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Sony/Zeiss 24mm 1.8, softness in edges?!

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cactusf3ar

cactusf3ar

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Hi all, first post here!

I have been a Canon shooter for ages, but during Black Friday sales I finally jumped ship and got an a6500 paired with a used Sony/Zeiss 24mm 1.8. This was my dream combo for a long time, and I was hoping this lens could be a great all-in-one performer (street, portrait, light macro, landscape) while I travel.

I was extremely impressed with this lens in all categories, EXCEPT for sharpness... the center of the frame is sharper than any APS-C lens I've ever used, but the edges of the frame (not just corners - anything outside center of frame) are SOFT!! No matter what aperture I stop down to, the edges never sharpen up.

In fact, I took a few test shots with my 16-50 kit lens and the Zeiss, and while center sharpness was better on the Zeiss, the edge sharpness even at f/4.5 (max aperture on kit lens @24mm) was superior on the kit lens! Test shots are in my gallery, linked below. Long story short, the Zeiss lens was extremely soft in the corners no matter what I did, and the kit lens beat it all apertures.

Test shot 1 : Outdoors, shot at f/8.

Shot 1 Left Edge crop : Zeiss on the left, kit lens @24mm on the right.

Test shot 2 : Indoors, shot at f/4.5.

Shot 2 upper right crop : Zeiss on the left, kit on the right.

If this Zeiss lens can't be used for landscapes, then it isn't what I hoped for and will not make a good travel lens for me. The lens is not decentered, I already tested it for that. Has anyone else experienced something similar with Sony/Zeiss 24mm 1.8? Do I have a bad copy? By all accounts, this is supposed to be the BEST lens on Sony E mount, so I am quite disappointed...

Prior to acquiring the Sony a6500, I was using a Canon 70D + EF-S 24mm pancake lens, which I liked very much for stills and is very sharp in the edges. The reason to move to Sony was mainly for video...
 
dxomark shows the kit zoom at 25mm is just as good as the zeiss at 24mm, both at f/8.

Loading…

www.dxomark.com

That said, it looks like you may have a bad copy - the edges are not that good.

Keep in mind that the reputation of the zeiss 24 is not really based on amazing sharpness, blessed sharpness. Its reputation is based more on rendering and "pop" than simple sharpness. The lens allegedly takes better photos rather than sharper photos.

Some people agree and some don't, of course.
 
cactusf3ar said:
Hi all, first post here!

I have been a Canon shooter for ages, but during Black Friday sales I finally jumped ship and got an a6500 paired with a used Sony/Zeiss 24mm 1.8. This was my dream combo for a long time, and I was hoping this lens could be a great all-in-one performer (street, portrait, light macro, landscape) while I travel.

I was extremely impressed with this lens in all categories, EXCEPT for sharpness... the center of the frame is sharper than any APS-C lens I've ever used, but the edges of the frame (not just corners - anything outside center of frame) are SOFT!! No matter what aperture I stop down to, the edges never sharpen up.

In fact, I took a few test shots with my 16-50 kit lens and the Zeiss, and while center sharpness was better on the Zeiss, the edge sharpness even at f/4.5 (max aperture on kit lens @24mm) was superior on the kit lens! Test shots are in my gallery, linked below. Long story short, the Zeiss lens was extremely soft in the corners no matter what I did, and the kit lens beat it all apertures.

Test shot 1 : Outdoors, shot at f/8.

Shot 1 Left Edge crop : Zeiss on the left, kit lens @24mm on the right.

Test shot 2 : Indoors, shot at f/4.5.

Shot 2 upper right crop : Zeiss on the left, kit on the right.

If this Zeiss lens can't be used for landscapes, then it isn't what I hoped for and will not make a good travel lens for me. The lens is not decentered, I already tested it for that. Has anyone else experienced something similar with Sony/Zeiss 24mm 1.8? Do I have a bad copy? By all accounts, this is supposed to be the BEST lens on Sony E mount, so I am quite disappointed...

Prior to acquiring the Sony a6500, I was using a Canon 70D + EF-S 24mm pancake lens, which I liked very much for stills and is very sharp in the edges. The reason to move to Sony was mainly for video...
Click to expand...
My copy is awesome. I shoot a lot more at wide apertures but I think my copy is nice and sharp across the frame @ f/8. I don't to tons of landscape but feel very comfy relying on it for an all purpose while hiking around in the mountains of Idaho.

I'm pretty new here as well and for the life of me I can't figure out how to share pics. So, here are a couple "landscape" shots linked from my Flickr.

https://flic.kr/p/YoVuf5

https://flic.kr/p/VLVpst
 
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JohnNEX said:
dxomark shows the kit zoom at 25mm is just as good as the zeiss at 24mm, both at f/8.

https://www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Comp...-50mm-F35-56-on-Sony-A6000__1155_942_1082_942

That said, it looks like you may have a bad copy - the edges are not that good.

Keep in mind that the reputation of the zeiss 24 is not really based on amazing sharpness, blessed sharpness. Its reputation is based more on rendering and "pop" than simple sharpness. The lens allegedly takes better photos rather than sharper photos.

Some people agree and some don't, of course.
Click to expand...
 
That is excatly why I sold my copy. Many people are in love with this lens, I thought is wasn't sharp enough outside the center. The only alternative is the Canon 24/2.8 pancake for which you need a MB adaptor.
 
idsurfer said:
My copy is awesome. I shoot a lot more at wide apertures but I think my copy is nice and sharp across the frame @ f/8. I don't to tons of landscape but feel very comfy relying on it for an all purpose while hiking around in the mountains of Idaho.

I'm pretty new here as well and for the life of me I can't figure out how to share pics. So, here are a couple "landscape" shots linked from my Flickr.

https://flic.kr/p/YoVuf5

https://flic.kr/p/VLVpst
Click to expand...
It looks like your lens is much better (sharper across the entire frame) than the OP's lens. I think he should return his lens for a new one, if possible.

BTW, on a side note, it is probably best that you are not able to share pictures using the DPR gallery. After comparing the differences in the way Flickr presents people images to the implementaion DRP does, they look MUCH better using Flickr.

Although DPR does many good things with its website, sharing pictures is probably the worst thing they do. It has even gotten worse in the past month or so. Hopefully, they will fix or revise its photo sharing implementation soon. :-(

--
Life is short, make the best of it while you can!
http://grob.smugmug.com/
 
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mcslsk said:
That is excatly why I sold my copy. Many people are in love with this lens, I thought is wasn't sharp enough outside the center. The only alternative is the Canon 24/2.8 pancake for which you need a MB adaptor.
Click to expand...
Then there must be copy variation with this len cause I’m very happy with mine. I wouldn't consider myself a fanboy or anything. My copy is a very solid performer in all respects and a cornerstone of my kit. I agree that perhaps the OP should try another copy or two IF this focal length/Fov is important. Problem is there’s not another 35mm equiv fast prime option out there in the small APS-c format. There are some FF options but they are more expensive and worse....they are much bigger. IMO. The essence and Beauty of the A6xxx cameras is the small size.
 
mcslsk said:
You can see here that sharpness across the frame needs f4: https://www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Comp...-Sonnar-T-24mm-F18-ZA-on-Sony-A6000__1155_942
Click to expand...
I've never paid attention to those type of scores. I don't even really know how to interpret the results. My opinions are based on my own and other peoples' real world shooting experiences.

Regardless of what the charts say I guess I'd make the comment that under most circumstances where people are wanting sharpness across the frame they are likely shooting more stoped down than f4 (i.e. f5.6-f8).

Most people shooting at wide apertures are doing so for the shallow depth of field and/or subject isolation....which obviously renders a lot of the from a OOF. The exceptions to this are obviously indoor low light situations and astro (which I'd want wider than 35mm equiv anyhow).

So, in the end I still contend that the 24/1.4 is an excellent lens when used as a semi-wide prime under the majority of circumstances......IF you get a good copy. Mine will remain in my bag as long as I'm shooting Sony APS-c.
 
What you see in the results is what I saw with my copy of the lens. Very much doubt that the softness up to f4 is due to copy variation or decentering. Some like it anyways. I didn't.
 
When I used to shoot with this lens, I remember I loved it for its versatility and lovely rendering, but was always frustrated by its poor corner sharpness that was quite annoying when taking landscape photos.

Long story short, I read somewhere on the web that the Zeiss 24f1.8 actually had pretty strong field curvature, and that a good way to improve corner sharpness in landscape pictures was to focus mid-frame. I tried it with my copy of the lens, and indeed, this technic improved corner sharpness dramatically, and the lens became my sharpest lens for landscape photography.

Now, the problem is that it's not really convenient to have to remember that with this particular lens, when shooting landscapes, you'd better focus mid-frame if you want good results. But in my experience, at least, it enabled me to obtain great results, and turned a major flaw for a lens I loved in a minor flaw that could be circumvented.
 
Those dxomark charts drive me crazy... I wish I could read them, but being colorblind makes it near impossible. Maybe I could save the image and invert the colors to get a better read.

Upon further testing, I found that the problem seems to only appear when the lens is focused at infinity with distant subjects. When I took comparison shots with both lenses at a distance of only a few feet, the Zeiss was sharper throughout the entire frame. But more distant subjects still exhibited that stubborn softness, while still showing superb center sharpness (so I know that the focus is accurate).

My copy is used, but not decentered or defective in any discernable way, so I think this might just be how the lens generally is. I'm not really willing to pay full price for a new copy to compare, so I haven't decided what to do yet.
 
Wow, those are really great photos! Thank you for sharing. I did a few more tests today and think that the problem on my lens only shows when shooting distant subjects (focused at infinity). For closer subjects, I'm getting nice sharpness throughout the frame.

From what I can tell, your shots do indeed look very sharp all throughout. If you're ever bored one day, maybe do some comparison shots with your kit lens @24mm f/8 and let me know how it goes? Would love to know if my copy is just not the best... I got it used for a good price, so maybe not the end of the world.

And the mountains of Idaho look like an awesome place to shoot. I'm jelly. Let me join you sometime if I ever visit there!
 
Unfortunately with the high entry cost of this lens, I don't think I would be willing to obtain another copy and try to do some tests. I gambled by buying a used one, and even if I got a lemon, I'm not willing to pay the full retail price for a new, better copy. At this point, the options I'm considering are 1) Keep the lens and use its center sharpness, or 2) Sell it and get the Sigma 30mm 1.4. Though I must say I'm not excited about the 30mm focal length.

From what I can tell on dxomark, it seems that it's normal for this lens to be sharper in the center than in the edges anyway.
 
This sounds like great advice! Did focusing mid-frame result in a decrease in center sharpness?

Also, I tend to get the most severe results when I'm focused at infinity. stopping down doesn't even really help much. Closer up, the lens is much sharper throughout. I wonder if it's possible for field curvature to manifest itself more noticeably from afar?
 
Yes, MB IV. And it performs very well, yet is still relatively small.
 
To date I had four copies of the SEL24F18Z. The first I had is long ago when it hit the market and I used it with my NEX7. The lens gave me always very good results, not world leading, but on a quite high level, somewhat better in sharpness and visibly better in color/contrast than my 18-55 (which is better than a 16-50) those days..

I left Sony for a while only using my Nikon stuff. Then 4K video became interesting and after half a year with a a6300 I bought a a6500 last december and also my second SEL24F18Z.

Simple tests showed the lens seemed "worth nothing". Photos had strong field curvature and also strong focus shifts when stopping down and focusing to items "near infinity".

I had a second try (third lens) but that wasn´t also looking good (reported here some time ago).

In may or so I got another copy (all lenses were new), my fourth. Similar problems where visible. Corners focus closer than the center (field curvature), center shows focus shifts (front focus) when stopping down.

A friend with an old NEX-5 wanted to try the lens and what happened - the pictures where stunning! No focus shifts where visible stopping down, even the corners looked good since the focus keept more (right) distance.

What happens?! The NEX-5 only had contrast detect AF, the a6500 has phase detect AF and something here doesn´t work perfectly together with the SEL24F18Z.

I reported this here and also to Sony but as far as I remember Sony even didn´t respond.

I also found that there are "no" problems in continous AF that I always use for video. Working in continous AF and disabling it (C button) before the exposure always gave me sharp results.

Must have been june when Sony came up with FW1.03 which helped a bit with this problem.

Using expanded (!!) spot AF shows no more problems with my combi, single spot AF can still lead to some misfocus.

Don´t understand me wrong, the SEL24F18Z shows some amount of field curvature and that can not be healed with a FW update or anything else!
The problem simply becomes more visible when focus shift adds some front focus, so the corners get even worse.

Using expanded spot AF using FW1.03/1.04 gives me good results. I also think there is no altervative to the SEL24F18Z now, the 30mm Sigma is none.
 
This fits perfectly with the response I got from Sigma when pointing out focussing issues with the 16f1.4 in AF-S: The acknowledged the issue @f2.x and stated that some Sony lenses have the issue on "the small bodies". The 24f1.8 may be one.
 
I'm so glad to hear about your experience, as I certainly do not have the resources to test 4 copies of this lens!

I think what you're saying makes sense. I even tried it and got decent results. However, after that, I did a test using completely manual focus vs the kit lens. In the edges of the frame, the kit lens was sharper than the Sony/Zeiss every time, no matter the aperture. Needless to say, I'm pretty disappointed.
 
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