Hands-on with Sony's new 16-35mm and 12-24mm wide-angle lenses

I know, more to hold (and carry). First I had big lenses I loved them too. Only after several trips my spine/neck told me something else.

Here are the examples:

1. Mushy on left:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nqmlyo5eonsmq4w/35mushyleft.jpg?dl=0

2. Mushy on left:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cdsbwc3nmt7zkw3/35mushyleft2.jpg?dl=0

3. Mushy on left:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hp8h5216xrwvfeq/35mushyleft3.jpg?dl=0

Landscapes are much worse.

Even close group pictures suffer.

Middle and right side are ok.

Did you check the Cicala's reviews?

https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2016/06/the-sony-fe-lenses-mtf-and-variance-summary/

...and I actually think the size is perfect. I find FE 55 1.8 small on A7RII.

I like 35 1.4 but I hate that it is so flawed that I cannot trust it to give me usable pictures.

Even f8-f11 do not help.

Sorry to hear, but that is hardly "all" samples of that lens, isn't it? If it was totally flawed, I guess it wouldn't have 4.5 stars on B&H or Amazon, with most people only complaining about its size.

Most people are pretty ignorant, specially after shelling out 1.600 USD for a faulty product.

Cognitive dissonance is strong even with you.

Lensrentals did not test one, they tested many many lenses. Their livelihood is based on renting good lenses.

"I’m going to avoid comparing the consistency numbers, because as we’ve mentioned the testing for the Sony lenses is a bit different. But the variation graphs show what our photographic experience with this lens has suggested. The FE 35mm f/1.4 ZA lenses are all over the place. It actually is a bit worse than the graphs look because a lot of the variance is WITHIN a copy, not just copy-to-copy. None of the 10 copies we tested had even corners. And I’ll editorialize and say that none of the dozens we’ve tested on Imatest had even corners either. If you use this lens for centered objects, you’ll be happy. If you want 4 sharp corners, it’s not likely to happen unless your standards for equal sharpness are pretty low."

https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2015/10/sony-e-mount-lens-sharpness-bench-tests/

More reviews of skewed lenses:

http://tolkien.hifivoice.com/~heijligm/camera/Gear/35mm_1.4_2.8/

"variance is WITHIN a copy" means "our method of testing is inadequate".

Riiiight. Actually, when I first got my third FE 35 1.4 it wasn´t as bad as it is today. Go figure.

I looked at the photos you uploaded to your dropbox. I don't see any mushiness. What are you talking about? Can you point out, or describe, the area you find unacceptable?

BBQue you are joking, right?!

He must be mixing up 'out of focus' and 'soft'.
Anyway, dropping lenses is never a good idea.

Stop trolling BBQue or get better eyes/monitor.

@bbque
I agree. Not mushy at all. I can see some CA but very good sharpness. Man I wish I had a lens like that (also the camera).

What a pair of jokers you are. :-)

You do know that skewed lenses appear "out of focus" on one side of the picture?

Check the lamp posts, windows and air condition boxes on the left and compare them to those on the right.

Check the left green roof with the flag and compare it to those on right in the other picture.

There, I've spelled it to you jokers :-)

Referring to picture #1. I already agreed that this one is slightly less sharp on the left than on the right side, most notably the grass.

Eh, if I take a photo of landscape now, everything on the left side will be out of focus. We are talking about focus at infinity with f8.

It's a bad lens and I guess we'll never get a good one from Sony.

Yes it's the best I could find (first two were much worse) but it's still less sharp than FE 28 2.0 (and that is using f2.0 with FE28 compared to f5.6 on FE 35, at infinity)

Old 50 buck 35mm lenses are sharper than this 1600 USD lens.

It's simply skewed.

What I did find to help is this:

If I focus at anything planar, put the focus point on the left side of the picture!

That way I get acceptable left and right sharpness. :-)

The 28/2 is very sharp lens, much underrated in my opinion. But the 35/1.4 should be similar sharp when closed down one or two aperture steps. If it isn't, return.

For landscapes, I prefer the 38/2.8 - the f1.4 lenses are more for bokeh look, in which case corner sharpness doesn't matter much. But you are right, for $1600 we should expect more. Again, relatively speaking, I don't find your lens bad at all (judging from the three photos you posted and comparing to some of the REALLY DECENTERED copies out there). Good luck.

Man, I though of buying FE 35 2.8 but... they say some of them are also skewed so... I just ordered a TAKUMAR SMC 35 3.5 lens, old manual M42 lens. If it´s anything like SMC 50. 1.4 and SMC 85 1.8, it will be sharper than FE 35 1.4 .

Better alternative would be Sigma Art 35/1.4 - super sharp. Bokeh can be a bit busy sometimes, some would call it "interesting" - but if sharpness is your priority, then that's the lens to get (assuming you also need the wide open look only an f1.4 lens can produce).

The 35/2.8 is flawless, but it is too pricy for a f2.8

Am curious about your results with the Taks. I had the 50/1.4 for a while and of course loved the built quality and the overall look this lens produces. But in terms of sharpness, especially corner sharpness, it doesn't touch the more modern ones, like the FE 55/1.8 so I sold it. Never tried the 35/3.5 - would be interesting to see/hear your results with it, comparing to the $1600 Sony. But not here, this is getting too much off-track. Open a new thread on the E-mount forum, if you like. Best wishes!

I'll make a couple of shots with 50 1.4 and FE 55 and be back with the links.

That for symmetrical wide angles only.

@ oriomenoni: Thanks, definitely will look that up.

C'mon guys, Sony's engineers managed weight reduction up to 50% to the competition, not 50 grams...

@ le_alain: I think Brandon was referring to the 12-24 and his point is valid IMO.

If you want small, go for the f4 zooms or switch to micro43 :)

@gbvalli: Same reason why there exist ultra-thin 15" MacBooks: people want the 15" screen but they still want to shave off as much bulk as possible.

Exactly my point!

couldn't agree more.

Unfortunately a good deal of fan boys mixed with unrealistic views defend their gear and ideals not understanding that a civilized discussion maybe brings further food for thought as well.

I've used Nikon, Canon and finally switched to Sony because of size and weight and new options I did not have before - yet I see flaws and shortcomings as well.

Either way I get bashed by the Nikon, Canon and Sony Fanboys telling me that I see it the wrong way ;-)

An open minded discussion seems to get harder these days and I am convinced that a forum might not be the right approach to have an open minded discussion any more - if it ever was.

I recently commented that an AF test performed at f/5.0 and quite long distance at 200 mm focal length is pointless and every one jumped on me - well this only shows that the vast majority dosen't understand the basics of photography. At 20 m distance and f/5.0 every AF should be more than o.k.ish since the depth of field is roughly 3 m

yeah, well i bet you drive Chevy truck too. I'd push my ford truck naked before i'd wear a Chevy bow-tie.

@lawny13
Really, I wonder why here and there, in all SONY bodies we encounter specific restrictions!
Always some specific settings with specific conter intuitive and different case of use.
I cannot find theses bodies as reliable nor coherent with this type of behaviour. Of course, the strange limits are in extreme limit settings, but it puzzle me the user have to remind that in this case the body behave that way and in that other case the behaviour will be this another one, etc, etc...

Why not just have a red button to unleash all theses "extreme" specs for techwhores, and give all other users a coherent and reliable bahaviour as they can find in Canikon/Olympus/Fuji/Pentax bodies ?

Because camera vendors have to compensate dropping sales by exploiting their customers to a higher degree. In marketing terms that is called "we are moving up to the premium segment".

No, only an 11-24...

The 100-400 have the exact same size as the Fuji

Well, I was speaking to the progress of their FF lineup obviously, I think the crop lineup is now a forgettable sidetrack like it's been for CaNikon all these years... I'm not siding with CCD, it's just what it is. DPR had an interesting oped a couple years ago about the folly of the "FF upgrade path"...

If I was personally buying into a new smaller sensor system it'd be Fuji or M4/3 (and I already use the latter), and it's what I'd recommend to anyone too unless I knew they wouldn't really be interested in buying more than 1-2 lenses in the future (in which case, why not consider a 1" compact/bridge).

Some people are happy with Sony's APS-C lineup, hell I know people happy with their a6000 & 16-70 and they couldn't care less about any additional lens options. More power to them... I'm not sure how $2,000 UWAs (+/- a couple hondos) can seriously be considered good APS-C options tho...

One makes for a pretty short pretty large f2.8 standard zoom, and the other represents a more average UWA range but for $600+ more than the competition. /shrug

The 85 & 100-400 are more credible options for APS-C users tho, as longer FF lenses tend to be in general... I'll give ya that, 128mm EFL makes for a pretty useful tele prime indeed. 75mm EFL is kinda short but it'll do too...

Sorry clearly you are missing something here. what is the point, using a huge 12-24 f4 or 16-35 2.8 lens on aps-c sensor? Especially while they are very expensive!
aps-c is built for compromises.
Yes CaNikon is making mistakes, thats why Sony is increasing its market share.
And I don't question or complain why they are releasing more lenses for their ff line-up.
You are gonna buy a very expensive product to use %60 of it. It is gonna be bigger than it supposed to be and focal length will be almost normal not uw.

I was not talking about uw lenses particularly. So RubberDials, your comment makes no sense at all.
Impulses, I agree with you for those focal lengths. But when it is about 12mm to 85mm, aps-c sensor requires aps-c only lenses.
Sony still doesn't have a well-priced and decent walk around lens. Don't mention that over priced average 16-70 zeiss!

Please watch this video at least from 3:30 to 4:00...Only 30 seconds and you will understand my point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDbUIfB5YUc

@ Xentinus - Firstly, Sony already has the 10-18/4 for APS-C. I don't see much point in them offering a 12-24/4 for APS-C. Too much overlap. Secondly, for systems that offer both APS-C and FF, it's not cost effective or necessary to duplicate EVERY single lens for both APS-C and FF. For example, Canon and Nikon don't offer 16-35/2.8 for APS-C. Thirdly, I don't buy Tony Northrup's argument that you get less resolution with FF lenses on APS-C sensors. I've used both FF and APS-C lenses on my Canon APS-C bodies, and I see absolutely no loss of resolution whatsoever when I compare images shot with FF lenses vs APS-C lenses. If there is any difference, it's certainly not visible without extreme scrutiny. I just don't see it and never have. I don't care about any theoretical arguments. All I care about are real-world, visible results.

Finally, don't assume APS-C lenses would be much cheaper. Price depends on a lot of factors, not just APS-C vs FF.

T3,
please read my posts again. I actually emphasized that Sony needs a standard zoom lens, not 12-24. I already said "I was not talking about uw lenses particularly" but you are making comments without even reading or understanding what you have read.
About Tony Nothrup; buy it or not, it is not his opinion, it is the fact! If you say "I don't believe in math" then I can't help you.
If Sony was following Canikon, they would have not been where they are now.
I don't assume aps-c lenses would be much cheaper, let me make it clear for you:
aps-c lenses HAS to be cheaper or there is no point making an aps-c format.

While I agree that Sony does need a good standard zoom lens for APS-C, I don't agree that they need to duplicate every lens in both APS-C or FF. I certainly don't think it needs to be done for optical performance. As I have said, I use both APS-C and FF lenses on Canon APS-C DSLRs, and I've seen NO difference in resolution between the two.

As for saying that "aps-c lenses HAS to be cheaper or there is no point making an aps-c format", I don't agree with that either. Lens price can, and will, depend on manufacturing volume. Lenses designed for smaller formats aren't necessarily cheaper. Additionally, often times the differences in material costs between APS-C and FF lenses will be negligible, resulting in negligible manufacturing cost. But by splitting a lens between FF and APS-C markets, you cut manufacturing and sales volume between them, which can ultimately result in lower economies of scale.

Sony FE 12-24mm f4 is NOT a Rectilinear lens (it has a distinct barrel distortion)

at least, according to first-look web reviews so far

Plastic molded aspherical elements? Allows for fewer spherical elements and lighter weight.

Never used the CaNikon versions. Are they internal zoom?