center might be out of focus.. Of course, the Loxia shows very much improved corners, however the example still is not set the focus to the corner, so there might still be an improvement possibe – just speculating, I would nether get one or the other. Personally I really like the 35mm f2 from the RX1, which I am not sure if Zeiss or Sony actually designed.
I took also a comparison shot with both lenses focused in the corner. Not much difference for the Loxia but a huge difference for the ZM Biogon. It became better in the corner (but still not better than the Loxia) but in that case the center was strongly blurred. This indicates the strong field curvature when the ZM Biogon is used on A7 series.
Well I’ve gotten my daily dose of absurd reasoning and “logic” for the day reading some of these posts. Time to go to work and start shooting.
Are you a postal worker?
Lol, no but I frequently visit SAR.
Very optimizid and so much better than Otus!
There is clear camera shake and under exposure on the right image. Sure there is probably a difference between the two lenses, but I’d like to see the real difference when all others variables effecting image quality are eliminated.
Camera shake at 1/4000th, I think not…
If you look at the full sized pictures, you’ll note that:
A) physical exposures are identical
B) the focus point on both shows similar sharpness (no shake)
C) the one from the ZM lens shows a lot more vignetting (hence the darker corner posted…)
D) the one from the ZM lens shows a lot more PF
E) the one from the ZM lens shows a lot more corner smearing
F) the one from the ZM shows more glare wide open, even in the center
I thought the Loxia 50mm was supposed to ship in the US on September 30th. Haven’t heard anything yet. I preordered at B & H. Can’t wait to give it a try on the a7s.
This is a crappy result. I would return both lenses without hesitation.
Hahahaha.. oh well, get the Otuses then.
You can view the full size version of the FE 35mm Loxia on Flicker. It is directly referenced on the Zeiss Loxia English site. When you do so, it appears to me that additional blur is present because the leaves are somewhat in front of the plane of focus. Take a look at the vertical branches as you approach the corner. They appear to be in better focus. I’m not so sure that a tree is the best test subject, but then again it is a bit much to expect the focus plane to be perfectly flat, so a wall isn’t great either. I’ve four wide angle ZM Biogons and they don’t shine on my A7, so I somewhat discounted this lens, but I think this is worth a second look once the lens is in wider circulation.
Ooops.. one of them is a Contax G…the 28mm
I think that the point is that given real world requirements, the corners look like they will probably be acceptable.
I wonder why leaves and branches, which sway under slightest wind, were chosen for comparison.