micro contrast, lens character, and skin tones--4 manufacturers

Zeiss, Minolta, Sigma and Tamron.

I shoot an a850, and only RAW. I have been shooting a Minolta 85 1.4 as my main portrait lens for some time. I ordered a Sigma 85 1.4 the other day. The lens is incredibly sharp, quite, with quick AF.

However, images are certainly sharper but distinctly more "digital" than with my Minolta 85. The colors are handled subtly yet differently. Yellow caste on the Sigma. Reminded me of my Nikon files from d80/300/7000. I prefer the images from my Minolta more, even though they are technically worse than the Sigma. In fact, at 85, I prefer the Tamron more as well. This interested me.

Also, I have been reading about the 3-D of Zeiss lenses. And looking at samples as well as my own pictures for pop and micro contrast (Zeiss 135 and 24-70 both use T coating).

Lastly, I recently got rid of my Minolta 80-200 G, and then picked a Tamron 70-200 2.8 (what a lens!), which has turned in some lovely photos.

I conducted this experiment to capture the difference is skin tones with the micro contrast and coatings in the different lenses. One is with a sigma 85 1.4, Minolta 85 1.4, Tamron 70-200 (at 85mm), and Zeiss 24-70 (shot at 70mm, though with tripod slightly closer). All the same light, shot within seconds of each other. Any exposure difference is from the t-stops, not metering/shutter speed/iso. This also confirmed my suspicion that my new Sigma is brighter than my Minolta by about 1/3 a stop. I was specifically interested in skin tones, micro contrast, and the color hue of each lens. All photos were shot at f4 and 1/25 of a second--this test is not meant to test sharpness, that can easily be found elsewhere. Anyway, as fellow alpha shooters, I thought some of you might find this interesting or helpful.

I dearly wish I had either my 85 2.8 or 50 1.4 for a Sony representative. But I would rate is somewhere between the Sigma and the Minolta in terms of color profile. All photos are processed in LR4 and unedited.

After studying the photos against each other, I see differences.