Tirpitz666 wrote:
In general I'm growing fonder of this lens the more shots I see around, could really be a valid alternative to the mighty (and big) 35 F1.4 ZA, as at the end due to different FL, DoF wide open at 1mt would be basically the same (of course quite different rendering between the two).
Thanks for your feedback on the pictures! Basically, I came to the same conclusion. I think and say the same, you just can express it more elaborately. The Batis 40 reminds me a bit of my former Pentax FA43 1.9 Limited. It could produce lovely, lovely shots, but you had to be careful with the background, since the bokeh could be busy then as well. But otherwise, it was great.
The following pics will be the last bunch of pictures I share since it's not my intention to annoy people when reporting back, selecting and uploading pictures.
Pic "2711" demonstrates that the lens can produce very nice bokeh, if the background fits. The rest isn't about human portraits. The two pictures of the barn are F2 and F4.
Maybe some of them might help those who are interested.
Just to make it clear. Your not annoying anyone. The post of real images is a great contribution to this forum and thread. Please keep them coming if you want.
Also nice to see some that are out doors. Since two snow storms delayed my copy from arriving and when I look at my yard all I see is snow (very nice though) the give me some idea of what I will get months from now when the snow melts.
I too am interested in continued practical use feedback on this lens. I own all the other other Batis lenses and enjoy using all of them. As is already well known there are some very fine attributes to all the Zeiss Batis lenses. I paused on the Batis 40 due to the now infamous wide open nonagonal bokeh ball shapes which turned out to be a symptom of the what I call the potential automatic stopping down behavior in some circumstances. The now much loved Eye AF feature also seems to be potentially problematic too. IMO, I think Zeiss may eventually address Eye AF if they can. The other what I will call less than desirables listed are probably permanent. Of note, is I don't think Zeiss has ever posted any firmware updates to their Batis lenses. Since the A9 first came out, I am still waiting for Zeiss to update some of the current Batis lenses to acheive AF up to 20FPS on the A9. I was told by Zeiss that this capability was under review over a year ago. Since there has been no changes since, my guess is they can't do it or decided otherwise.
Whether some see these listed characteristics of the 40mm as priority faults/issues or not is up to the individual. In the meantime, I am sure the overall Batis 40 IQ will perform just a well and maybe even better than some of the other Batis lenses. I fully expect many happy customers and beautiful Batis 40 imagery regardless and am looking forward to see what people do with this lens.
For me 40mm is a nice-to-have but not a must-have and frankly there are so many very good FE lens options to chose anyway. So I can be patient or redirect my attention and funds to the new GM 24 F1.4 I've had the pleasure to work with for about a week now ( Yep the GM 24 is really as good as what we've all read it is 😉
zeitlos wrote:
Pic "2711" demonstrates that the lens can produce very nice bokeh, if the background fits. The rest isn't about human portraits. The two pictures of the barn are F2 and F4.
Pic 2711 is very nice and a strong image to showcase the lens.
My initial tests are showing the AF front focusing issue similar to as described by others here, in certain circumstances.
Using an A7rIII with AFS, AF in Focus Mag - on. Flexible Spot:S. Shooting at f2. Silent shooting.
Procedure: Spot AF on defined edge, magnify to 12.4X and AF again to see if focus shifts.
At distances less than approximately 8 feet, the focus will shift slightly to the front. Within 4 feet, it is quite noticeable.
At further distances there appears to be no focus shift.
Note that the initial Spot AF appeared correctly focused at all distances.
I visually looked into the front of lens at these different distances and as a possible coincidence, the aperture blades are closing down within these shorter distances.
Shooting at f2.8 has similar focus results to a lesser degree, increase in depth of field possibly masking it. At f4 the effect is very, very minimal.
My Eye-AF tests (with different settings) were limited and inconclusive yet initial impressions are mixed results, at least under 8 feet distance. Which is unfortunate.
I’ll be able to shoot some more in the next few days and experiment with the Eye-AF more.
Edit: There is no focus shift from min focus distance to about 1 foot working distance. So the problem area is from about one foot to 8 feet out.
Do not know if this correlates direclty to the Eye-AF focus shift issue.
I'm still interested on the Batis too but I ended up buying a used RX1R (older version, not II) in great condition last weekend at a decent price and I decided to postpone any plans regarding the Batis to a much later consideration at the same time.
There are a few things that are not ideal with the Batis, e.g. it is a bit too large and I don't like the aperture behavior at close distances and the AF issues are not ideal either. I'm also getting the CV 110 in 2 weeks or so, so need to consider the overall budget...
I did end up buying all 4 other Batis in the past (though I eventually replaced all but 135mm with other lenses) so maybe this one will get picked up eventually too, but for now I'll just keep observing what happens with the AF issue.
Yea I’m sticking with the Tammy 28-75 and 55 for now. I need working lenses on the 30 th of this month and in January for a big job . So I’ll wait till at least next year and all this should be cleaned up. Nice report
eyal wrote:
Pic 2711 is very nice and a strong image to showcase the lens.
Thanks! Even though I was just out to test eye-af without paying much attention to composition etc. I also thought that to a certain extend it may show that 40mm are good for portrait as well and the Batis 40 can do the job. However, it's REALLY sharp. I've done slight retouching of the skin in this version here (using Color Efex), and still skin blemishes are easily detectable .
And eye-af hit in this one (the right eye isn't really sharp because it was f2 and I didn't notice it while shooting).
I'm glad that Fred will get a copy soon so we will get reliable information. Looking forward to it!
P.S. Thanks for commenting back and clarifying things. I appreciate it.
zeitlos wrote:
Thanks! Even though I was just out to test eye-af without paying much attention to composition etc. I also thought that to a certain extend it may show that 40mm are good for portrait as well and the Batis 40 can do the job. However, it's REALLY sharp. I've done slight retouching of the skin in this version here (using Color Efex), and still skin blemishes are easily detectable .
And eye-af hit in this one (the right eye isn't really sharp because it was f2 and I didn't notice it while shooting).
I'm glad that Fred will get a copy soon so we will get reliable information soon. Looking fowled to it!
P.S. Thanks for commenting back and clarifying things. I appreciate it. ...Show more →
zeitlos wrote:
Thanks! Even though I was just out to test eye-af without paying much attention to composition etc. I also thought that to a certain extend it may show that 40mm are good for portrait as well and the Batis 40 can do the job. However, it's REALLY sharp. I've done slight retouching of the skin in this version here (using Color Efex), and still skin blemishes are easily detectable .
And eye-af hit in this one (the right eye isn't really sharp because it was f2 and I didn't notice it while shooting).
I'm glad that Fred will get a copy soon so we will get reliable information soon. Looking fowled to it!
P.S. Thanks for commenting back and clarifying things. I appreciate it.
So I haven't begun processing any of the images I've gotten yet but everything taken with both normal AF-C and AF-S appear to be very sharp and very fast focusing. Also I'm not too concerned with what I've seen on the nonagonal shapes. The cause has been explained and while I want to be able to take advantage of the close focus capability closer than the 1m barrier I think its tolerable when the lens stops down inside that radius. The eye-af results I have are still limited but I think I am going to have to process them and do some pixel peeping since in the view finder the focus system is definitely following the eye very well so I'll have to see the results of the focus itself. Hope to do a lot more testing this weekend.
The Batis 40 reminds me a bit of my former Pentax FA43 1.9 Limited. It could produce lovely, lovely shots, but you had to be careful with the background, since the bokeh could be busy then as well. But otherwise, it was great. 
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