I attached a side by side comparison of a few crops from the images. All I did was open the RAWs, turned the noise and sharpening to zero, and resized the 5DSR image. Obviously the lightening, framing, etc. is not identical but I think its a valid comparison overall. Not perfect or ideal of course.
As you can see the amount of detail the Canon/Canon combo produces is very noticeable compared to the Sony. I was thinking the differences would be much smaller especially considering the only variable is the sensor and adapter. Perhaps the adapter is the issue? Regardless, I personally would not be happy using the 24-70 Canon lens on the Sony.
IMO, the difference is not subtle. This image combined with a few examples led to my decision to not use Canon lens on the Sony A7R II. I think the adapter is affecting IQ more than most realize.
Thanks for the link, Brian. The comparison was not done under controlled lighting circumstances , hence most of the difference, IMHO. I looked at my images taken with that lens on the A7r II again and I am pleased with them. But again, I didn't do any comparison.
As far as adapter concerned, based on my personal experience, the IQ difference has either to do with field of curvature or with decentering. The first results in smeared corners and color shifts if the center is sharp. You can focus on the corners, which improves the corner regions but the center part is not perfectly focus, hence lagging behind. The decentering results in fine performance on one side but less so on the opposite site. It is not necessarily left or right sides, although it is more pronounced that way and it is less revealing if the upper or lower sections having variable performance.
By later this week I'll have both the Canon 16-35 f/4L, and the Sony 16-35 f/4. My travel camera combo in the past has been my 6D with the 16-35 f/4L, but I'm considering taking the A7R I recently purchased instead for our annual Maui trip in November.
The Canon is such a sharp lens that I'll have trouble selling it even if I decide to go with the Sony combo for traveling. I've just had really good luck with the A7R since I got it, and the size difference is something to consider for hiking etc. THe Metabones adaptor works, but it's slow AF and bigger size makes it tough to use for anything more than landscape work.
We'll see if I can justify keeping the Canon around if I really get into using the Sony combo more going forward.
Thanks for the link, Brian. The comparison was not done under controlled lighting circumstances , hence most of the difference, IMHO. I looked at my images taken with that lens on the A7r II again and I am pleased with them. But again, I didn't do any comparison.
As far as adapter concerned, based on my personal experience, the IQ difference has either to do with field of curvature or with decentering. The first results in smeared corners and color shifts if the center is sharp. You can focus on the corners, which improves the corner regions but the center part is not perfectly focus, hence lagging behind. The decentering results in fine performance on one side but less so on the opposite site. It is not necessarily left or right sides, although it is more pronounced that way and it is less revealing if the upper or lower sections having variable performance. ...Show more →
My point exactly and why I, personally, would not use a Canon lens on a Sony body. I've only seen a few examples but from what I've seen the IQ does indeed suffer.
From what I've read and seen online the Sony 16-35 does not match the Canon 16-35, especially in the corners. When you throw an adapter in the mix you add another potential IQ penalty. That being said the Sony option is the best wide angle zoom you can use on the A7 series. IMO, just don't expect it to rival the Canon.
OK, I did the original test so I think I'm qualified to say this:
- If you have the money and take your a7r as your only body some times with NO OTHER CANON GEAR, you get the Sony 16-35. Period.
- If you have a canon body that you want to use and money is tight, you get the Canon.
- If you take the A7r as your only body sometimes but you are going to take other Canon lenses so you need an adapter anyway, probably just stick to the Canon.
I own the Canon TSE-24 and until last week owned the Canon 16-35 f/4. I am in the process of switching back to Sony (Had an A7R previously, got a 5DIII now, my A7RII arrives this week). I decided to sell my canon 16-35 and purchase the sony version. My thinking was it was smaller than the adapted lens and lighter and I would more likely take it everywhere in my bag as opposed to only taking the canon out when I was out taking landscape photos. (keeping the TSE)
Only time will tell if I have made a mistake, im worried I have. But the point of this post was to say that I definitely dont think there is an issue using the canon version on the sony bodies in terms of IQ etc. The picture below was taken with the canon on the A7R and the detail is ridiculous when viewing the full size file. Corners are sharp to my eyes.
I had both and compared them. The corner sharpness was a bit better for the canon (on my second Sony sample, the first one was awful. like most of my sony lenses I had to go through several copies before finding a good one). However the real difference I found was the flare. The new canon lenses seem to have a much better coating, and I had a lot of problems in high contrast situation with the sun, or with street lights, in the frame with the Sony. To the point that all my city night time photos were ruined. Also, the sony 16-35mm has a bright hotspot in infrared.
It's a nice compact lens, and the flare might have been worse due to sensor flare on the A7, but I found that extremely annoying.
edit: other points hat might be of interest to some is that the build of the canon is much better. The paint finish on sony lenses is very prone to damages. Finally the focus on the canon lens is much better, much more precise. Focus by wire on sony lenses is not as precise, you get no feel of what you're doing and you can't really keep the same focus from photos to photos (useful for landscape).
Fred Miranda wrote:
Fred: do you mind commenting on the CoC you use? I know everybody has difference tolerance, but those 16-35
It's definitely a keeper. I already knew it had decent IQ from 16-24mm because of the tests I did against my TS-E 17mm and TS-E 24mm primes. It does not quite match the extreme edges but it's not much behind and that is of course expectable. I'm comparing it against the best prime lenses out there...
35mm seems a little weak on the edges "wide open" but for those interested, I just tested the FE 16-35/4 against the FE 35/2.8 prime @35mm. The prime has excellent optical quality from f/5.6 until f/8. (center and corner) The zoom came very close at f/5.6 and both are pretty much equal at f/8 and beyond. (from center to extreme edges)
I was surprised to see the zoom performance at 35mm being neck to neck to the prime at infinity focus at smaller apertures.
I would not hesitate to shoot with the zoom at 35mm instead of the prime for landscape photography from f/8 to f/11.
I was surprised that the FE 24-70/4 IQ was so inferior when compared to the 16-35/4. I hope Sony has a replacement soon or perhaps a f/2.8 version.
I just purchased the small CV 15 f/4.5 III and will test it against the FE 16-35/4 as well.
AGeoJO wrote:
You will be surprised how much of a role the thickness of the adapter would play a role in the final result. To a certain degree, the effect is similar to that of modification of the stack thickness on the A7 series. The corners would be more effected than the center.
If the lens doesn't have floating elements, then the thickness only matters if you can't achieve infinity focus.
If the lens does have floating elements, then the exact thickness matters more, and it's a matter of shimming out the adapter so that the infinity mark is at infinity hard stop (or a bit before if that's how the lens is tuned on its native mount)
Following information about lenses online is enough to make one's head swim. Due to the many variables, my results do not always seem to track the results of others (although they seem to correlate fairly well with Photozone's and Roger Cicala's tests).
Other than some distortions, I found the FE 16-35mm f4 lens to be excellent on the A7RII; that is, except for 35mm f4, where it was downright soft (although, it was sharp by f5.6). The problem was that I wanted to shoot 35mm f4, a lot, when street-shooting.
Despite some, such as Tony Northrup, saying that the corners on the adapted Canon 16-36mm f4 IS were soft, I decided to try one. What a surprise I had. Across the board, viewing RAW files on a 5K, 27" monitor at 100%, the Canon/MBIV beat the Sony lens in almost every area... and it was actually sharp at 35mm f4.
I was also motivated by the fact that I can use the Canon lens on my 5DSR's.
Shot at f5.6/f8/f11, I obtained some outstanding images from the Sony lens shot on the A7RII, so I still hold it in high regard... and actually recommend it to others. I guess that my message is, to anyone reading this thread - go do the comparisons yourselves and see what makes the most sense for you.
, hence most of the difference, IMHO. I looked at my images taken with that lens on the A7r II again and I am pleased with them. But again, I didn't do any comparison.