I am new to the forum and new to Sony. Recently bought the Alpha 1 with a few lenses to start build my system, and become a fan of Loxia lenses. However, I've seen similar issues with 3 Loxia, two 35mm and one 21mm. Want to post it here to see if anyone else has experienced the same.
For all three lenses on Alpha1, when set the aperture ring to certain stops faster than F4 and slower than the wide open, the focus magnifier just won't stay, no matter activated through turning the focus ring or a function button manually. The magnifier would just comes up for a brief moment and than disappears. Just imagine having 21mm set to F3.5, for instance, when I turn the focus ring continuously, magnifier would come and go like crazy. None of the stops above 4 have this issue for all three lenses. Lenses are full functional otherwise and I really like the images produced. But this glitch is driving me a bit insane I am thinking about returning them...
I have a 50mm GM which has an physical aperture ring, it doesn't have this issue at all.
My Alpha is on the 1.1 firmware, and I emailed Zeiss customer service but they say they can't reproduce with the same setup. To me it feels as if the aperture info transmitted to the body is not properly recognized, or the body thinks the lenses are in between stops... and it feels like a software problem. I am gonna try the lenses on my friend's A7R3 tomorrow, but I don't have another A1 to test.
I wonder if this issue is seen by others, and should I just live with it, since for each lens there is only 1-2 stops that show this glitch...
Well, not sure if it helps, but I have the same issue (albeit to a small degree) with my 2 CVs now on A1 and previously on A7III.
I don't know if it's related to aperture but you might be right (I thought it's the camera/lens position that can slightly affect how well the lens is mounted on to the camera).
I always thought this can be caused by dirty contact pins or the lens chip handling communication (EXIF, aperture, focus distance, etc.) but never got to investigate this in detail as it happens relatively rarely in my case.
I'll try the faster than F4 range to see if I can reproduce it reliably then...
A data point: I use focus magnification (bound to a button) on my A7III with dumb-adapted vintage glass and native Sony glass with and without aperture rings, and don't think this has ever happened to me.
Flavourdynamic wrote:
A data point: I use focus magnification (bound to a button) on my A7III with dumb-adapted vintage glass and native Sony glass with and without aperture rings, and don't think this has ever happened to me.
It can't happen with a dumb adapter (or a non-exif/chip lens) as it's the data flowing through the pins that cause the camera to exit the magnified view (that's my observation at least).
I've played around a bit with my CV35 and CV65, but I can't get it to trigger reliably.
I think it varies from copy to copy and what actually is happening is that focus ring movements cause micro movements of the aperture ring (or in some other way affect aperture) which cause the camera to exit the magnified view...
Works as it's suppose to using Loxia glass on my A7rIII, but a work around would be to set one of your # 1,2,3 to magnify. I have that set up for my legacy glass.
Can you set up one of the A1's buttons to toggle between AF and MF, and see if that convinces the A1 that is in MF mode? (I have my 200-600 lens's buttons set to toggle AF/MF, FYI).
I have seen at least one very long thread (either here or on dpreview) discussing this problem at length. Loxias that work on the A7R3 for example that exhibit this problem on the A1 is not uncommon.
degner wrote:
I'm having the same problem with Loxia lenses on an FX3. I think it is also something with the aperture signal interrupting the focus.
This is worrying for the coming A7RV since we have had several reports about the A1 having this problem but if the FX3 is also affected, there could potentially be other newer generation bodys with the same problem built in.
This has come up before and as noted a long thread about it. I really always used on all my Sony cameras was a function button to activate focus magnifier . Never used the auto feature. For me it was always me in control of such features. As much as I liked the Loxia lenses and really had every one of them at some point. I was always bothered by its focusing ring and aperture ring setup on every one of them I turned more towards Voightlander lenses. My issue was the aperture ring should have been bigger in diameter than the focusing ring and I do like the aperture ring out front to get to easier. Preference stuff of course but there best was the 25/85 and they are stellar IQ wise.
As someone says in the recent last post on the topic, it would be good to be able to just turn off this effect of the focus magnifier getting automatically twiddled with by aperture changes.
Here's the letter I sent to Zeiss and Sony. Let's see if there is any response:
Zeiss Loxia lenses are designed to work with Sony FE cameras. And they did work well, but more recent Sony cameras seem to have introduced or are responding to a bug that makes it impossible to use the Focus Magnifier feature.
On my Sony FX3, when I attach one of my 3 Loxia lenses, the camera works as expected until I press the record button. While recording, if I activate Focus Magnifier, the view will punch in for a fraction of a second, then return to the normal unzoomed screen. This makes it impossible to check focus while recording a video.
One clue to what is happening is that the aperture indicator on the bottom of the camera screen turns from white to orange as if the aperture is changing, and that causes the focus magnification to cancel.
Here are some more clues to help narrow down the issue.
This occurs on my FX3, but not my Sony A7r III.
It occurs with all 3 of my Loxia lenses, 21, 35, 50. So they are the older Loxia models.
I'm not blaming Sony or Zeiss for this problem; it is probably a combination of design choices. I hope a fix can be found, or else I won't be able to use the FX3 or Loxia lenses again.
degner wrote:
Here's the letter I sent to Zeiss and Loxia. Let's see if there is any response:
Zeiss Loxia lenses are designed to work with Sony FE cameras. And they did work well, but more recent Sony cameras seem to have introduced or are responding to a bug that makes it impossible to use the Focus Magnifier feature.
On my Sony FX3, when I attach one of my 3 Loxia lenses, the camera works as expected until I press the record button. While recording, if I activate Focus Magnifier, the view will punch in for a fraction of a second, then return to the normal unzoomed screen. This makes it impossible to check focus while recording a video.
One clue to what is happening is that the aperture indicator on the bottom of the camera screen turns from white to orange as if the aperture is changing, and that causes the focus magnification to cancel.
Here are some more clues to help narrow down the issue.
This occurs on my FX3, but not my Sony A7r III.
It occurs with all 3 of my Loxia lenses, 21, 35, 50. So they are the older Loxia models.
I'm not blaming Sony or Zeiss for this problem; it is probably a combination of design choices. I hope a fix can be found, or else I won't be able to use the FX3 or Loxia lenses again. ...Show more →
Do keep us updated on Zeiss' respons, although I have to say that I sent a similar mail to Zeiss and had to wait for six weeks to get a response that the problem is unknown to Zeiss...
A follow up email in which I referred to one of the threads on this forum was never answered.
ChrisMak wrote:
Do keep us updated on Zeiss' respons, although I have to say that I sent a similar mail to Zeiss and had to wait for six weeks to get a response that the problem is unknown to Zeiss...
A follow up email in which I referred to one of the threads on this forum was never answered.
A copy to Cosina might help for two reasons:
1. If my memory hasn't hallucinated this, there have been reports also for Voigtländer lenses (that Cosina makes).
2. From what we know (by cleaver guesswork), the Loxia lenses seems to be manufactured by Cosina for Zeiss.
I messaged Zeiss about this issue and received a response:
Dear David,
The issue is addressed and our developer team and supplier are currently working on a solution. We will start the testings when lenses with new firmware implemented are available.
Our website is always the best source for latest information because now it is hard to say when a solution will be ready for the market.
Thanks again for your request.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen - With best regards
degner wrote:
I messaged Zeiss about this issue and received a response:
Dear David,
The issue is addressed and our developer team and supplier are currently working on a solution. We will start the testings when lenses with new firmware implemented are available.
Our website is always the best source for latest information because now it is hard to say when a solution will be ready for the market.
Thanks again for your request.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen - With best regards
Wow, finally that's an answer that gives hope .
DaveFP wrote:
Make sure that "focus magnifier with AF" is disabled.
I actually use that option as it allows you to exit magnification just by pressing the shutter button. I also don't see how it could help...
(that's my observation at least).
.