Yes, that is what was even stated by Zeiss if I'm not wrong, in fact shots with a distant subject and bokeh in the background show circular and not angular bokeh balls.
While I think that Zeiss at the end will at least try to fix the Eye-AF issues, I'm not that confident that they would deem to "fix" the aperture blades behavior at short distance, as the lens was clearly designed like that (still waiting to fully understand what would have been the real "consequences" to let the blades fully open even at minimum focus distance)
Here is a link to a flickr album of mine, all images shot with the Batis 40mm on an A7RIII. No editing except some shadow lifting on a few. All images available @full resolution.
IzelPhotograph wrote:
Not sure what's happening there but mines wide open at 1m, every time. Focus (half press) on a subject that you know is 1m and release then check lens. It will be (should) wide open repeat for subjects closer and when you check the lens you will see the aperture blades have closed in. Certainly doesn't need to be at infinity to get f2.
Autofocus on a target, then manually focus towards infinity while looking at the blades.
I just tried this at measured distances up to 16m, and even then I could see the blades opening up when I turned the focus ring.
Yeah, using DMF. Close focus af(keep finger on the shutter) and turn focus ring. By 3.6 feet (on the display) it's fully open.
Edit. It's far easier just using normal AF though. Press shutter on something very close and release the button, check the aperture and it is closed down to f/4. Focus on something 1m away, release the button and the aperture is fully open.
I've never had the lens step down on anything that was focused on and more than a meter away
Just mentioning this because there are tons of stuff about the new Batis 2/40 CF there now that the project is finished (phew!) - and here might be someone who hasn't seen it yet (maybe, I don't know). This will be the last time I mention this here as I don't want to kidnap the thread.
Just mentioning this because there are tons of stuff about the new Batis 2/40 CF there now that the project is finished (phew!) - and here might be someone who hasn't seen it yet (maybe, I don't know). This will be the last time I mention this here as I don't want to kidnap the thread.
Very nice job with the project Toni. You really did show the versatility of this lens and took time to explore its attributes and limitations.
And I commend you for including the precaution on EyeAF. I'm sure it's difficult to remain objective when a company as big as Zeiss hands you a lens and has you do a 30 day review. There is always the possibility of bias inherent with any review where the reviewer did not purchase the product but you did an admirable job of keeping obvious bias from affecting your review.
I hope that Zeiss will communicate with you if/when they figure out the EyeAF issue. It really does not seem to be serving any benefit for them to remain silent while forums like this and others fill with page after page of concerns...
eyal wrote:
Very nice job with the project Toni. You really did show the versatility of this lens and took time to explore its attributes and limitations.
And I commend you for including the precaution on EyeAF. I'm sure it's difficult to remain objective when a company as big as Zeiss hands you a lens and has you do a 30 day review. There is always the possibility of bias inherent with any review where the reviewer did not purchase the product but you did an admirable job of keeping obvious bias from affecting your review.
I hope that Zeiss will communicate with you if/when they figure out the EyeAF issue. It really does not seem to be serving any benefit for them to remain silent while forums like this and others fill with page after page of concerns......Show more →
Thanks for the kind words, Eyal! In a project like this Zeiss expects the output to be personal and honest - they see it as advantage in the long run. Well, of course I'm a Zeiss enthusiast, so how honest I can be. Would you buy a used car from a Zeiss addict? More serious, we all love something and it's ok. We just need to be honest and fair to each other as well.
And I agree that the current Eye-AF issue is really a shame in a otherwise good product. It's difficult to handle because I don't have much information about it (nor the experience because I have the first generation A7-body). For example, I might lean to say that it's probably caused by the lens, but it gets read as a fact very quickly (and I haven't even tested it myself), and it might be something like partly lens/partly body (I do know that Sony has somehow updated the AF-routines with the A7RIII release). But again, we just don't know, so I was kind of waiting it to be solved quickly. Unfortunately it didn't. But I do know that Zeiss is working on it - and I agree they should somehow report about it, but I guess they want to get to the bottom of it before explaining anything in public - because, again, things get easily interpreted in many ways if they don't offer very explicit information and solution for it. And I guess there's a corporate-things like command-chains and statement-making-policies or whatever.
But when the lens finally works, it's good. They should sell it with a jar of patience!
What's your opinion on the lens closing down the blades under 1m distance? Why was designed like that? What are the advantages in forcing the lens to F4 rather than letting the user do that if he is not satisfied of the IQ wide open? It still puzzles me a lot as a design choice to tell the truth..
P.S. outstanding job with your dedicated blog, really insightful and with some beautiful pics to boot
Tirpitz666 wrote:
What's your opinion on the lens closing down the blades under 1m distance? Why was designed like that? What are the advantages in forcing the lens to F4 rather than letting the user do that if he is not satisfied of the IQ wide open? It still puzzles me a lot as a design choice to tell the truth..
P.S. outstanding job with your dedicated blog, really insightful and with some beautiful pics to boot
The aperture blades close down to keep the high image quality. I totally understand that it might sound a trivial alternative just to leave them open because it *looks like* the compromise with image quality would be little. But we don't know that really - it just feels that way for a armchair opticians like me. If someone would ask me, I would say the sun circles around the sun because it feels and looks like it. But the thing is more complex and I know I cannot really explain the real situation (involves too much numbers).
Here's another way to think about it. Take any lens at similar focal length (Sony 35/2.8, Loxia 2/35, Sony FE55 etc) and notice that they all have the magnification ratio around 0.15x, in other words they cannot focus on very close (the Batis 2/40 has 0.303x). I could say that this is a unneccary design limitation because manufacturers don't let me move the focus group of the lens any closer (so it would focus closer and give better magnification ratio). So why don't they let me do it? Because, again, the image quality would suffer! In other words, we take other lenses like they would not have design limitations, but they do have. And it sounds to me, the arm chair optician, very simple that they should just allow the focus group move more so we could focus closer.
What I mean with all this is that the Batis 40 has a optical design that allows it to have superb image quality both at infinity and high magnification ratios. Zeiss has taken the normal design limitation of the typical lens (poor magnification ratio) and turned it upside down to offer better magnification ratio without any loss on image quality. But nothing happens for free, so there comes a different design limitation, and its the aperture behaviour at close range. For me this is a good and creative compromise because it makes the lens more versatile and the small aperture change at the close distance doesn't affect the overall aesthetics so much (everything in the background is kind of blurry anyway). The only exception being christmas light type of situations and similar. Doesn't hurt me too much, but for some it of course might be a biger issue (Of course there are optical designs that allow these features to exist without limitations, but they quite likely lead to much bigger lenses, think macro planars and such).
Yeah, everything you say has perfect sense of course, and probably is exactly what Zeiss was thinking when they decided to design the lens like this.
Nonetheless, when talking of close focus capabilities, I cannot forget that there are lenses like Zeiss' own Flektogon 35 F2.4, which are several decades old and somehow manage to achieve a whopping 0.416x magnification with a totally acceptable sharpness level already wide open (at least in the center of the frame) while at the same time remaining quite diminutive in size. Of course I can imagine that the Batis is for sure a much better lens in every other regard.
So I can totally accept that this Batis would need to be stopped down to F4 to really deliver the goods at MFD, what I found less acceptable is that the manufacturer decided to "remove" from us end users the possibility to decide whether to accept an IQ compromise in order to shoot anyway wide open at close distance (but as you say, is implicitly what happens with MFD of other lenses as well, it's probably just more apparent as a "imposed" limitation ).
LBJ2 wrote:
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 😉...Show more →
Agreed. I was looking forward to this lens but after receiving the 24GM and using it now for a couple weeks on my A7riii I am happy with the 36mm 18mp files it produces. I even compared them to my 40mm1.2 and they appear sharper at 1.4. At least my copy anyway. I may some day revist the Batis (just hate the over all design , in minority I know) but I think I will hold out for the 35mm 1.8 Sony that I think is finally coming this spring
nhsonyshooter wrote:
Agreed. I was looking forward to this lens but after receiving the 24GM and using it now for a couple weeks on my A7riii I am happy with the 36mm 18mp files it produces. I even compared them to my 40mm1.2 and they appear sharper at 1.4. At least my copy anyway. I may some day revist the Batis (just hate the over all design , in minority I know) but I think I will hold out for the 35mm 1.8 Sony that I think is finally coming this spring
I agree. I'm keeping my excellent 35/2.8 and 55/1.8, and I have a new Sony 35/1.4 inbound fom Adorama. That gives me much more versatility than the bloated Batis 40. I also get dependable eye AF and non-nonagonal bokeh balls.
At one point, I thought that I would have the entire Batis line. Here 's what happened:
Batis 18 - still have and love this lens, favorite Batis
Batis 25 - loved it but sold it for the 24GM which is a small bit better in every way except size/weight
Batis 40 - see above, no plans to get this one, a real disappointment in size, speed, and bugs/quirks
Batis 85 - still have this, like the rendering of the 85 GM better but too heavy and not that into portraits
Batis 135 - still have this, I like the size and weight, great IQ but not a lot of "character"
Just shot a PR gig with the Sony 24 and crop mode 36mm or whatever it is and the 55 and I don’t need the 40 but I may replace my 55 with the 50 1.4 loved that lens when I had it
GMPhotography wrote:
Just shot a PR gig with the Sony 24 and crop mode 36mm or whatever it is and the 55 and I don’t need the 40 but I may replace my 55 with the 50 1.4 loved that lens when I had it
The FE 50 F1.4 is pretty close to spectacular ( as you know) and personally I really don't mind the size/weight at all for handheld work.
For paid work I don’t mind size and weight so it be fine. The 24/50 maybe a dream 1.4 team together is what I’m thinking. I really don’t need my Tammy either now. So I maybe convinced to sell the Tammy and the 55 and get the 50 1.4 back . I loved that lens.
I figured out my whole problem the last couple years with glass I was always trying to do combination of AF/MF with glass. I finally given that idea up and just have two separate kits and leave it that way.
MF now as of today I bought a Leica 75 summarit to go along with my CV 15,21,35,50 collection. So my travel kit is 15,21,35,75
nhsonyshooter wrote:
Agreed. I was looking forward to this lens but after receiving the 24GM and using it now for a couple weeks on my A7riii I am happy with the 36mm 18mp files it produces. I even compared them to my 40mm1.2 and they appear sharper at 1.4. At least my copy anyway. I may some day revist the Batis (just hate the over all design , in minority I know) but I think I will hold out for the 35mm 1.8 Sony that I think is finally coming this spring
As much as I like my Batis kit, I never really felt the Batis design was anything other than "interesting"
IzelPhotograph wrote:
Yeah, using DMF. Close focus af(keep finger on the shutter) and turn focus ring. By 3.6 feet (on the display) it's fully open.
Edit. It's far easier just using normal AF though. Press shutter on something very close and release the button, check the aperture and it is closed down to f/4. Focus on something 1m away, release the button and the aperture is fully open.
I've never had the lens step down on anything that was focused on and more than a meter away
Here’s a sequence of pictures of the aperture blades of the B40 set to f2 focused using MF on an A7r3 at infinity, 2m, 1m and min focus distance. Notice it’s closing down at 2m still.
Very unimpressed that the aperture closes at 2m, as this is my most used distance at 35-50mm, If you want to 2/3 fill a frame with a toddler or half body shot of wife, Im at 2m give or take. Also, the Tamron 28-75 f2.8 focuses at something like 4 inches from the front element (.2-.4 meters from wide to tele MFD) and stays completely wide open and keeps high resolution (though it’s at f2.8 vs B40s f4 MFD and unknown aperture at 1 and 2m).
Comparatively, the B40’s CF nomenclature seems like more a marketing ploy than a genuine specialty. The tamron also does 1:2.9 magnification at wide, down to 1:4 at tele; so the Tamron may be higher magnification at 40mm at MFD than the B40.
Ok... didn't spot that very slight adjustment of the aperture between 1-2m. Whats even stranger, I see no difference in exposure as a result. I'm not sure what it's doing but what I do know is there is no difference to exposure until you hit 0.7m when the exposure drops by 0.3 of a stop, then 0.7 by 0.4m.
To demonstrate this as well as the other changes to exposure as the point of focus draws nearer the camera, I created a rough and ready video clip. Excuse the dog barking and a little shakiness but you'll see what I'm saying.
I used spot metering (normal) on an area that was away from any sunlight. It's overcast this morning anyway but this is on the north side of the house as well so no fluctuation in light intensity. I started at infinity exposed so the meter read 0-/+ and then gradually pulled back the focus until it reached it's minimum focus point.
As you'll see, there is no change in exposure until you reach the 0.7 mark... certainly no change in exposure between 1-2m. So, I'm not sure what is happening to the aperture ring but it has zero effect to the exposure settings.
It would be interesting to see some results from someone who is skilled at testing lenses to see what it is doing but, from a practical sense, it has little effect until the subject is 0.4-0.7m away. At the end of the day, this is what matters most to me. The biggest hit to exposure is between the 0.2 & 0.4m range, which I expected.
yes Newtophotography504, that's exactly my observation. The aperture is also closed at focus distances of more than one meter. I bought the Batis 40 two days ago in Germany and will return it for exactly this reason.
This observation is independent of whether manual focus is used or whether autofocus (single or continuous) is used to focus on a target 1 meter, 2 meters, 3 meters or 30 meters away. Even at a distance of 3 meters (10 feet) the aperture is still slightly closed. At distances around one meter (3 to 4 feet) the Batis is only marginally brighter than the Sony Zeiss 35 2.8.
Since the 35 2.8 and the Batis 40 also have a very similar rendering with out-of-focus areas rich in contrast and texture (or: not so smooth) at first glance, I hardly see any added value in the Batis 40. Somehow disappoiting!
More serious, we all love something and it's ok. We just need to be honest and fair to each other as well. 
