I'm quite pleased in the detail in most cases, but having upgraded from APS-C I'm used to seeing the most flattering section of the MTF charts, so not sure what to expect in the far corners. I'd be interested to hear your observations; each image is available full size.
Also, these are JPEGs from the camera, as Aperture does not yet read the RAW files. The next thing I'd like to do is see how much detail is recoverable from those dark corners...
Not enough time to test the 135mm Sonnar today, will report back later and with more commets about the suitability of the VG900 as a stills camera.
dakw23 wrote:
So, here's the first batch: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dakw23/sets/72157631993239568/ In each case I've used a moderate aperture so it's not a test of the lenses, but how well they interact with the sensor (in the best case).
I'm quite pleased in the detail in most cases, but having upgraded from APS-C I'm used to seeing the most flattering section of the MTF charts, so not sure what to expect in the far corners. I'd be interested to hear your observations; each image is available full size.
Also, these are JPEGs from the camera, as Aperture does not yet read the RAW files. The next thing I'd like to do is see how much detail is recoverable from those dark corners...
Not enough time to test the 135mm Sonnar today, will report back later and with more commets about the suitability of the VG900 as a stills camera.
hmm, corners certainly look suboptimal. i think i could live just fine with the summilux's performance though. it's a little hard to say from these how things would look at infinity or with a flat field.
Thank you for sharing. Most of the M wide lenses would have more problem with color cast and smearing at infinity. Would you be able to do a shot like this?
It is difficult to assess the lens performance with a scene with as much depth as yours. The above shot gives a very quick look at the corner smearing issue as well as other lens characteristics (de-centering, astigmatism, etc.) Thank you.
hiepphotog wrote:
Thank you for sharing. Most of the M wide lenses would have more problem with color cast and smearing at infinity. Would you be able to do a shot like this?
It is difficult to assess the lens performance with a scene with as much depth as yours. The above shot gives a very quick look at the corner smearing issue as well as other lens characteristics (de-centering, astigmatism, etc.) Thank you.
Sure, will give that a try at the weekend, although it's tricky to find a horizon in Manhattan!
The 21/3.4 at f/8.0 should be pin sharp in the corners in my experience, quite a bit of smearing toward the edges unfortunately. Not that you would notice in video.
That's also what I was thinking about the 21/3.4, based on my initial results with it on the M9. While I haven't shot the CV15 on the M9 recently, my impression is that stopped down it's also sharp corner to corner. We're likely seeing the consequence of a sensor not optimized to RF style optics.
Hmm. So, the lack of color shift is super encouraging, to me.
I'm not sure why the upper two corners should look so much worse than the lower two, smear-wise (the CA makes sense given the backlighting).
The upper-left corner from the 21SEM isn't so great, but the upper-right is possibly acceptable. I haven't really had the chance to see any pictures from this lens on an M9 at full-pixel resolution, but I haven't seen any obvious smearing on the web-size pics that have been posted.
Thanks for posting!
Here's hoping that the future FF MILC from Sony using this sensor will have different toppings (weaker AA filter seems to make sense for stills) and perform even better ;-)
The apparent lack of color shift is really encouraging.
Is it worth noting the extra resolution of the 24Mp over the 18.5Mp of the M9? I agree the 21mm RHS looks much better than the LHS. The CV15 definitely lacks corner detail.
Difficult to determine if there is any color shift with the CV15, which is notoriously bad on the M9 in this respect (though IIRC, it's sharp into the corners), but if there is, it's not dramatically bad, which I agree is an encouraging sign.
It's possible the uneven edge/corner sharpness we're seeing with the 21/3.4 may be related to the mount adapter. The wider the lens, the more critical this becomes, from my understanding.
Taylor - I had a look at some full rez M9 images with the 21/3.4 around f/8-11 and the corners are very sharp, as Dan indicated.
I agree, Ron. I had a bad adapter for my Konica 21 and it looked extremely smeared on one corner, and that was with the NEX-5N. I can't even begin to imagine how it has to be on FF.
Many thanks to Dakw23 for providing us with a 'world premiere' of RF lenses on the VG900.
My guess is that, concerning RF lenses, the performances of the VG900 will be closer to a NEX-5N than to a NEX-7.
Certainly, if we compare the photo of the combo VG900+SE21 to a combo giving aprox. the same FOV on APS-C ( i.e. NEX-5N or NEX-7 with CV15 ) in the picture of the VG900+SE21 there's none of the heavy purple shift seen in NEX-7+ CV15 photos.
Probably the lower pixel density of the VG900 vs NEX-7 is the main reason for that. Isn't very likely that Sony tuned the sensor for pleasing a ( comparatively ) few manual lens "freaks" like us. I bet also that a possible NEX FF with a 24 mp sensor would perform very much like the VG900 in this regard.
Personally I'd settle with a reasonably good, though no optimal, performance of a hypothetical NEX Full Frame and a ZM25. Anything wider, specially the quasi symmetrical Biogons, will be less than stellar, not to speak of super wides like the CV15/4.5, which otherwise isn't very sharp on the corners even with film cameras.
On a side note, my regrets are that Ricoh, instead of meddling to no end with the Pentax purchase, should have invested their time and resources to develop a FF version of the excellent A12 M mount APS-C sensor. Maybe they will do it eventually.. some day. Who knows ?
A little disappointed by the corner performance stopped down but overall I'm very happy to see the results. I don't suppose you'd be willing to share the RAW files? Personally, being more of a still than a video shooter, if Sony released a NEX-7 styled camera with this sensor, at around this price, I would snatch it up.
Thanks again for the test! (and for making me hanker for a Shake Shack burger!)
rscheffler wrote:
Difficult to determine if there is any color shift with the CV15, which is notoriously bad on the M9 in this respect (though IIRC, it's sharp into the corners), but if there is, it's not dramatically bad, which I agree is an encouraging sign.
It's possible the uneven edge/corner sharpness we're seeing with the 21/3.4 may be related to the mount adapter. The wider the lens, the more critical this becomes, from my understanding.
Taylor - I had a look at some full rez M9 images with the 21/3.4 around f/8-11 and the corners are very sharp, as Dan indicated.
A word about adaptors: I'm using the Hawks helicord model, and it doesn't look to have anything which would project further inside the mount than the three lips to the bayonet. I also have the Metabones adpator, but this doesn't physically attach to the camera! This looks to be due to a small screw head shown below.
I've since looked through Lloyd Chambers' aperture series for the 21/3.4, so now realise I can expect to see much more detail. More rigorous testing is to follow!
There's no evidence so far of a colour shift - there was a blue sky this morning so I took some pictures out of the window and saw nothing other than blue in the corners (given that my window pane is quite dirty, I won't offer the image samples as it would be an unfair test).
like us. I bet also that a possible NEX FF with a 24 mp sensor would perform very much like the VG900 in this regard. 
