Sony lens quality compared to Nikon?

I think there is a clear weighting now that the Z line-up has been significantly expanded.
In the telephoto range, Nikon is now excellently positioned with class leading lenses such as the Z 85/1.2 S, Z MC 105/2.8 VR S, Z 135/1.8 S Plena, or lenses such as the Z 400/4.5 VR S, Z 600/6.3 PF VR S, 800/6.3 PF VR S.

Sony, on the other hand, has clear advantages when it comes to offering wide-angle/super-wide-angle solutions at the highest level.
Nikon definitely still has some catching up to do, even if the Z 14-24/2.8 S is at least an outstanding zoom for professional demands.

In the end, it certainly depends more on individual preference as to which lens line-up a user prefers.
Of course, budget also plays a role.
I could certainly imagine a 300/2.8 with TC like the one Sony recently launched for a Z 400/4.5 VR S, but that's a completely different price range.
So it's very individual where you see yourself reflected.

I prefer Nikon's approach of correcting the lenses, at least the ones that come into question, with high-quality optical corrections and prefer this to the approach of optical corrections via software/profiles.
For lenses like my Z MC 105, Plena, or the Z 400/4.5, there is basically no need for a lens profile, they are already optically corrected to such a high level that there are at most marginal corrections via the profiles, primarily in the area of vignetting, although this is also history with a Plena.
Similar to my Apo Lanthar, if we remove the vignetting here, the lens is optically almost perfectly corrected without the need for software intervention.

The basic level of optical quality is certainly comparable in all camps,
the way there certainly differs and, of course, the framework conditions due to the differences in the mounts.
Here, Nikon has fundamentally different leeway in the designs due to the significantly larger mount.
In detail, however, the differences are more serious, so you have to see for yourself where you are most likely to find yourself, and for me as a lover of medium to moderately long telephoto focal lengths, I currently see no alternative and no better playground to the Z system.

I saw the review of the Sony 20mm on photographylife. Sharper, lighter, cheaper, and more full-featured than the Nikon, which itself gets very, very high marks. Sony is offering pretty stiff competition!

I don't quite understand why focus breathing is such a concern on a 20mm wide angle. It seems to me Sony made all the right trade-offs here.

The Mad Kiwi said:

Fabian Joya said:

Out of curiosity, I looked at Sony's lens catalog, and besides having a much larger catalog, their lenses tend to also be lighter.

For example, Sony's 70-200/2.8 is 1060g vs Nikon's 1360g. That's almost 25% lighter. Sony also offers a neat seat of fairly lightweight f/1.4 primes. I know they are f/1.4 and not f/1.2, but they are also half the weight! And the 24-70/2.8 is also 100g lighter.

I am wondering how Sony accomplishes this? Are they sacrificing optical quality and build quality? Or is it just better engineering?

Click to expand...

Sony have been heavily investing in the manufacturing of advanced aspherical elements for decades, this allows them to make the lenses smaller and lighter.

If you’re interested, here’s an article from a few years ago

https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/technology/stories/entries/GMaster/

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Excellent article! Thanks for sharing. Their focus on great bokeh is interesting. I really like the rendering of Sony's 35mm f/1.4 G lens. I am eager to see what Nikon comes up with for their long-rumored 35mm f/1.2 lens.

Fabian Joya said:

Out of curiosity, I looked at Sony's lens catalog, and besides having a much larger catalog, their lenses tend to also be lighter.

For example, Sony's 70-200/2.8 is 1060g vs Nikon's 1360g. That's almost 25% lighter. Sony also offers a neat seat of fairly lightweight f/1.4 primes. I know they are f/1.4 and not f/1.2, but they are also half the weight! And the 24-70/2.8 is also 100g lighter.

I am wondering how Sony accomplishes this? Are they sacrificing optical quality and build quality? Or is it just better engineering?

How do Sony lenses compare to Nikon's? I would love to hear from people who have shot both, or who can point me to some good online reviews that compare the two.

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Nikon's 70-200mm since forever are all metal, sony a mix of Poly Carb Plastics.

Same fore their 300mm 2.8 offerings - Nikon almost double the weight and ALL metal!

Fabian Joya said:

Interesting. So you think Nikon's 70-200 is superior to Sony's? That was one lens I was very curious about, since the Sony version is so much lighter.

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Well, look at the 24-70/2.8S of Nikon's. Most non bias reviews state it as the best in class mid range zoom. The 70-200/2.8S is highly optically corrected. It's so good I can use it for astro at 200mm on a tracker and it does really well. It's a zoom and it does exceptionally well in fact. Sony I believe have recently updated it, I think it now has less weight in the design...

Z8ZF said:

Fabian Joya said:

Out of curiosity, I looked at Sony's lens catalog, and besides having a much larger catalog, their lenses tend to also be lighter.

For example, Sony's 70-200/2.8 is 1060g vs Nikon's 1360g. That's almost 25% lighter. Sony also offers a neat seat of fairly lightweight f/1.4 primes. I know they are f/1.4 and not f/1.2, but they are also half the weight! And the 24-70/2.8 is also 100g lighter.

I am wondering how Sony accomplishes this? Are they sacrificing optical quality and build quality? Or is it just better engineering?

How do Sony lenses compare to Nikon's? I would love to hear from people who have shot both, or who can point me to some good online reviews that compare the two.

Click to expand...

Nikon's 70-200mm since forever are all metal, sony a mix of Poly Carb Plastics.

Same fore their 300mm 2.8 offerings - Nikon almost double the weight and ALL metal!

Click to expand...

Whereby the 300mm f/2.8 comparison is ultimately apples versus oranges, because completely different generations are being compared here, and also E-mount versus F-mount.

The trend in the Z mount Tele/Supertele range is also towards significant weight savings, as you can see with the Z 400/2.8 TC VR S and Z 600/4 TC VR S compared to the previous generation.
Or super-light lenses such as the Z 400/4.5 VR S, Z 600/6.3....
A modern Z-mount version of the 300/2.8 would never reach the 2.9 kg that the F-mount still weighed.
A potential future Z 300/2.8 VR S would certainly weigh considerably less, at least 1kg would be eliminated, if not more, would in any case be much closer to the weight of the new Sony 300/2.8.

Nebido said:

I prefer Nikon's approach of correcting the lenses, at least the ones that come into question, with high-quality optical corrections and prefer this to the approach of optical corrections via software/profiles.

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Well, we have to be very careful in how we characterize Sony. If we claim they use software correction in their best lenses (which I doubt) we need to prove that that is the case.


All companies use software correction to a degree - to reduce vignetting, distortion and chromatic aberrations for example. This has been there in Nikon bodies for a long time, and many Nikkor lenses were designed with correction in mind. Example the 14-30mm Z Nikkor.

Also , it is the end result that matters, not how you got there. If the end result is indistinguishable, then who cares.

Much as I would love to say that Nikon has a secret sauce, I don't think it has.
The only thing a company can claim to have is a philosophy that differentiates its product design from others. But its hard to say what that is anymore.

Sony bought Minolta-Konica in 2006 but soon after abandoned its worthy legacy of DSLR cameras in preference for starting afresh designing MILCs. Their E mount is a legacy of this trial&error endeavour to get out a camera that gained market traction..... a FX MILC with an APC Lens mount.


In comparison, Nikon has a very long history as primarily an optical company from the early 20th century. Their Hikari factory is dedicated to manufacturing optical glass - for Nikkor lenses as well as external customers.


Nikon also collaborates with Tamron, who are partly Sony owned....hence Tamron E-mount lenses....In addition Zeiss and Sony have a strong collaboration in designing Sony lenses.

Similarly to the design and fabrication of image sensors, there are complex networks of cross-licensing and even cross-manufacturing in the Japanese camera industry, including optics. Aspherical lens elements started more than 3 decades ago, including by CaNikon

Compared to the wider Z mount, the underlying difference is the smaller dimensions of the E mount permit designing more compact, lighter lenses. So even though their flange depths differ by only 2mm (16 versus 18mm), Techart could design a cross mount ZE adapter to fit narrower Sony lenses into the 55mm wide Z mount

https://mirrorlesscomparison.com/stories/techart-sony-to-nikon-adapter/

In theory, the Z Mount opens up unprecedented scope for optimal optical designs. Nonetheless, in comparison to several of the large fast primes (eg 50 f1.2S) Nikon has released light pancake style primes for its Z System; and as already noted, in this thread, several of the excellent Z Nikkor telephotos are lighter and more compact, and set new standards in ergonomics. Fundamentally, Nikon engineers were more than prescient in designing the Z mount that set the highest standard in the Angle of Incidence of 41.19° [Sony E mount = 28.58°] - see Table in this article:

https://photographylife.com/what-is-lens-mount#mount-size-throat-size-inner-and-outer-diameters

https://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/interview/1239336.html

https://www.nikon-image.com/sp/z9_specialinterview/02_zmount/

chambeshi said:

Sony bought Minolta-Konica in 2006 but soon after abandoned its worthy legacy of DSLR cameras in preference for starting afresh designing MILCs. Their E mount is a legacy of this trial&error endeavour to get out a camera that gained market traction..... a FX MILC with an APC Lens mount.

https://petapixel.com/2023/05/01/so...oard&utm_content=PetaPixel/magazine/PetaPixel

In comparison, Nikon has a very long history as primarily an optical company from the early 20th century. Their Hikari factory is dedicated to manufacturing optical glass - for Nikkor lenses as well as external customers.

https://www.imaging-resource.com/ne...-in-depth-tour-of-nikons-hikari-glass-factory

Nikon also collaborates with Tamron, who are partly Sony owned....hence Tamron E-mount lenses....In addition Zeiss and Sony have a strong collaboration in designing Sony lenses.

Similarly to the design and fabrication of image sensors, there are complex networks of cross-licensing and even cross-manufacturing in the Japanese camera industry, including optics. Aspherical lens elements started more than 3 decades ago, including by CaNikon

Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing these interesting links. I think 3rd party lens support is another strength of Sony's E mount. Hopefully Nikon will keep opening this up, as there are a number of Tamron & Sigma lenses that I wouldn't mind seeing available for the Z mount.

Nebido said:

I think there is a clear weighting now that the Z line-up has been significantly expanded.
In the telephoto range, Nikon is now excellently positioned with class leading lenses such as the Z 85/1.2 S, Z MC 105/2.8 VR S, Z 135/1.8 S Plena, or lenses such as the Z 400/4.5 VR S, Z 600/6.3 PF VR S, 800/6.3 PF VR S.

Sony, on the other hand, has clear advantages when it comes to offering wide-angle/super-wide-angle solutions at the highest level.
Nikon definitely still has some catching up to do, even if the Z 14-24/2.8 S is at least an outstanding zoom for professional demands.

In the end, it certainly depends more on individual preference as to which lens line-up a user prefers.
Of course, budget also plays a role.
I could certainly imagine a 300/2.8 with TC like the one Sony recently launched for a Z 400/4.5 VR S, but that's a completely different price range.
So it's very individual where you see yourself reflected.

Click to expand...

None of the lens you listed are ones I would be interested in or use. I really don’t shoot telephoto much at all nor have a need for a premium 85 or 135 portrait lens. None of the 2.8 zooms are interesting either. So it’s cool they produce them but doesn’t mean much to me.

ones that I would be are the smaller 20mm 1.8, the zeiss lenses, the 14 1.8, one of the smaller 35 and 50 1.4 lenses and the sigma lenses, plus most lenses with aperture rings like the 24 and 40 to match my Zf.

I mostly shoot street, travel, landscape.

I like small primes, I like aperture rings.

I was very close to getting an a7cii (I had it in my cart) but decided to go for the Zf.

Did they make the right tradeoff? A rhetorical question.

For fun, take a look at Thom Hogans review of the Nikon 20/1.8S, and at the very end, he talks about the Sony 1.8G as well.

Once you've done so, I humbly ask don't think in terms of "which brand WON a WAR" but think again within the context of the things I discussed earlier.

1. NO one manufacturer has the sole and unique claim to "the best"
2. Test Chart sites, even if you like the non-chart aspects of the site (like photography life) should NOT be used ANYWHERE as much as they sadly are to make lens "sharpness" decisions. Particularly if you shoot landscapes, where performance at distance is what matters and test charts are in portrait range, where the design parameters/goals of the lens are often different
3. Don't drink too much of the marketing kool-aid from anyone.
   1. Take Nikon - they have a long series of lens design articles, the 1001 nights, lots of tales about the notebooks from one designer handed to the next. Interesting stuff for sure - and the 1001 series is a fantastic read. But in modern era, with computing power allowing us to iterate a design vastly faster than "back in the old days", the secret dusty notebooks aren't as relevant.
   2. Take Sony - okay, they've spent some time researching aspheres. Make a big deal of it in marketing. Do you *honesty* think that Nikon and Canon, with decades more optical experience, just looked at that and went "oh gosh, look at them", gave up and went off into the corner to drink sake and cry? I tend to doubt it.
4. Lens design is a series of trade offs, even beyond the obvious ones such as cost/size/aperture.
   1. When you read Thoms comments below, can you see where a Nikon designer might have priortized things differently than a Sony designer.
      1. And instead of one being "right" and the other "wrong", that perhaps it's more important to think:
         1. Is one of the trade offs more important to me
         2. Is the magnitude of difference in performance important to me

I think if we do that instead of just looking at MTF50 scores done with a chart in close range (which is ridiculous for a landscape lens like a 20), we'll gain more insight into which lens might be more optimal for each of us.

And I might add, to throw this in: If you really like 20mm, and you really do believe Sony makes the best 20, what's to stop you from buying a sony body and putting the 20 onto it? I have known a few professional musicians over my days - none of them ONLY use one brand of guitar - they'll bring a Fender AND a Gibson to a gig, and maybe a couple different brands of acoustics as well. Why do you think they do that? Ever notice they're not as snobby about one brand like photographers are? Just a thought....

G Pik said:

I moved to Sony because Nikon were too slow in producing lenses for their mirrorless cameras.

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Just to be accurate: Nikon was faster at producing full frame mirrorless lenses than Sony originally was. What you're actually seeing is the first-mover advantage, not speed of releases.

G Pik said:

I would say that any difference in IQ between the lenses of Sony, Nikon and probably Canon would be negligible.

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I think you're going to have to define IQ and how you actually measure it. I'm pretty sure you'll end up saying something subjective rather than objective.

Fabian Joya said:

I saw the review of the Sony 20mm on photographylife. Sharper, lighter, cheaper, and more full-featured than the Nikon, which itself gets very, very high marks. Sony is offering pretty stiff competition!

I don't quite understand why focus breathing is such a concern on a 20mm wide angle.

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Because a 20mm focal length is often used for landscapes, you may sometimes need to do focus stacking. Focus stacking becomes more challenging if the lens has focus breathing. To correct for focus breathing, you may need to crop the image, which can lead to a loss of sharpness. Therefore, if you perform focus stacking with the Sony and Nikon lenses, you'll likely need to crop more with the Sony images. Since the Sony lens is only slightly sharper, and cropping reduces sharpness, the final result from the Nikon may be sharper. Additionally, focus stacking can be a bit tedious when composing your image, and it can be particularly frustrating when shooting videos. Overall, the experience is better if the lens doesn't exhibit noticeable focus breathing, as you will notice focus breathing far more often than the slight difference in sharpness between these two lenses.

Fabian Joya said:

It seems to me Sony made all the right trade-offs here.

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Maybe, just at first glance. Comparing these two lenses is more complex than it seems. For example, at infinity focus, the Sony lens has more vignetting. You can easily correct this, but it comes at the cost of corner sharpness. Since both lenses have almost the same corner sharpness, the Nikon might have the edge after correcting for vignetting. The Nikon also performs better in terms of flare resistance. Shooting against the sun can not only cause flares that are difficult, if not impossible, to correct, but it can also reduce contrast and, consequently, sharpness.

Photographylife doesn't tell the whole story. While the Nikon may not seem as sharp, in real-world use, it can produce sharper images depending on the conditions. For videography, the Nikon is the better lens. If you don't mind the weight and size, the Nikon seems better suited for landscapes and as an all-rounder. And because there is only one Nikon Z 20 1.8. it is not a bad decision to design the lens as an allrounder, for stills and videography.

Fabian Joya said:

Out of curiosity, I looked at Sony's lens catalog, and besides having a much larger catalog, their lenses tend to also be lighter.

For example, Sony's 70-200/2.8 is 1060g vs Nikon's 1360g. That's almost 25% lighter. Sony also offers a neat seat of fairly lightweight f/1.4 primes. I know they are f/1.4 and not f/1.2, but they are also half the weight! And the 24-70/2.8 is also 100g lighter.

I am wondering how Sony accomplishes this? Are they sacrificing optical quality and build quality? Or is it just better engineering?

How do Sony lenses compare to Nikon's? I would love to hear from people who have shot both, or who can point me to some good online reviews that compare the two.

Click to expand...

Reason why I never switched to Sony, is because of Nikon's New S line of lenses. The 50mm f/1.2 and the 800 S lens are affordable and phenomenal. This is where Sony falls short. Nikon's wildlife lenses are to die for. same goes for Nikon's 50 and 85 1.2 S lenses.

--
https://jessemartinez.zenfolio.com

anotherMike said:

You can't really use DXO as a "be all/end all" judgement of lenses.

Remember a few things:

• ALL the test chart sites test in closer (portrait distance) range.
  • Note that a lot of Nikons portrait lenses are "tuned" away from max resolution in the portrait range to get other qualities - these lenses will render extremely well but test poorly (relative to others) on a test chart site
• You can't compare across brands when the resolution isn't the same. In your 70-200 example, the Sony is tested on a 60mp body....
• What does the "sharpness" number really mean? Too much isn't stated. Lens performance can be thought of in so many ways (far more than a score or a simple number) - do you prefer peak sharpness in one spot at the expense of consistent sharpness across the frame? Are you willing to accept wave curvature and wave astigmatism in order to win a test at one spot, or would you rather the lens offer excellent, if perhaps not "the best in a test" resolution across the frame because it's more natural to our eyes? What about MTF frequency? Are you more concerned with performance of coarse structures, mid, mid-fine, very fine, and this of course interacts with what you shoot, the resolution of your bodies, and your shot discipline, plus your ability to discern fine differences and also your output. A huge matrix of combinations, not a single number.
• What about use case? There are some Sony lenses that are going to be clear winners for the astrophotography crowd. There are going to be some Nikon lenses that are going to be clear winners if you shoot portraiture or studio work.
• Not every brand "wins" every focal length (Nikon doesn't yet have a 35mm that can touch the Sony 35/1.4GM, but if they get off their rear and do the 35/1.2S, I bet they will...., etc)

I've shot some Sony glass - and like most major brands these days, it's pretty good. But I would take the 14-24/2.8S, 24-70/2.8S, 50/1.2S, 85/1.2S, 105/2.8S and the Plena over *anything* Sony makes for *what I shoot*. But someone who shoots different things might totally do the opposite. And looking at a DXO number or score will never tell you why this is, but that's a very long post I've done before and too tired to do again right now.

In general Sony relies a lot more on software correction than Nikon across more lenses. That's not the way I prefer, but some will be okay with it. There are no magic bullets in optics - if they're making small, they are taking a trade off somewhere. Perhaps the "area" of that trade off isn't important to you, or perhaps it is, or it might be different per use case or photographer too. It's complex. Not everyone’s standards and preferences are the same either. Nikon and Canon both have far more optical expertise than Sony, but that doesn't mean in today’s age that it matters as much as it used to. Still, I see a better sense of nuance and subtlety in the best lenses from Nikon and Canon that I don't see in Sony as a lineup, at least in the focal lengths I've shot in both lines. But that's a general statement - some Sony lenses are excellent, just like some Nikon are, some Zeiss, are, some Canon are, and so forth.

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Ok.. I think Nikon 14-24, 85 f1.2 and plena is competitive vs emount but that is about it other than super tele which I don’t use.

24-70mm and 50mm??? Emount has very very good options for both, sooo many lens to choose from, whether you want iq, lightweight, cheap, good bokeh , etc.

Let me put it this way, I bought the z8 one month back with 50mm s lens and megadap adapter. The megadap adapter has not left my z8. I have Sony 14mm, 24mm, 35mm Gm and sigma 85mm f1.4.

jessem101 said:

Fabian Joya said:

Out of curiosity, I looked at Sony's lens catalog, and besides having a much larger catalog, their lenses tend to also be lighter.

For example, Sony's 70-200/2.8 is 1060g vs Nikon's 1360g. That's almost 25% lighter. Sony also offers a neat seat of fairly lightweight f/1.4 primes. I know they are f/1.4 and not f/1.2, but they are also half the weight! And the 24-70/2.8 is also 100g lighter.

I am wondering how Sony accomplishes this? Are they sacrificing optical quality and build quality? Or is it just better engineering?

How do Sony lenses compare to Nikon's? I would love to hear from people who have shot both, or who can point me to some good online reviews that compare the two.

Click to expand...

Reason why I never switched to Sony, is because of Nikon's New S line of lenses. The 50mm f/1.2 and the 800 S lens are affordable and phenomenal. This is where Sony falls short. Nikon's wildlife lenses are to die for. same goes for Nikon's 50 and 85 1.2 S lenses.

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You do know sigma has a cheap 50mm f1.2. The Nikon 50 1.2 is not that cheap in my country either. The comparison should be between mounts.

jessem101 said:

Fabian Joya said:

Out of curiosity, I looked at Sony's lens catalog, and besides having a much larger catalog, their lenses tend to also be lighter.

For example, Sony's 70-200/2.8 is 1060g vs Nikon's 1360g. That's almost 25% lighter. Sony also offers a neat seat of fairly lightweight f/1.4 primes. I know they are f/1.4 and not f/1.2, but they are also half the weight! And the 24-70/2.8 is also 100g lighter.

I am wondering how Sony accomplishes this? Are they sacrificing optical quality and build quality? Or is it just better engineering?

How do Sony lenses compare to Nikon's? I would love to hear from people who have shot both, or who can point me to some good online reviews that compare the two.

Click to expand...

Reason why I never switched to Sony, is because of Nikon's New S line of lenses. The 50mm f/1.2 and the 800 S lens are affordable and phenomenal. This is where Sony falls short. Nikon's wildlife lenses are to die for. same goes for Nikon's 50 and 85 1.2 S lenses.

Click to expand...

Your definition of "affordable" differs from mine ;-)

Doesn't Sony also have a 50mm f/1.2? Is it not good?

I notice the Sony is again significantly lighter...

I can only comment on the first generation of Sony 2.8 zooms: the 24-70 zoom ring rubber always bulged up, I’ve seems this on multiple copies, had multiple attempts to repair/replace, my 70-200 decided to separate when I cleaned it, after about 3 years of usage. That was a $900 repair, I now have my Nikon roughly the same time, same, near daily usage, and it’s sturdy as any other pro lens I ever owned, Canon, Nikon F, Mamiya, Hasselblad, Schneider, Rodenstock, Fuji, Zeiss, Leica. Optically Sony is fine, sharp, a bit clinical, but the built quality of Generation 1 did not impress me. Shooting Z system since the Z6/7 II came out and super happy.