It seems as if the Zeiss-Sony relationship has cooled off a little lately- probably because both want to harvest the premium segment. Zeiss appears to gravitate towards their own Zeiss Batis lens lineup now whereas Sony is focusing on Sony G and GM lenses. However, a while ago, the Sony / Zeiss Distagon T* FE 35mm f/1.4 ZA was one of the first high-speed, pro-grade lenses released for Sony’s full format mirrorless system. As you may have guessed already, such a lens isn’t cheap at around 1500USD/EUR. However, and this may come as a shock to some, it is a…
Author: Klaus
by Klaus Schroiff, published September 2017 Introduction The Sony FE system is quite blessed by many lens options these days. While the third-party gang hasn’t really started supporting the system, both Sony and its close ally Zeiss have been very busy beefing up the system lately. These days you also have several lenses to choose from in the ultra-wide segment. The latest and most extreme one is the Sony FE 12-24mm f/4 G. Being a G-class lens it is primarily targeting the semi-pro or “prosumer” market and it also means that you have to have fairly deep pockets regarding its…
by Klaus Schroiff, published August 2017 Introduction After having reviewed several hundred of lenses, there aren’t too many new lenses that make me truly excited to be honest. However, the Sony FE 100mm f/2.8 STF GM OSS is surely one of them. The high-level specs aren’t all that hot as you may notice – a 100mm f/2.8 is nothing to write home about after all. However, that’s the less interesting aspect here. The real story is described by the “STF” portion in the lens name. STF stands for “Smooth Trans Focus”. STF lenses feature an apodization (APD) element – a…
by Klaus Schroiff, published July 2017 Introduction You have a variety of choices when it comes to Zeiss lenses for Sony FE-mount cameras. Zeiss ZA lenses are co-developed, co-branded and marketed under the Sony umbrella. However, Zeiss is also offering several native lenses independent from the cooperation with Sony – namely the Zeiss Batis (AF) and Zeiss Loxia (manual focus) lenses. One of the most exciting of these lenses is the Zeiss Batis 18mm f/2.8 covered in this review. While the distribution channel may have changed, some things never do and the pricing falls into that category. Such ultra-wide prime…
The Micro-Four-Thirds (MFT) system is blessed by having two primary manufacturers. Their combined lineup is highly impressive by now and their standard zoom segment is especially crowded. Olympus is contributing lenses with three quality grades to the system and Panasonic adds at least two more – native Panasonic and Leica-branded lenses. The exact terms of the cooperation with Leica is not known but the Leica brand is certainly adding some poshness to MFT. One the the latest offsprings of this marriage is the Leica DG Vario-Elmarit 12-60mm f/2.8-4 ASPH Power OIS (gasp). Just to explain the “Vario-Elmarit” portion of the…
Which single lens would you take to a remote island? The answer will, of course, vary according to the individual preferences but many would probably chose a long-range zoom lens. Traditionally such lenses had a problem … or a couple of those – they were rather mediocre. Well, maybe with 2-3 exceptions: the Canon EF 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 USM L IS, Canon EF 35-350mm f/3.5-5.6 USM L and the Leica 14-150mm f/3.5-5.6 ASPH OIS. This short list (of DSLR lenses) may already give you an indication – long-range zoom lenses of decent quality come also with a hefty price tag. Olympus…
Sony’s full format mirrorless system has been an immense success in recent years and with the release of the Alpha 9 they are now truly threatening the remaining native DSLR homelands. The FE system has been traditionally weak regarding very long tele lenses. However, Sony is trying to catch up now. A little while ago they released the Sony FE 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G OSS – thus a mainstream tele zoom lens.Sony is offering 4 classes of lenses – the “plain” consumer lens, the G class and at the top of the line – Zeiss and Sony GM lenses. It’s probably…
Laowa may not be a well-known player to most of you but recently they caused quite some stir with their Laowa 105mm f/2 STF – a manual focus lens featuring an unusual apodization element for optimized bokeh rendering. Before that they released a 15mm f/4 Shift and a 60mm f/2.8 macro lens with 2:1 magnification. You probably agree that all this sounds exciting?! Well, this time they have something in the queue specifically designed for Micro-Four-Thirds cameras – the Laowa 7.5mm f/2 MFT. Once it’s released (planned: April 2017), it’ll be the fastest ultra-wide angle lens available for the system.…
When it comes to publicity and excitement, we are usually talking about lenses such as the Zeiss 24-70mm f/4 OSS or Sony FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM. However, in sheer sales volume, it is quite likely that the low-profile Sony FE 28-70mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS is first in line. It is often sold as part of a camera kit with the Sony A7 (II) but you can also buy it separately for around 450 US$/EUR. On eBay you can find white box variants for much less than that. However, even so – is it worth it? Technically the chances should be good…
In recent years Sony managed to make a big comeback thanks to their highly successful full-format mirrorless system. Unfortunately they neglected their traditional APS-C user base due to the ramp up efforts on the full format side. Their native APS-C mount lens lineup is slim to say the least and it also doesn’t really shine with many high quality options either. You can, of course, use Sony’s full format lenses on APS-C cameras but the price tags are correspondingly high and this doesn’t really help when it comes to standard zoom lenses. There’s one Sony standard zoom lens that we…