I am very excited about this lens. Love 35mm fov but hate big lenses. With f/2 and decent close up capability, this could be my go-to for travel. Well maybe add a 24mm gm for landscape...
Stores have been slow adding this lens for pre-order but I think it will be a big seller. I will post an update once Amazon adds it to their page.
It took me a while to find a good copy of the ZA 55/1.8, so I'm still deciding if I should replace it for the Batis 40. I do prefer the 40mm focal length but already have the CV 40/1.2 as well...
After looking at all the sample photos I have found from this lens I am quite convinced that the closer you get to MFD the more nonagonal the bokeh shape gets. At typical portrait distance the bokeh renders quite nicely to my eyes, and the general sharpness, contrast and colour-rendition looks great. This is encouraging, seeing as I have pre-ordered.
Not me. I'd much rather stick with the 35/1.4 for now, despite its extra weight. It reminds me of the Batis 85, in that the bokeh is busier than I would like.
I'm hopeful that, of the 12 new lenses Sony will be releasing, one of them will be a 35/2, 40/2, or 35/1.4 v2....
I really like what I see on this latest review by Allan Weitz. But then there's this which seems to be popping up in a few different review sample images now.
Just checking my understanding a little bit... Isn't it fairly common that when macro lenses are used close to the MFD that the focal length actually changes?
Fred Miranda wrote:
From the samples posted so far, who is loving the 40/2 Batis rendering?
i actually think it's beautiful, except those angular bokeh stop-signs (they're not 'balls')
but any scene that doesn't have "points of light" is really smooth.
Fred Miranda wrote:
From the samples posted so far, who is loving the 40/2 Batis rendering?
I like the rendering. I have the 40mm 1.2 Voightlander, which I am very happy with. I like the perspective of the 40mm focal length, and i would like to have an AF version for travel and for the kind of quick shooting I mostly do.
The Batis 40mm seems a bit more neutral than the Voigtlander, but the Batis's rendering still has a buttery smoothness, even in high contrast images, that I find very appealing and Zeiss-like. The image of the car door lock is very beautiful to me, and you can see the sharpness in the specks of dust on the lock. The polygons that appear toward MFD images don't bother me--they never have. To me they mostly just mean that the image was made with a camera and lens and it doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the light and colors and forms. They sort of put the camera and lens in the image in the way that a lot of art, especially modern art, includes the context or the maker within the artwork itself. Happens a lot in theater and in novels as well as in painting. I just read the polygons as an artifact and a reference to the lens.
I like a lot of the Allen Weitz photographs at B&H. Those are some of my favorite types of images.
I am going to wait a bit to see and read more before I decide to buy the lens.
I'm sure it's a sharp lens. But with the stop sign bokeh, bulky shape, fly by wire mf, Batis blurry sunstars... $1300 is way too much for all those trade offs. Sharp is nice, but since sharpness is a given in most lenses, it's the last thing I look at.
