Image courtesy: ThePhoBlographer
Chris Gampat from ThePhoBlographer (Click here) tested the Zeiss 35mm FE lens and writes:
This lens is sharp, not too contrasty, has magnificent bokeh, and is very devoid of any flaws. In fact, it’s tough to find any 35mm mirrorless lens on the market that can beat this lens right now.
And the most unusual test with the Zeiss 35mm FE has been posted on Flickr (Click here). It’s a “Bikini” test:
New Sony A7R Test Photos of Bikini Swimsuit Model Goddess! Carl Zeiss Sony Sonnar T* FE 35mm f/2.8 ZA Lens finished in Lightroom 5.3 ! Was using the B+W 49mm Kaesemann Circular Polarizer MRC Filter on bright, sunny day. Check out the low glare off the rocks and water and the bright blue sky! Super sharp images and crystal-clear pictures!
I hope for our women followers that someone will do the sampe test with sexy firemans 🙂
UPDATE: Handheld lowlight testing I did last night with the Sony A7r with 35 Zeiss FE lens at Eruditephotography
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I (Andrea) own this lens since two weeks and now I found the time to start testing it. From the first samples I shot I can easily say I am very happy with the image quality in all his aspects. But for my kind of shooting (low light and interior) I really would love to have at leats 1 stop more (f/2.0 or even f/1.8). Hope Sony will do a faster (althaugh bigger) 35mm lens. Oh, yes, it’s a bit too expensive lens too.
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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
Sony G 28-70mm lens at Sony DE, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO.
Asia:
A7r at Digitalrev.
A7 at Digitalrev, Amazon Cina.
A7 with 28-70mm lens at Digitalrev.
56 Responses
Christmas Time is coming and a few of us wait for new A Mount Rumors? Whats coming in February, come on Santa Santa Claus..surprise us..
Weird comments from Phoblographer about the lens hood. I haven’t had any troubles with it and actually I never have to take it off from the lens. That is a huge plus. I didn’t even know it can be taken apart into two pieces.
Agreed- the hood is fine! What a bizarre thing to pick on.
I didn’t know it came apart into two pieces either. So I gave mine a slight pull apart, and realised it’s not meant to be taken apart – there is some sticky material holding the two pieces together. That’s why they were frustrated about the lens hood falling off – they essentially broke it before using it. Slightly annoyed at the review for suggesting the lens hood is meant to be in two pieces, because now I have to stick it together again.
Hot girl, she must have a very tasty liver (drool).
TPB = The Powers That Be
TPB = The Pirate Bay
A bit wierd acronym to use 😛
I thought about the Pirate Bay as well 🙂
Andrea – I expect that sigma will come out with a native emount for their 35 1.4 soon. It should be the answer to your needs. Also, you could use the sigma with the la-ea4 adapter
Admins name is Andreas, isn´t it?
Andrea is a girls name.
Not in Italy (he’s Italian).
Yes, I am actually half italian 🙂
Admin, didn’t you say you go hiking sometimes? How about a few landscape shots with the 35mm?
Yes I do. But lately I was extremely busy. Will take some “serious” shots soon. Actually I have a great idea, I will take sample shots of my cat. Nobody has done that before right? 🙂
Taking it all back – but I thought I had read your name on the screenshot with your question to Zeiss. Doesn´t matter, just my curiosity.
No click for the phoblographer. The bikini test is good though.
Glorious bokeh? I’d call it mediocre.
The Sigma 35 f/1.4 has glorious bokeh.
This
mediocre? i would call it horrible…
the shots with the girl in the sand, just look at the plants in the background, as worse as it gets
all I see in OOF highlights are onion rings, onion rings and onion rings. Also double contours visible in some areas. Bokeh is quite harsh overall, far away from real glorious Bokeh of the Zeiss 24 1.8 for NEX. There’s still nothing that convinced me to “upgrade” to the 35 2.8. The 24 1.8 is still superior in my opinion (also more expensive and bigger, maybe that’s why).
I have ordered the A7r and 55 1.8 but I am seeing a few issues that I hope readers of SAR can help me with. I am most definitely not trolling and genuinely hope that someone can tell me that this is not an issue.
When looking at pretty much all images at 100% I see quite a lot of artifacts (almost like little worms but not noise). I don’t get this with my RX1 or D800e. At first I thought it may be over-processed jpegs ooc but the bikini goddess pics have been processed from RAW through LR 5.3 and they are still there. Is it me or is anyone else seeing this.
I saw it too – with the logic of the high pixal count advocats: just look at the bikini goddess at a lower magnification – than she looks really “sharp” 😉
There has been a few discussions that LR 5.3 isn’t handling the a7(R) RAW’s very well and adding in artefacts. It seems to happen more when saturation is pushed. Some say the Sony converter with all defaults turned off is the best.
I thought it looked more like a water color filter. I assume it was from over processing.
If u have doubts & concerns especially at 100% than don’t buy it. No need to return it. Save the trouble. Buy something else instead that makes u happy.
Interesting comparison to the Nikon sensor since Sony made it and it’s identical to this one. Maybe u think the E is better because they paid for it from a third party whereas the originator of the sensor simply designed, prototyped, tested and produced it.
…..aaaaand here is -1C (feels like -4C), but this model warmed me 🙂
Bikini body ok, but the face is meh. Kinda like the A7R. Great body ugly zeiss face…
Once a male gets past what society has conditioned men to think about females, males realize that females serve very little purpose to a male, and for what a female might be able to do well for a male, most (if not all females) do very poorly.
Well, they do do thay sex thing which, even if poorly done is a….pretty good. As far as everything else, meh.
Wow, there really are some morons on here who have crappy lives.
If you weren’t such a loser, I would feel sorry for you.
I have to say, you are an absolute loser. Absolute, total, and complete.
Loser.
It doesn’t matter what age you are, either, unless you are 6 years old or less.
Rest assured that women want absolutely nothing to do with you.
Well, the ladies actually want lots to do with me. It might be the fact that I’m fairly good looking, have decent money and not overweight for my age. But after all, I didn’t come to this site for the ladies. I came for the blingin cameras that get the ladies. Some people are just to sensitive…geeez.
Tom, “Not an everyman” was talking about “deviantdevil”!
Yes Tom, Zoltan is correct, the comment was not directed at you.
By no stretch of the imagination could that girl be called ugly. However perhaps in an attempt to help balance the sexist images that invariably pop up you could pop a couple of photos of your handsome visage. And let the ladies decide I am sure it would be a treat for them
Looks like I’ve just been check mated. Damn!
Tom ,the ladies want chest not chess ! 🙂
This image was an unfortunate choice immediately under the bold text ” Image Quality” sub-heading :-)nothing in it is sharp
http://www.thephoblographer.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Chris-Gampat-The-Phoblographer-Sony-A7r-review-photos-brooklyn-bridge-reddit-walk-8-of-14ISO-1001-60-sec-at-f-4.5.jpg
But look at it at a smaller magnification – it looks really sharp than, doesn´t it or does it?^^
At 1:1 it looks like camera shake to me, wasn’t this guy who claimed that you need to put this camera on a tripod to get decent results? this lens weighs nothing, 1/60 is more than fast enough to eliminate camerashake. I can only assume he’s pressing the shutterbutton down to hard.
Just checked again…nope, chick is average. Face is not memorable and therefore bikini goddess she is not. The pictures with her ass square in the sand up in my face says do me…tasteless. The ones with more clothing toward the end are better. Pictures quality is very good, but bokeh is whatever.
I guess “glorious bokeh” means that out of focus areas are out of focus. This will be the case and will essentially be the case to the same degree for any lens of the same focal length and the same aperture setting for a given image format. Unclear is how this is more or less different than any other camera, nor how it is therefore “glorious.”
Under “build quality,” there is apparently no information about build quality other than the camera has sufficient integrity to hold itself together and to serve its design goals by taking pictures at the level we’d expect from any big name manufacturer of a premium price camera. How is this better or worse or the same than that of an other similar camera is what a reader wants to know.
For “camera” please read “photographic item,” which hopefully covers cameras, lenses, or cameras + lenses. 🙂
Modern cameras and lenses (especially at moderate apertures) render image so similar to the point of being distinguishable only by specialised tests and equipment.
Nice, um, bokeh. Yeah, bokeh. That’s the ticket.
The poor girl is freezing. She is very beautiful but suffers from heavy acne due to denaturized food, plastic water, cosmetics and stress. The A7r suffers from massive shutter shock even at 35mm, which is fully corrected by in-camera software, but only where things are in focus and sharp.
So I decided to look at one at 100%:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/herosjourneymythology45surf/11351470946/sizes/o/in/set-72157638624916726/
What’s with the water colour like effect? The rocks look terrible, gradients aren’t smooth (ie skin) … the hair is all smeared with no detail, and in general there’s a weird artifacting (check out the rocks) I’ve noticed this same kind of artifacting in the RX100 I just got (first Sony camera) and think it’s part of the noise reduction?… is this from flickr, the photographers PP or is it viewable in all A7R pics at full mag?
I noticed the above in most of the shots I zoomed in after noticing it
A similar theme that I shot last July. http://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/pic/33560564
And, I think my model is much more interesting to look at. http://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/pic/34112728
Greetings guys! Just got an A7 after much internal debating and LOVING IT!
Great ergonomics IMO, the buttons and dials especially. Thanks to those who gave suggestions before XD
Is the sel5518z worth the asking price? It’s currently the only native FE lens which is suited for low light.
Well, that guy sure doesn’t make the gear – or the girl – look good. Maybe if he learned to edit and post-process, and didn’t upload his whole memory card every time?
I’m sure glad there are male readers in here ready to inform us whether they think the model is attractive. Because their opinion is very important, of course.
+1
and most of these pictures in bright sunlight would look just as good with a little 20MP small sensor compact
If you want to model in basically nothing than expect a critique of your body. Nuff said…
This lens really does have excellent transitions from sharp focus to out of focus. Smooth, silky, attractive.
For a lens with some many corrections and compromises – this is really an amazing accomplishment.
Actually – the transitions are so good, that your eyes are “fooled” into feeling like the DoF is, indeed shallower than it is. It has that quality of an older, fast lens.
This part, they really got right!
Yes the pictures have a good 3D look, but nothing in that bokeh is smooth or silky. I’d rather call it harsh
I don’t know if the bikini girl photos are badly PP’ed but I find the quality very disappointing. As others have mentioned, the bokeh in the corners of some of the shots is horrible, especially those plants and the girls face looks horribly over sharpened or lacking in DR, I am not sure what it is. The skin tones certainly aren’t pleasant to me.
I mean, sure the quality is good, but this is $800 Zeiss lens that isn’t particularly fast.
One more thing, for the love of god, if you are going to do a bikini shoot, wax!
I shouldn’t expect a 35 to offer much bokeh. The samples were good not great but the lighting conditions weren’t helpful. The only shot offered with any significant bokeh was certainly not going to be what one buys a 35 to do. So I would have to disagree with the assessment for “glorious” bokeh, and borrow the title from the movie “inglorious” instead to describe its bokeh ability and usefulness. It is rather a very sharp arrow in ones quiver. It shoots fast and easy. Definitely not for low light. It should come as no surprise to those who have used a 35 before that this has little indoor use. It’s first and foremost a landscape lens. It can be a primary travel companion but not the one I’d take. Not until I started using it did I realize fully the extent to which Sony launched their full frame MILC w/o sufficient forces. The 24-70 is a rather slow 4 and with all the FOV and DOF and focal length squabbling that goes on one would do well to reconsider this setup for everything but travel and light photography. Sony does not offer a RAW converter with image adjuster shall we say with any of the dimensions of Adobe. A few sliders and you’re really no better off than using Picassa on the web. For that reason alone it is a plus for me since my eyes aren’t paid to get sore and I can fall back on that and shoot jpg alone. For the large crop of users who claim to be semi-pro according to their self description on B&H reviews I’d have to say it’s a good all round setup that most likely for the money is a far better option than anything else offered by Fuji, Canon or Nikon. Unless you’re serious about micro 4/3’s and I seriously doubt their value not having used it though there is very little scientific evidence that a M1 can compete with the brilliant color of the a7. Besides the occasional novitiate most camera lovers today spend their time bragging about their Voits, L’s for Leica nary the Canon, a mix of medium formats and someone now and again who claims to have shot for the ground forces in WW2 and Disney Pictures at RKO. All jokes aside if you’re looking for bokeh look elsewhere.