Archive 2015 · Batis 85 - Distortion?

ecarlino
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Batis 85 - Distortion?

Now that plenty of people have had the B85 for a while, I was wondering if any users had thoughts on what was one of the original concerns, namely, the Distortion.

How noticeable under what conditions?
un-corrected vs corrected.
if corrected, what software - do you choose defaults or manually dial in correction?
what about softness / loss of resolution as a result of the corrections.

these were all major topics of discussion prior to its actual release.
people seem overall impressed with the lens, but i'm wondering for owners of the lens what their impression is.

thank you.

ps - i'm not trying to rile people up - but i had the opportunity to use the FE 90/2.8 and thought it was pretty good with respect to being a very well corrected lens. Some feel its portrait distance bokeh isn't as good as the B85. And i suppose for portraits, the distortion/corners is less of a concern, but i'm wondering about the B85 for cityscapes / architectural scenes in addition to a portrait lens, thanks.

Sep 05, 2015 at 11:29 AM

GMPhotography
Offline
• • • • • • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Batis 85 - Distortion?

It's a test I still need to do. I'm on vacation but maybe next week. I do see it in some images. Not as bad as feared but still need to test it.

Sep 05, 2015 at 12:24 PM

pgeorges
Offline
• •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Batis 85 - Distortion?

According to Lloyd Chambers it has a massive 3% pincushion distortion. It seems that we're going to have to accept high levels of distortion from FE glass and the Batis is no exception.

I've still ordered one, I'll take distortion over CA!

Sep 05, 2015 at 03:24 PM

ecarlino
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Batis 85 - Distortion?

pgeorges wrote:
It seems that we're going to have to accept high levels of distortion from FE glass and the Batis is no exception.

I don't think the FE 35/1.4 and FE 90/2.8 have high levels of distortion, do you?

Sep 05, 2015 at 05:37 PM

pgeorges
Offline
• •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Batis 85 - Distortion?

ecarlino wrote:
I don't think the FE 35/1.4 and FE 90/2.8 have high levels of distortion, do you?

The only two lenses that don't have much distortion are the two that are DSLR-sized. For the rest of the lenses Sony chooses size over distortion control. This is where all but a select few FE lenses will be headed.

In a way, you just proved my point

Sep 06, 2015 at 02:56 AM

ecarlino
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Batis 85 - Distortion?

pgeorges wrote:
The only two lenses that don't have much distortion are the two that are DSLR-sized. For the rest of the lenses Sony chooses size over distortion control. This is where all but a select few FE lenses will be headed.

In a way, you just proved my point

whether or not that is true, i wasn't discussing "all but" i was in fact discussing "a select few" in as much as i'm talking about high end lenses. btw, the Sony 28/2 and Batis 85 were the first 2 FE primes that had a noticeable amount of (un-corrected) distortion. The 35/2.8, 55/1.8, 35/1.4 and 90/2.8 all seem to have relatively low distortion.

as the batis 85 gets a lot of props just for being Zeiss, and the shots i've seen do look great, i'm just wondering how much distortion correction, if any, people are dialing in and how that would affect non-portrait shots (i.e. shots where it isn't just a central subject and where corners and straight lines do matter).

again, as i originally stated, i'm actually trying to get some facts out of this thread from people who have used the Batis 85 and not trying to start arguments over un-related topics, so please only reply if you have the Batis 85 because i really enjoyed using the 90/2.8 but hear/see a lot of good things about the Batis 85 - but the one thing that was a big topic of discussion beforehand and not so much anymore was the distortion - but i' also mostly seeing portrait (central subject) type shots - and frankly at web - resolution it's hard to glean that much detail anyhow.

Sep 06, 2015 at 06:23 AM


FM Forums \| Sony Forum \| Join Upload & Sell

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.