http://www.lemondedelaphoto.com/Le-verdict,6221.html
Sorry, if this was already posted but I searched and didn't see anything posted.
Looks like the distortion is bad on this lens and it is not excellent sharpness wideopen or at 2.0.
This lens is a super performer. I don't get the comments about the wide open sharpness, Wayne. You surely don't expect excellent corners WO? It is much better than than the FF equivalent 35/1.4.
On the bright side, at least you'll get an almost perfect hit rate for Autofocus at F1.8 since it's contrast detect vs phase detect.
Plus since this is only an APS-C lens and much smaller than the Sammy or even the Sony on the camera, I don't think its unreasonable for edge performance to be meh.
I frequently get focus errors even at F2 on my Contax G 45mm. Focus peaking is accurate about 75% of the time.
Sorry not as bad as I first thought, 2.8 is excellent.
Not sure how the distortion compares to other lenses people are using on Nex but I remember the Sony 16 had a lot too.
I think you could be onto something, with that observation. What a machine sees as sharpness is different than what the eye sees as sharpness. The ZE/ZF 35/1.4 is definitely a sharp lens to my eyes.
I prefer practical definitions, as opposed to mechanical or assisted tests. My working definition would be something like the ability to faithfully reproduce recognized detail as seen with the eye (both in the scene and the photo). Note that this doesn't really distinguish between resolution and apparent resolution. For my purposes, this distinction isn't needed. Note also that I am talking before PP.
No, I don't think so. The distinction just isn't important to me personally.
I would say that sharpness is more perceptual, and could involve contrast, whereas resolution is purely technical. Recent Leica lenses tend to have a lot of resolution, but Zeiss lenses look sharper, for example. Exceptions abound, so don't read too much into that.
Snopchenko,
Thanks, that review seems to be in close agreement with the one above.
The pin cushion type distortion instead of barrel is unusual.
As far as the sharpness wide open of the ZE 35/1.4 and its veiling haze due to undercorrected SA design, I recommend reading the Zeiss technical white paper on bokeh where they describe this well. Also see Lloyd Chambers review. If you have ever used a softar softening filter that is also using the same undercorrected SA effect to soften the image.
The individual colors do not reach optimal focus in the same plane.
Ie. If you focus on a green object, a red object in the plane as the green one would be slightly out of focus. Neutral colors like grey are harder to focus on since the different color components never come into focus together at same time.
Sharpening can reduce this haze as LC has shown.
This obviously affects the sharpness scores at wide apertures as seen by a machine tester.
wayne seltzer wrote:
Sorry not as bad as I first thought, 2.8 is excellent.
Not sure how the distortion compares to other lenses people are using on Nex but I remember the Sony 16 had a lot too.
FWIW, the little Sony 16 actually has pretty low distortion for its size and focal length. It's the m4/3 lenses that have massive distortion that is corrected in software.
