Jannik Peters wrote:
This is also my reality. The Batis will probably see much more use than I expected initially, espacially after seeing its performance. I am very curious how the "forbidden" f-stops will look like
I think it will perform slightly worse at f/2.8 compared to f/4 at MFD. That's what happens with most lenses.
Hopefully f/2.8 will still gives high IQ at close distances.
Fred Miranda wrote:
I think it will perform slightly worse at f/2.8 compared to f/4 at MFD. That's what happens with most lenses.
Hopefully f/2.8 will still gives high IQ at close distances.
I expect that too. The performance I see gives me hope that it is still decent. This leaves me even more wondering why Zeiss did that.
Perhaps I missed it, but did they mention that they were addressing low light, close focus AF lock with the firmware? I tried my 24 GM and it locks on instantaneously in the same lighting conditions that create difficulty for the Batis 40 under close focusing distances. Perhaps keeping the aperture open more will alleviate this.
saxguy wrote:
Perhaps I missed it, but did they mention that they were addressing low light, close focus AF lock with the firmware? I tried my 24 GM and it locks on instantaneously in the same lighting conditions that create difficulty for the Batis 40 under close focusing distances. Perhaps keeping the aperture open more will alleviate this.
I believe the new firmware will only stop the lens down to f/2.8 instead of f/4 at close distance and MFD. So, it will allow twice as much light. Specular highlights will also be more rounded.
Feb 20, 2019 at 05:09 PM
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Jannik Peters wrote:
I expect that too. The performance I see gives me hope that it is still decent. This leaves me even more wondering why Zeiss did that.
Like both you and Fred I expect it to be decent. I do think it will have a noticeable loss of contrast and perhaps a bit more CA than the lens has otherwise. I think Zeiss didn't want any drop in performance close up, so it could be marketed as very good at any focus distance. Not sure that was a bad choice for marketing, but I definitely would have preferred that they let us decide how to use it and even now I wish it would open up all the way to f/2 at close focus.
Steve Spencer wrote:
Like both you and Fred I expect it to be decent. I do think it will have a noticeable loss of contrast and perhaps a bit more CA than the lens has otherwise. I think Zeiss didn't want any drop in performance close up, so it could be marketed as very good at any focus distance. Not sure that was a bad choice for marketing, but I definitely would have preferred that they let us decide how to use it and even now I wish it would open up all the way to f/2 at close focus.
The FE 50/1.4 ZA stops down automatically to f/1.6 (actually perhaps f/1.5) at distances shorter than 1m. This is pretty much imperceptible to the end user. Stopping down from f/2 to f/4 was a bit crazy imo but they almost got away with it. The nonagonal specular highlight shape gave it away...
I'd say, just let photographers close the aperture for higher IQ if needed!
Once the April firmware is out, I will revisit this lens.
But I’m starting to think that I would rather wait and see if Sony comes out with a 35mm GM lens. Just love the look of my 85 GM and what I have seen from the 24 GM.
A 24-35-85 GM trinity would be wonderful (for me).
Thank you for the pictures, they are stunning.
How would you compare the sharpness of this lens to something like FE55 f1.8 or FE 85 f1.8 if you have any of those?
Thanks
Dom
nhsonyshooter wrote:
For the size of this lens it should have been faster. Then I would have been interested...
I agree, though the other way round: I think the Batis 40mm is too large for what it is.
I'd be very happy with an f/2.0 lens in this range, but only if the "compromise" (of giving up on f/1.4) is rewarded by a really compact size, which is possible because such a lens (especially without optical stabilzation) for sure *can* be built smaller than the Batis 40mm, even preserving first-grade image quality.
I don't mind the size so much...it's not humongous, as long as it delivers the image quality ( micro contrast and colours ) as its brothers, the 25 and 85. I can see this lens teaming up with my 25 and 85 forming my travel kit.
The Batis 40 is much larger than classical Planar lenses in order to achieve higher quality. If yo want a small normal lens there is the Sony 50/1.8 FE, but you need to stop it down to f/4...
I believe the actual reason it is large is that they want the Batis series of lenses to all have the similar width and feel.
The lens is not large in absolute terms, and it is light. It weighs only 30g more than the Canon 35mm f/2 IS USM. The Canon is made of plastic and has no weather sealing. The only dimension in which it is large is it's width.
And I believe the problem is that it is not a higher quality optic than other lens designs. It's optical quality is questionable enough that Zeiss took the step of forcing the aperture to close down to automatically avoid the flaws in its design.
bjornthun wrote:
The Batis 40 is much larger than classical Planar lenses in order to achieve higher quality. If yo want a small normal lens there is the Sony 50/1.8 FE, but you need to stop it down to f/4...
Jesse Evans wrote:
I believe the actual reason it is large is that they want the Batis series of lenses to all have the similar width and feel.
The lens is not large in absolute terms, and it is light. It weighs only 30g more than the Canon 35mm f/2 IS USM. The Canon is made of plastic and has no weather sealing. The only dimension in which it is large is it's width.
And I believe the problem is that it is not a higher quality optic than other lens designs. It's optical quality is questionable enough that Zeiss took the step of forcing the aperture to close down to automatically avoid the flaws in its design.
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Not sure i agree. it stops down because of its desire to offer close focus and keep that region of focus sharp. most other lenses can’t focus at all in that CF region. macro lenses don’t do this because they are only f/2.8 and not f/2
