jeetsukumaran
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 p.2 #12 · 24 GM vs. Loxia 21 vs. 16-35 GM | |
I've used the Zeiss Distagon 21mm for many years on a Canon EOS 6D then on a A7RIII on an MC-11 adapter. I now have the Sony 16-35 f/2.8.
My thoughts on this:
- As the tongue-in-cheek saying goes, the FE 16-35 f/2.8 GM beats the other lenses everywhere except at 21mm and 24mm!
- The microtexture and the rendering of the Zeiss cannot be touched. Period. Images from the Zeiss have this richness and pop that cannot be matched by any other lens I've ever had. They look like I've had a polarizer on the lens even though I have not. When I pull the images off the card for PP, I do a double take sometimes, wondering if I had accidentally left the polarizer on the lens and going to check my lens in the bag to confirm that it has indeed been left off.
- The Sony, on the other hand, is the sharpest UWA lens I've ever used. In the center 90-95% of the frame (i.e. except for the extreme corners), it sometimes look so crispy that I have literally found myself checking the sharpening and clarity settings to see if they are accidentally being applied instead of at base values.
- The Sony has superb resolution of the finest textures yet without quite the same level of microcontrast as the Zeiss. At a pixel-peeping level, looking at fine grained subjects, comparing side-by-side with the Zeiss, I see the same (or even sometimes better) resolution of detail, but the shadows highlighting the detail is "less black" if that makes sense.
- The Zeiss has this bubble of focus, so that, given a flat plane target, if you focus on the center you might find the corners/edges a little OOF. With a little experience, knowlege, skill, time, and luck, you find the sweet spot just short of the center point to focus on to "pull the bubble" closer to you to get the focus zone to extend back in the corners. When you get it right, you get even sharpness corner-to-corner.
- I have not used the Sony long enough or experimented in the right ways to learn its idiosyncracies to be able to find its "compensation sweet spot" like with the Zeiss. I find the corners lag behind the center even at smaller apertures, though by r/5.6 or f/8 you will have to pixel peep to see the differences. Futhermore, at 16mm I think the unavoidable (in any lens) UWA distortion in the corners plays a bigger role than any difference in sharpness.
- I will reiterate here, though, that for ~90-95% of the frame, the Sony 16-35 is a razor.
- The tactile qualities of the Zeiss focusing are legendary, and indeed, it does live up to the hype. But honestly, the Sony is not too bad either. And honestly, I've handled lenses with better tactile MF focus feel than either (e.g., the Canon TS-E 24 mm).
- The Zeiss has a hard stop at infinity, while the Sony can focus quite a bit beyond infinity. In fact, when using MF assist, when focussing on infinity the EVF says I'm only focussing up to some finite distance (e.g., 70m) or something, not infinity. Is this a bug?
- I've not had the Sony long enough or used it in the right enough conditions to judge, but I've found the Zeiss lens really does much better than other lenses I've had in crappy light. On dull overcast days, or when that sun/terrain/clouds are just not cooperating, somehow the Zeiss magic works it pop.
- Over the years, I've found that 90% of the time, my Zeiss images need only the most basic effort in PP. Otyherwise, out-of-the-box, they are good to go. Again, not used the Sony long enough to assess it in this respect.
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