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Archive 2017 · FE 35mm f/1.4 arrived - looks well-centered to me. Your thoughts?

Matt Anderson
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p.3 #1 · p.3 #1 · FE 35mm f/1.4 arrived - looks well-centered to me. Your thoughts?

Fred Miranda wrote:
Congrats on your copy! Remember to turn off EFCS when shooting wide open under bright light if you are after smooth bokeh. (Or use Silent shutter with static subjects)

Fred, I'm curious about EFCS. I know it's recommended for minimizing shutter vibrations, but I thought I read it limits the bit depth in RAW? Also, how does EFCS affect bokeh ? So much to learn with these Sonys !

Sep 25, 2017 at 11:31 AM

Fred Miranda
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p.3 #2 · p.3 #2 · FE 35mm f/1.4 arrived - looks well-centered to me. Your thoughts?

LBJ2 wrote:
Not much to debate about in these comparison images. It is what it is. Good samples Jonathan! I'm sticking with the native FE 35 F1.4 myself. But can certainly see why someone would want to adapt the Canon.

Same here but honestly would not mind a 35 GM.

Sep 25, 2017 at 11:48 AM

Fred Miranda
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p.3 #3 · p.3 #3 · FE 35mm f/1.4 arrived - looks well-centered to me. Your thoughts?

Matt Anderson wrote:
Fred, I'm curious about EFCS. I know it's recommended for minimizing shutter vibrations, but I thought I read it limits the bit depth in RAW? Also, how does EFCS affect bokeh ? So much to learn with these Sonys !

Turning EFCS does not affect bit mode. It should remain at 14-bit.
With fast lenses (f/1.4) and high shutter speeds (>1/1000s), EFCS will adversely degrade OOF rendering and it's best to have it turned off.

Sep 25, 2017 at 11:50 AM

LBJ2
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p.3 #4 · p.3 #4 · FE 35mm f/1.4 arrived - looks well-centered to me. Your thoughts?

Fred Miranda wrote:
Same here but honestly would not mind a 35 GM.

I was thinking an FE II might come along one day, but you are probably right a GM version might be more in line with Sony's GM approach these days. But on the other hand I still wonder why they came out with the fairly recent FE 50 1.4 rather than going with a GM version. Oh well.

Sep 25, 2017 at 11:59 AM

Jonathan Brady
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p.3 #5 · p.3 #5 · FE 35mm f/1.4 arrived - looks well-centered to me. Your thoughts?

Another "rendering" image. 1/30, f/1.4, ISO 2500 + minor tweaks in LR.

I definitely see a difference between this lens' rendering and other lenses. A lot of other lenses have, I'm not sure what to call it, but I would describe it as "double OOF areas". It's most noticeable in straight lines where there are two lines when there should be one. I've noticed it the most with Sigma Art lenses... like... it JUMPS out at you. It's so bad with those lenses, I can look at foliage and say "bet that was shot with a 35 Art!" and be dead on. And I'm not one to have a real technical eye, honestly. It's less obvious with the longer focal lengths, especially for close up shots shot wide open but that 35 Art shows it BIG TIME.

I do like the smoothness of this lens in the OOF areas but it is bothersome that it's not nearly as sharp as the 35L II. I know I need to get over it but I absolutely FELL IN LOVE with the 35mm focal length because of the 35L II...

I'll keep shooting with the FE 35 and try and convince myself :-)

Sep 25, 2017 at 06:56 PM

GMPhotography
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p.3 #6 · p.3 #6 · FE 35mm f/1.4 arrived - looks well-centered to me. Your thoughts?

Don't use 1.4 as it will be the softness . You want sharper use 1.7 or 2 or you bought the wrong lens it's not a clinical in look lens it has a more classic look to it . Sigma is considered clinical and why you don't like the bokeh

These are the trade offs you have to consider when buying. Very few lenses are ultra sharp wide open and render a classic look rendering. Even ate famout 50 1.4 and GM 85 1.7 really kick it up a notch at 1.7. The FE 35 I would say F2

Sep 25, 2017 at 07:02 PM

PrecisionPhoto
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p.3 #7 · p.3 #7 · FE 35mm f/1.4 arrived - looks well-centered to me. Your thoughts?

Will be getting my Sony 35 1.4 Thursday and although the Canon looks better in many areas the shock of laying out another $500 is even more shocking and sure to gnaw on me anyway wondering what I may be missing

Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L II USM Lens********$1,699.00
Metabones V Canon EF to Sony E Mount*****$399.00
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
**************************************$2098.00

Sony Distagon T* FE 35mm f/1.4 ZA Lens $1,598.00
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
***************************** deference of $500.00

Sep 26, 2017 at 03:43 PM

InFocus2014
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p.3 #8 · p.3 #8 · FE 35mm f/1.4 arrived - looks well-centered to me. Your thoughts?

(Hi Jonathan)

Darn-it, your tests look similar to mine. I went through a couple copies of the FE 35mm f1.4, but they just just didn't compare to my Canon 35mm f1.4 II; except, that the background bokeh can be a bit smoother with the Sony lens.

The DXO Field Sharpness test pretty much tells the story on these two lenses (see below).

I sure hope that Sony updates this lens, in the future, as I am really trying to go all native lenses.

Jeff

Sep 26, 2017 at 04:45 PM

PrecisionPhoto
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p.3 #9 · p.3 #9 · FE 35mm f/1.4 arrived - looks well-centered to me. Your thoughts?

InFocus2014 wrote:
(Hi Jonathan)

Darn-it, your tests look similar to mine. I went through a couple copies of the FE 35mm f1.4, but they just just didn't compare to my Canon 35mm f1.4 II; except, that the background bokeh can be a bit smoother with the Sony lens.

The DXO Field Sharpness test pretty much tells the story on these two lenses (see below).

I sure hope that Sony updates this lens, in the future, as I am really trying to go all native lenses.

Jeff

Sorry how do you read those charts?

Sep 26, 2017 at 04:56 PM

Gunzorro
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p.3 #10 · p.3 #10 · FE 35mm f/1.4 arrived - looks well-centered to me. Your thoughts?

PrecisionPhoto wrote:
Sorry how do you read those charts?

The deeper lime green color and evenness across the frame are tops signs.

Sep 26, 2017 at 05:47 PM

PrecisionPhoto
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p.3 #11 · p.3 #11 · FE 35mm f/1.4 arrived - looks well-centered to me. Your thoughts?

tops signs

Sep 26, 2017 at 05:50 PM

Fred Miranda
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p.3 #12 · p.3 #12 · FE 35mm f/1.4 arrived - looks well-centered to me. Your thoughts?

I'm not disputing that the Canon 35/1.4 does better wide open (at least at mid-distances) but the DXO field map color charts above show results from cameras with different resolution. The Canon is being tested on a higher resolution sensor.
Also, it seems to be from only one copy of each lens. I would not put too much weight or conclude that this is how all copies perform.

I prefer analyzing LensRentals' optical bench tests because it removes the camera variable and averages many samples.
According to their tests, the Sony also lags behind the Canon and Sigma and it's similar to the Zeiss 35/1.4 ZE.

These results are averages though and considering the Sony 35/1.4 ZA variability seems to be higher than the other lenses being tested, 'good copies' should have a much better performance than shown there.

I've posted the MTF comparison between the Sigma, Canon, Sony and Zeiss lenses here:

https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1507037/4#14183927

Sep 26, 2017 at 06:02 PM

InFocus2014
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p.3 #13 · p.3 #13 · FE 35mm f/1.4 arrived - looks well-centered to me. Your thoughts?

Fred Miranda wrote:
I'm not disputing that the Canon 35/1.4 does better wide open (at least at mid-distances) but the DXO field map color charts above show results from cameras with different resolution. The Canon is being tested on a higher resolution sensor.
Also, it seems to be from only one copy of each lens. I would not put too much weight or conclude that this is how all copies perform.

I prefer analyzing LensRentals' optical bench tests because it removes the camera variable.
According to their tests, the Sony also lags behind the Canon and Sigma and it's similar to the Zeiss 35/1.4 ZE....Show more →

Below is DXO's Field Sharpness Map for the Canon 35mm f1.4 II on the 5DIV (30mp).

I agree that a sample of one is not a statistically valid test; however, a lot of folks from various forums seem to report similar findings when comparing these lenses. Guy reports that he went through five Sony lenses before he obtained a good one. I would be willing to do this if I could figure out how to return four lenses without being cut-off by the vendor.

As a note, I consider Roger Cicala's tests to be the bible on lens performance and I have never been happy with any lens that he scored 0.45 for center sharpness wide-open (where I typically shoot them).

Sep 26, 2017 at 06:16 PM

GMPhotography
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p.3 #14 · p.3 #14 · FE 35mm f/1.4 arrived - looks well-centered to me. Your thoughts?

This is a glowly lens until you get it down a little in F stop that’s the character of it. This is exactly like a Leica R 35 1.4 Mandler type of design. This maybe a touch sharper and better corrected but it follows that path. As I said before you want sharp at 1.4 this not really the lens. Pick a Sigma or Canon for that this renders better. Pick your poison

Sep 26, 2017 at 07:31 PM

Fred Miranda
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p.3 #15 · p.3 #15 · FE 35mm f/1.4 arrived - looks well-centered to me. Your thoughts?

InFocus2014 wrote:
Below is DXO's Field Sharpness Map for the Canon 35mm f1.4 II on the 5DIV (30mp).

I agree that a sample of one is not a statistically valid test; however, a lot of folks from various forums seem to report similar findings when comparing these lenses. Guy reports that he went through five Sony lenses before he obtained a good one. I would be willing to do this if I could figure out how to return four lenses without being cut-off by the vendor.

As a note, I consider Roger Cicala's tests to be the bible on lens performance and I...Show more →

I usually don't get into discussions about DXO test results as I don't find their methodology solid.

According to DXO, the Canon FE 35/1.4L II has sharpness of 24 P-Mpix on the 5D Mark IV and 37 P-Mpix on the 5DSR. That's a big difference. However, if you check their field maps, they don't look much different...(as you pointed out)

Also, these field maps don't seem to take in consideration any slight lens decentering (no lens is 100% perfect) since they look perfectly even on all corners. Are they basing their edge results on a stronger or weaker corner? Who knows!

Bottomline is, I agree that the Canon seems to be sharper from wide open. It's also much better color corrected. I'm not sure about rendering too much as I never tested them side by side but from the examples I've seen, the Sony has the edge here.

Having said all that, I like sharp lenses from wide open and the Sony 35/1.4 ZA never disappointed me. I will post some samples.

Aside from IQ, there are other considerations that draw me to the Sony 35/1.4 ZA lens. It has blazing fast and silent AF, its EyeAF is reliable and it's much lighter than then Canon version + smart adapter. (630g vs 910g)

Sep 26, 2017 at 07:59 PM

InFocus2014
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p.3 #16 · p.3 #16 · FE 35mm f/1.4 arrived - looks well-centered to me. Your thoughts?

I pay little attention to the DXO aggregate scores. I do not know what their algorithm is for computing such, but it appears to be heavily weighted to toward being stopped-down. I am equally perplexed regarding the perfect "centering" of their field maps; however, I have found that they generally track very close to my own experience with a lot of lenses.

The main reason I would like to go native on the 35mm f1.4 is the Eye Focus... particularly when using the A9, where this function works so well it just blows me away (I always found Eye Focus to be marginal with the A7RII in the conditions I typically shoot with backlighting, heads slight turned, etc.). I am willing to compromise the sharpness, a bit, but not as much as the two FE 35's that I had that were also horribly de-centered.

Sep 26, 2017 at 08:19 PM

Fred Miranda
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p.3 #17 · p.3 #17 · FE 35mm f/1.4 arrived - looks well-centered to me. Your thoughts?

Here are two examples from the 35/1.4 ZA wide open. For the portrait, EyeAF was used.
I don't think it's razor sharp at f/1.4 (like it's at f/1.7) but like I said I was never disappointed, especially when shooting people.

1:1 crop of the image above

1:1 crop of the image above. Keep in mind this was off center.

Sep 26, 2017 at 08:26 PM

PrecisionPhoto
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p.3 #18 · p.3 #18 · FE 35mm f/1.4 arrived - looks well-centered to me. Your thoughts?

I'll keep mine this Thursday if it looks that good

Sep 26, 2017 at 08:30 PM

InFocus2014
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p.3 #19 · p.3 #19 · FE 35mm f/1.4 arrived - looks well-centered to me. Your thoughts?

The eyes on the gal at the beach are impressively sharp given how far off center they are. I think I will try another copy of this lens. Thanks for posting.

Sep 27, 2017 at 05:31 AM

frezeiss
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p.3 #20 · p.3 #20 · FE 35mm f/1.4 arrived - looks well-centered to me. Your thoughts?

I never thought that the FE 35 1.4 is a mandler glowy lens, not at all. Its far from the glowy performance of Voigtlander 35 1.2 mk2. Actually my copy is more inline to Fred's copy, with nice performance off center wide open, superb by 1.7-2.0

My evaluation is based on using this lens at close distance and medium 3-5 meters distance (not landscapes). When the results are a touch soft, its usually from imprecise focus (A7 mk1). I will try to post later when I have access.

Sep 27, 2017 at 11:23 AM

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