sflxn Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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shelt wrote:
I'm actually shocked by this. I just sold my ZM 50 Planar, which is a close relative of the G45 (I've never had the G45). The ZM 50/2 was very sharp to the edges on a crop sensor, but had progressively weak midfield and poor corners at f/4 and wider on my a7. The center was always sharp and contrasty, but the overall frame sharpness didn't come close to the FE 55 until f/5.6 or f/8, and even then wasn't as sharp and contrasty as the FE 55. The FE 55 OTOH, is shockingly sharp across most of the frame at f/1.8, has very good corners at f/1.8, and only gets better from there. From f/2.8 on it's just amazing. I've never seen such performance at all apertures from any largish aperture lens, and throw in a very smooth bokeh with great Zeiss rendering and it's in pretty rarified territory.
I'd love to see an aperture comparison of the G45 and FE 55. I wish I had some ZM 50 side by sides to post, but it's gone now...Show more →
The center of the G45 is very comparable to the FE 55. I haven't looked at the borders or corners yet. I was mainly testing at infinity and mainly looking at aharpness. What I did find was that when manual focusing the FE55 for longer distance subjects, it is very hard to get optimal resolution whereas it was quite easy with the G45. The contrast from the G45 made it much easier to nail the manual focus. The FE 55 seems to meters much more warmly on the A7R, and maybe that was throwing off my ability to manual focus. In any case, the G45 is more of a curiosity. The 55 is obviously more versatile, due to its AF.
When I find time again, I'll test them more thoroughly again. I was primarily testing my FE35 on the A7R vs the 24/1.8 on the NEX7, and most of my attention was on that. I had some more time left before the light was gone so I threw on the G45 to compare with the FE 55. I'm going to test the G45 vs FE55 again and G90 vs Nikkor 85/1.4 this weekend.
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