16mm, CV, Nikon & Contax G lens image comparisons on NEX

After collecting a variety of rangefinder lens for the NEX I spend half a day comparing image quality with a simple, un-scientific setup.

Lens tested were the Sony 16mm, Contax G Zeiss 28mm, 35mm, 45mm, Voigtlander 15mm F4.5, Schneider-Kreuznach 50mm f1.9 and Nikon 1.8D 50mm.

Camera was tripod mounted and moved to just fill the frame with the wall for each lens., 28mm at 10 feet, 16mm at 7 feet, etc.
Each lens was checked at wide open and F8, no filters attached

Aperture priority, 10 sec self timer, lighting via incandescent, raw images opened in PS with white balance applied, no other processing and saved as jpg

Cornerfix was not applied...the CV 15mm and Contax G 28mm images would improve if corrected.
The file names contain the lens id and aperture used.

If the link below does not work please copy and paste into browser.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=bradvineyard&target=ALBUM&id=5552873821002201201&authkey=Gv1sRgCOSCuseK3emWhQE&feat=email

I realize this is not a complete review nor a completely accurate comparison but should be helpful if you are contemplating buying any of these lens. The image corners at 100% tell the story.

It has been my experience some of these lens perform differently on the NEX than film cameras, not simply due to the full frame, but proximity of rear element to sensor and other factors effects NEX performance.

In my opinion the Zeiss G 45mm has the highest corner to corner resolution vs any other lens that I have used on the NEX which should not be surprising.

Thanks for the comparisons. Given how much people complain about the 16mm pancake, I was expecting the other lenses to be be a whole lot sharper than what the 16mm was producing. What I saw was a noticeable but not a dramatic difference, besides the barrel distortion which was significant.

Is part of the barrel distortion on the 16mm because it's a wide angle lens?

Maybe later on when I begin to take more pictures and look at them closer I'll be able to come back and see a bigger difference in quality.

When the carl-zeiss lenses are released, do people expect there to be a huge difference in image quality? Or are we talking about subtle differences that you really have to look for?

I was also surprised that the 16mm compared as favorably as it did. The barrel distortion can be corrected in post processing but I still favor the CV 15MM after applying Cornerfix, simply because it has interesting rendering qualities that is hard to explain.

The Zeiss Contax G 45mm F2 is becoming a favorite as well, particularly for portraits.

I did not include the CV 90mm and an old German made Voigtlander 135mm F4 for comparison, both are very sharp on the NEX, at least when used on a tripod.

I have seen great photos taken with the Sony kit lens, so for me it is mostly a matter of personal preference. I actually enjoy using manual focus more than I expected.

Please note I focused on the center wall in every photo, not on the newspaper.

Thanks Brad - interesting comparison. I was a little disappointed with my Contax 28 - but mainly in comparison with the 90 f2.8 - which I think may be the best resolving lens I've ever owned, including my Canon L primes.

The corner darkening and purple tint was greater than I expected, but is fairly easily corrected.

I don't have either the 35 or 45 Contax, but from your test the 45 looks to be superior. I bought the Olympus Pen-F 40 f1.4 instead, and it is delightfully sharp at f2, and really good even at f1.4. It has no corner issues, despite being 35mm half-frame.

I'm still debating buying the CV 12mm f5.6 - especially as the corners will need to be "fixed" on every image, though I probably will end up getting it.

One slightly annoying thing for me is that I had a bit of a "lens frenzy" when I dabbled in Micro-4/3 about 12 months ago and all that gear mostly sits in a bag now :-(

--

Judge: ' This image may be better in black and white - perhaps even just black! '

Interesting test.

I feel that all these rangefinder lenses (compact) technically perform quite poorly across the frame. Perhaps they are different on film. They are all fairly soft in the corners compared to the Nikon full size lens. I wonder if this is just an optical fact of life.

Or whether these lenses exhibit more field curvature, which against a wall target like this mean softness.

Specifically the 15mm vs 16mm. On a landscape shot with a greater distance to subject i wonder what the difference would be then.

I bought a NEX specifically because of the size and my main lens is a CV 35 f1.4 (i have a canon LTM 50mm too). I love the results and the CV distorts like crazy but it's a nice look. So i'm not complaining just observing that perhaps you're not going to get SLR performance lens in a compact form factor. Perhaps that goes for the worshipped Leica and Zeiss glass too? I personally find the AA issues with the M8 amazing that anyone would put up with them, especially at that cost. But each to their own

cheers
paul

You may be right, in an earlier post ( http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1042&message=36797185 ) I compared the Nikon 28-70 F2.8 ED to the Zeiss 28mm @28mm. To my eyes the Nikon zoom easily wins this comparison.

While I have no plans to use the Nikon 28-70 on the NEX routinely due to size & weight, the 28-70 is the best glass I own with excellent results on any of my cameras.

Will continue using the smaller rangefinder lens until Sony offers a better option as I rarely travel with the heavy glass and there is not a huge difference when using certain rangefinder lens that do work well with the NEX.

Bottom line, I would take far fewer photos without the NEX and small lens.

Brad said:

I was also surprised that the 16mm compared as favorably as it did.

Click to expand...

Interesting, this might be a good distance for the 16mm, what was the distance?.

It would be good to document the distance to subject in tests (I know this is a hassle). This information is never available when we look at any picture, yet it seems that lenses (and this is very pronounced with the 16mm) perform very differently at different distances.

Thanks for the very interesting test. It looks like the camera is slightly pointed downwards? Also I am wondering if the light was better at the top, but that might be related to the downwards pointing.

A thought would be to also have the usual (ISO or other) photo test frame with converging horizontal and vertical and diagonal lines, in the center and in the corner. That would help make comparative judgments.

Brad said:

You may be right, in an earlier post ( http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1042&message=36797185 ) I compared the Nikon 28-70 F2.8 ED to the Zeiss 28mm @28mm. To my eyes the Nikon zoom easily wins this comparison.

Click to expand...

Assuming that the distance to sensor is a problem for wide-angle lenses, I think the answer is easy: use a collapsible design, that way the lens is small when the camera is in the pocket and bigger when it is in use.

The best/easiest-to-use implementation of this was of course the Minox 35mm (look at the closed picture also) which was smaller than the NEX:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minox#Minox_35mm_Cameras

As I said, not a scientific test ...time limits were an issue but I think these comparisons are still useful. There are so many ways to improve a test like this if time allows.

The 16mm was about 7 feet, the 15mm about 6 feet from the wall.

The tripod height was the same for each lens...although not precisely centered but close, each lens was positioned relatively the same on center, slightly pointed down, only distance from the wall was changed....I believe the 50mm's were about 14 feet and the 28 mm was 10 feet.

Good observation regarding the distance, in my experience the CV 15MM is far better than the Sony 16mm with distant objects.

To make a complete comparison certainly would be useful to compare near and far subjects with each lens....will try to find time during the holidays.