Zeiss 24mm f/2 review now posted

[bfitzgerald]

Pretty big for a short focal length prime it does look good but so it should for the asking price.
Not sure the Minolta 24mm deserves a bad rap it's not a bad lens and significantly cheaper than this new offering.

[David Kilpatrick]

The Minolta 24mm AF is as good as Canon or Nikon or any similar lens - the point is that all of them have relatively strong vignetting on full frame digital, very soft corners wide open, and visible distortion. If that was not so, Canon and Nikon pro users would generally use the 24mm f/2.8 primes and the 24mm Minolta would command high prices s/h.

It's not that these lenses were ever 'poor' by the standards of film, just that lenses designed 20 years later specifically for digital are proving better.

Right now, Canon and Nikon do not have anything quite like the 24mm f/2 though as rightly pointed out the f/1.4 versions are not much bigger - though for me, 77mm filters and 650g is simply a further step 'too big' over 72mm and 555g. They don't have a £1000 offering, only a £1500 one.

Samyang does have a 24mm f/1.4 lens - new. It's designed to cover APS-C only, unless ads are wrong.

David

[agorabasta]

OK, I understand that discussing the SEL 16mm is a kind of off-topic in this thread, but I'd still like to post some samples to back up my points above in the thread.

So below is an image shot with one of the older 'regular' 16mm on a Nex5 @f/5. I exaggerated both contrast and sharpness and killed all luma NR just to make it all more apparent. Then there's a central 100% crop, the focus was in the centre.
The next post has both left and right edge middle crops at 100%.

I think the focus plane position is more than obvious here.

[agorabasta]

Now the left and right edge middle crops at 100%.

left_middle.jpg

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right_middle.jpg

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In all these samples the sharpening was done without any masking - all the edges are sharpened equally, nothing is dampened.
If anybody is interested, I can e-mail the original raw file.

[David Kilpatrick]

I don't think anyone has ever complained about the quality in the centre of the frame ends. All complaints have related specifically to the extreme corners - beyond the range of a circle whose diameter comfortably includes the left and right edge zones. And they generally relate to f/2.8 not any degree of stopped-down aperture.

David

[agorabasta]

David, the focus plane won't move with aperture. My example is to show the real curvature, so stopping down just makes it most clear by removing any other irregular blurring effects.
So it curves inwards.

[Greg Beetham]

I already had the impression that that lens had a large dof in front of the focus point from past examples and that image seems to confirm it more than ever, the items in the room well in front of the focus point look much sharper than the items behind the focus point too my eye, it’s a good job you focussed so deep into the room imho agorabasta.
Greg

[David Kilpatrick]

Agorabasta - what you've shown is well within depth of field at f/5 though. The 16mm shows a typical curvature pattern for a single aspherical surface (two or more aspherical surfaces normally contribute to moustache-type distortion and complex field flatness).

More to the point, if I was to - and maybe I will - do a direct comparison of the 16mm f/2.8 wide open against the 16-50mm f/2.8 SSM wide open, it's possible the 16mm would be judged better. Yet the 16-50mm gets praised and the 16mm gets slated.

David

[agorabasta]

Agorabasta - what you've shown is well within depth of field at f/5 though.

Yes it is, but only for the foreground. The background is falling out of focus too fast towards the edges.

You may try a simplest test with your computer screen. Place the cam at 45deg from the display surface close enough to the screen to cover the cam frame vertically and do the best MF in a close corner of the frame. You get a DoF well till the frame centre but curving inwards at upper and lower edges.
Or, better yet, use a large TV screen with a static image for a target.

And you are quite right about the 'standard' zooms' performance at the widest position. I always try to stay at least 2mm from the widest position for the APS-only zooms (but always tempted to use the widest and crop afterwards).

[Dr. Harout]

May I change the subject a bit?
David, you mentioned in your article:

Also, Sony Alpha lenses are made in many places – the old Minolta unit, the new CZ-Sony collaboration, co-developed with Tamron and apparently also with Sigma, built by Shanghai Optical or some other owned and partnership facilities in China, made in Thailand but not apparently any more in Malaysia…

We were debating your article today with 2 serious photographers (also connoisseurs of lenses and cameras), and the main question was: where is that lens manufactured? And in general, where are CZ lenses manufactured?
One of them strictly says that it should be ex-Minolta manufactured...
As for me, I lean for a probable Chinese assembly (remember the odd AF/MF switch construction on the lens with a double sided tape?)...

[David Kilpatrick]

As fas as I know:

CZ-Sony is a factory or part of an existing factory located in Japan after an attempt to set one up in China failed (did not meet CZ requirements). I think it's entirely possible that Sigma is a third partner in the Sony CZ production flow; they apparently make elements, and coat elements, for the T* designated lenses (and have for a long time supplied elements to Zeiss, Leica and most other big manufacturers). Sigma made a very good 28-70mm MD lens for Minolta which rather embarassingly won awards and was 'better' than Minolta's own more expensive option.

G factory is the former Minolta/KM team, relocated with some of their plant from the old Sakai works (the plant was definitely uplifted, some may have been sent to China, some may have remained in Japan, and some new equipment will have been bought). But the G range is Minolta heritage.

All the carried-over Minolta designs also belong to that unit - you can tell what equipment was transferred, by the lenses they continued to make such as the 100mm macro, 50mm macro, etc. Lenses which were discontinued may have been dropped because the glass types were no longer available (regulations), demand had never justified them (200mm macro maybe) or the moulds and dies all were at the end of their life. Or new designs were already on the table to replace them before Sony took over.

NEX we know is a new facility, or use of various new ones. Kit lenses are China. Specific designs are Tamron, and made by Tamron by Sony - 11-18mm, 18-250mm etc.

I do not believe any current lenses are made by Hoya for Sony. Tokina (Hoya) was responsible for the 100-300mm designs except the xi, for the 100-400mm, and a couple of kit lenses.

As far as I know Cosina has only ever made kit lenses for Minolta MD, and never made any AF lenses, but their relationship with Zeiss means they could be involved.

Finally - for all we know, a lens like the 16-50mm f/2.8 could be 'made' by three or four different subcontractors and assembled in-house or even by a further subcontractor. The moment you start putting aspheric elements, LD, UD, SD, ED, moulded aspherics, hybrid aspherics, water and dirt repellent coating and similar things into any lens, outside specialist suppliers of these patented or proprietary bits can be involved.

Rather like making a car. All sorts of components are needed and some are only made by one company.

David

[InTheSky]

The 28mm 2.0 in your pictures of the review, is it the one you were selling last day ?

Frank

[David Kilpatrick]

Yes, that's the lens.

David

[alwangalwang]

The best way to get the 84° coverage with similar near-perfect rendering is to go for the mid-range of a high end zoom. As it happens, Sigma’s 8-16mm is better at 16mm than any of the above-mentioned APS-C options and you can also get a pretty good 16mm from their 10-20mm options and Tamron’s 10-24mm. Tokina’s 11-16mm f/2.8 is weakest at 16mm, best at 11mm. The older Sony 11-18mm is not wonderful at the longer end.

David, are you saying you feel the Sigma 10-20 at 16mm is superior to the CZ 16-80 (or the sony 16-50) at 16mm? That hasn't been my experience, but I may need to re-evaluate.

[David Kilpatrick]

Depends on which 10-20mm and how you use it. What I can say for certain is that the 16mm end of the 8-16mm in my possession, and the non-Sony samples I have used (two different ones, both Nikon fit) is better than the 16-80mm at 16mm - less vignetting, no CA, very sharp clean image indeed, low distortion.

Please note - I may be using technical language - when I say 'rendering' I am using a shortened form of 'geometric rendering' - and that really means distortion qualities only.

The 10-20mms are not bad at all at 16mm for vignetting and distortion, but in my experience having owned two of the early type (still got one) and tested one of the later ones, not as critical sharp as the 8-16mm - I can't really emphasise how much of an unexpected advance the 8-16mm has been, they claimed it was based on the 10-20mm design but I have found it far better.

The quality of the 8-16mm on the A77 is so good I have no reason to need my 12-24mm and A900.

I'm still hoping we eventually get the 12-24mm updated to the same design as the 8-16mm, for Sony. It's happened for the other mounts.

David