For those interested I did a quick comparison article between the Sony 55mm f/1.8 ZA Lens and Sigma 56mm f/1.4 Lens for those using crop factor cameras wondering what the differences may or may not be... www.sonyalphalab.com/sony-fe-55mm-f-1-8-za-lens-vs-sigma-56mm-f-1-4-dc-dn-lens-using-sony-a6700/
This is a brilliant video. I'm glad you got into the nitty gritty about sharpness, color fringing, and lens distortion. It's clear to me that the Sony Zeiss 55mm f1.8 is a masterpiece. No camera is perfect. No lens is perfect. This lens, however, is a perfect tool for any type of photographer. The only limitation is you.
I avoided this lens for a while. For some reason I never wanted it. I kept on reading all the hype and decided to get it. Best decision ever. It's very good. Light, fast and sharp. To me the CA isn't that bad. Adds a little character.
Im a barber and take haircut photos. This is by far the best lens i've used. It beats all the 85 1.4s i used and even 135 gm. a few 35s too. 55 1.8 undisputed king by a long way too.
Ayeee! Thats my set up! Sony A7C II - with the 55mm F/1.8 Zeiss lens - just got it used on FB markerplace in nearly brand new condition, with the box, the leather case, and paperwork which looks like it was just bought, for 400$ dollars. I coulda got one for 325$ ... but that ond was way more beat up and didnt come with the box, case, etc. I love it ❤
I once owned both the Zeiss 55 and the 50 2.5 G. I sold the 50 in favour of the Zeiss. It's a sensational lens, which shines in the field. It is more than the sum of its parts. The bokeh is special and you can get the swirls if there are trees in the background. The lens has character and is less clinical than the newer G and GM lenses.I Love the look from the front. At F4, it has great 3d pop. It cannot be quantified. There is something different about how it renders the images. The images from my 85 are probably sharper, but they look flat compared to the images from the Zeiss. What a gem of a lens indeed.
I bought my Sony Zeiss Sonnar 55mm 1.8 T* ZA new 5 years ago, I am very happy with it and I can recommend it, recently at my local store, I saw several used ones for US $360 (incl tax), there was even one for US $179 (incl tax). I like the build quality, the compact size and the light weight, the images from this Lens are Super.
Thanks for sharing, and those prices are crazy cheap!! Mine has some minor wear on it, but I still thought it was worth the $450 I paid... If you can find it for cheaper I would be tempted to buy another one... haha
Thanks Jason, excellent review and is the best Ive seen on this lens. I was thinking of upgrading from the 55 to the 50 1.4 GM, but your review and excellent range of samples reminded me of how much character this lens has, so I think I'll save my money. Excellent work, really appreciated.
Hey Jason- thanks for the video! I've noticed this lens gets a lot of hate and consequently sells for pretty cheap these days. I bought mine in 2016 and it has been consistently my favorite lens and was my introduction to what makes Zeiss so special. I've since moved away from Sony but use it adapted on my Nikon Zf and Z8. Never going to get rid of it. What spurred me to comment though was that truck shot at 26:23. That's a real special one... kudos!
lmao: "I'm also using the Sennheiser mic on top.... I think it sounds pretty good" /immediately takes wind hit (Murphy's law... been there, done that, lol)
Not related, but beautiful area, in the sample video you provided I could hear the eastern phoebes singing clearly. Definitely going to try this lens with a rode mic.
Me too love very much this lens that i own since 2015. I wonder how the software part of this lens will perform with the time (I had a very bad experience with a second hand -BH Photovideo- Touit 12 mm that I had to send in to Zeiss). I am stressing this point in order to evaluate the risk of buying a second hand Sony Zeiss 35 mm f 2,8. Thank you again for your attention.
Regarding the corner sharpness thing, 99.99 of us we blur it,...yeah, we put the subject , what ever it is in the middle and then we most of the times never go over 2.8 on this kind of lenses, I never met a landscape photographer doing his thing with a 50 mm, they do it with zoom lenses. The engineering of perfect corner sharpness just give us bigger/heavier lenses...just it.
I totally agree, but when most people watch my lens reviews they want to see the corner sharpness test for at the very least just a reference. And some applications do require great corner sharpness like art digitizing photography I do from time to time for clients. This lens is a great for that because very little distortion and I can get just the right distance away, but to your point I stop it down to f/8 when doing that type of work... In general though I never care about corner sharpness 99% of the time in the real world.
Ignore it, because in the real world it rarely shows up, and worst case u can fix it… just my .02cents as u can see how awesome almost all the photos are.
Really? I don't find it that much of an issue, but thanks for sharing your thoughts and of course I would not complain if the MFD was less....👍 1.6' is still close enough for 55mm and it yields a .14x magnification which when combined with decent resolution is totally usable for most work. When in doubt I would grab my FE 35mm f/1.8 Lens or a Macro lens if I need a closer view. All the best, Jay
I have owned this lens since the A7R2 came out. Still one of the sharpest lenses I own. This together with the 35 and 85 1.8 produce 95% of what their GM cousins do. If you need that extra 5%, you know who you are but most people don't.
trying to get into taking good pictures and maybe some wildlife photography , any recommendations for a a good intro setup , trying to keep my budget under 3 K
You should try out the voigt 65 2 apo if you can deal with mf. It's so sharp but has a character that none of these newer lenses have similar to the 55. It also has zero CA and is 1:2 macro.
The Voigt's are on my wish list for sure!! Even used they are still usually very expensive though... ^5mm would be awesome combined with the 1:2 macro as well! 👊
@@Jason_Hermann hey! i remember you talking about this lens (the 55) a while back now! i didn't know if you'd changed your mind or what. re the apo 65, man... iirc it's relatively cheap on ebay, no? i got mine for $325 on photomarket... that's bc it was kinda beat up (but functionally perfect), but i see a mint on ebay for 488 rn. doesn't have AF but it's the most incredible lens i've ever used, viz img quality... i couldn't even believe it when i looked at my first test footage, it was just some tight shots of my cat's face but i felt like i finally understood what ppl meant when they said "painterly rendering," bc everything oof looked... like a painting! sometimes it's not as easy to tell when looking at reviews, bc when all you tend to see is the footage, you don't really have an idea of what it looks like out of camera... i actually bought the apo 35 after that, i liked the experience of the 65 so much (they're so well-dampened it;s just such a pleasurable experience). not as stunning but an exceptional lens too nonetheless. imo great bang for your buck on the used mkt (as is this 55), not least bc the macro
yeah, I appreciate you sharing your experience, and they look incredible going for about $500 on Ebay at the moment... Not to bad, I thought they were more actually... I will certainly keep an eye out because I love using these lenses for the product photography stuff in particular and manual focus is fine for that 👍
You guys all convinced me to look for the Voigt 65mm and I just purchased a mint looking copy off Ebay!! geni.us/jy6E6 Really looking forward to trying it out and it should be here around the 22nd it's saying... Thanks again for the recommendations and I might just have to look at the other focal lengths as well if this lens is as good as I am hoping💪👊 By the way if anybody lives in NY area I would be happy to let you barrow a lens or we can trade for a week or whatever, that would be awesome as well...
I never used the Samyang 45mm f/1.8 lens so I cannot say.... I can't see it having as good of a "look" as this Ziess badged lens though considering all the lenses I have tried over the years. The fringing is prolly way better though as it is pretty terrible on this lens by todays newest lens standards anyway.
Yeah, I can do that when I get some time, but the Zeiss is going to be better for sure as far as distortion & contrast for sure. Sharpness is really good on the Sigma, so that will prolly be fairly close and I am curious about the fringing difference in particular. I will prolly just post a quick article on my website showing that comparison when I get time... www.sonyalphalab.com/
That would be nice; I appreciate it. I already own the Sigma and, like you said, straight from the camera the quality is exceptional. I was wondering if I am missing something by not having this Zeiss lens. @@Jason_Hermann
