just does it.
Dare I mention the new age curse of onion rings? Sure I do, the FE55 gets panned for this too often, take a look at the 35/1.4 image here, in which they are more apparent; in almost all imagery the RX1's are invisible. The Sonnar has greater 3D as well due to subtle gradation - look along the arm. Also less blade shaping in highlight balls.
Note the dreamy OOF of the Sonnar, everything in its right place. Detail retention in background OOF areas is an RX1 specialty, something I look for in any lens, I want the viewer to have a 'wandering eye' over all the image - imparting some mystery to the image is easy to say, but very rare in optics. The RX1 seems to offer beautiful OOF depiction across all the depth of its images.
The Sonnar never looks 'obviously sharp', a hallmark of medium format photography. Much smoother contrast edging, greater authenticity on the couch material, the faster lens makes it look like an artifact.
And this is against what might be the finest fast 35 around (with the caveat I have not seen much from the new Canon lens in this critical in focus - OOF area). These fast lenses live or die on how separation works in them and frankly many of them overdo it, even stopped down a little.
To cap it all, the whole camera weighs 75% the weight of the fast lens alone, has a much flatter field at middle apertures, has a fine macro setting, costs less in good shape, never suffers sensor dust, has a great chassis/lens interface for strength/durability, is a great backup to an a7 camera, does great at any aperture (great corners). Why does everyone not own one?
BTW, the Sonnar is 32-33mm native, has very low distortion native so you can use it OOC. Sony think this is one of the finest lenses made and I agree with them.
I never leave home without mine and its been that way since day one.
