I use (and love) the Loxia 21 for a lot of street photography on A7R4 and A7R5 cameras.
It's set to focus at 4 feet and f/8, and I usually get reasonably in-focus images of most people.
Once in a while, I miss focus badly, and of course, it's always an image that would have been pretty sweet had all the various parts in the frame worked out.
So I'm looking for a suggestion for an AF lens that is close to Zeiss in quality, maybe even personality.
A Sony 20mm is the obvious choice, but I only buy Sony lenses if there's no other option (e.g. 50mm f1.2).
One lens that seems interesting is the Tokina Firin 20mm f2.
My only hesitation is the AF motor is apparently noisy, which might get in the way of being a sneaky street fotog.
Does anyone have an interesting lens that they can recommend for its optical qualities?
The Sony 20mm f/1.8 G is the best optically with the best AF motors and full weather sealing.
Sigma makes 3 different 20mm lenses in E-mount. They're all compromises in some regard. All use stepping AF motors. The Art lenses will have build quality rivaling Sony. The "C" lens gives up true weather sealing.
Viltrox lenses are generally excellent considering the price. Their 20mm f/2.8 AF has very good test results at opticallimits. Build quality is going to be a couple steps below Sigma or Sony. Probably the best budget option.
Tamron's old 20mm f/2.8 is so-so optically. It is lightweight and very inexpensive.
IMO there’s nothing between the Batis 18 and Sony 24 GM other than the Loxia 21 (and CV 21) that exhibits the colors, contrast, and out of focus rendering that I like of Zeiss lenses.
akashyap wrote:
IMO there’s nothing between the Batis 18 and Sony 24 GM other than the Loxia 21 (and CV 21) that exhibits the colors, contrast, and out of focus rendering that I like of Zeiss lenses.
I fully agree, and wish that Zeiss had made a 21mm Batis.
jeffbuzz wrote:
Their 20mm f/2.8 AF has very good test results at opticallimits. Build quality is going to be a couple steps below Sigma or Sony. Probably the best budget option.
Tamron's old 20mm f/2.8 is so-so optically. It is lightweight and very inexpensive.
FWIW: my Tamron 20mm F2.8 is much sharper than the Viltrox 20mm F2.8 and the C/V 21mm F3.5 I've tried. The Tamron 24mm I had was fairly poor--so I am sure comparisons will vary. I like the half size reproduction capabilites of the Tamrons. Also Tamron has proper Lens Compensation data while Viltrox hasn't so far--maybe in the future. I have seen that Tamron's distance encoders be somewhat inaccurate.
Old film primes and zooms in this range have even more variation in my experience and just don't adapt well. The 1986 Minolta AF 20mm F2.8 has Lens Compensation support when used on the Sony LA-EA adapters.
I've also tried the 21mm Ultra Wide Converter for the FE 2/28. The copy I tried was probably badly misaligned--I've had ok results with Sony's APS-C converters for their APS-C pancake primes. Unlike the APS-C converters the FE ones get automatically recognized by the camera with correct EXIF and Lens Compensation. It doesn't make much sense with the native 20mm F2.8 options.
QuietOC wrote:
FWIW: my Tamron 20mm F2.8 is much sharper than the Viltrox 20mm F2.8 and the C/V 21mm F3.5 I've tried. The Tamron 24mm I had was fairly poor--so I am sure comparisons will vary. I like the half size reproduction capabilites of the Tamrons. Also Tamron has proper Lens Compensation data while Viltrox hasn't so far--maybe in the future. I have seen that Tamron's distance encoders be somewhat inaccurate.
Old film primes and zooms in this range have even more variation in my experience and just don't adapt well. The 1986 Minolta AF 20mm F2.8 has Lens Compensation support when used on the Sony LA-EA adapters.
I've also tried the 21mm Ultra Wide Converter for the FE 2/28. The copy I tried was probably badly misaligned--I've had ok results with Sony's APS-C converters for their APS-C pancake primes. Unlike the APS-C converters the FE ones get automatically recognized by the camera with correct EXIF and Lens Compensation. It doesn't make much sense with the native 20mm F2.8 options. ...Show more →
How much of your Tamron's "sharpness" was synthetic? The Tamron 20mm has a shocking amount of distortion considering it's a prime of modest focal length and aperture. Massive profile correction is used to straighten the raw images.
Tamron does make a nearly optically correct 21mm lens. It's in the middle of their 17-28mm zoom.
jeffbuzz wrote:
How much of your Tamron's "sharpness" was synthetic? The Tamron 20mm has a shocking amount of distortion considering it's a prime of modest focal length and aperture. Massive profile correction is used to straighten the raw images.
Tamron does make a nearly optically correct 21mm lens. It's in the middle of their 17-28mm zoom.
Maybe you're right about the Tamron 20mm, but strictly speaking within the context of street photography, I've never noticed any issue with distortion.
The distortion he's talking about is prior to correction. You won't see it in a standard workflow with most tools. The "pre" corrected version would have quite a bit of distortion, you just probably don't see a "pre" corrected version of your images.
tsdevine wrote:
The distortion he's talking about is prior to correction. You won't see it in a standard workflow with most tools. The "pre" corrected version would have quite a bit of distortion, you just probably don't see a "pre" corrected version of your images.
jeffbuzz wrote:
How much of your Tamron's "sharpness" was synthetic? The Tamron 20mm has a shocking amount of distortion considering it's a prime of modest focal length and aperture. Massive profile correction is used to straighten the raw images.
Tamron does make a nearly optically correct 21mm lens. It's in the middle of their 17-28mm zoom.
If one cannot see it in the final image, does it really matter? Asking for a friend.
Besides the 20mm lacking 1.4, it seems to be a GM lens for a G price.
Here you can get minty one used for under 600.
its really sharp, great AF, weather sealing.
I got this lens by "accident" a friend had one and wanted to get rid of it, I tried it. On the a7RV I can put it in crop mode if i'm out and get 30mm as well.
I honestly didn't think I was going to keep the 20mm cause I don't use that FL much, but I"m shooting a prime set of lenses and this is my only WIDE prime and its just great not too wide but wider than 24mm. Most zooms go to 24mm or 28mm. So this seems nice too even if you have a zoom.
This is my first 20mm. I wished they would come out with a 28mm G lens just like this.
tsdevine wrote:
Did I say it did? Sorry for trying to clarify what the other person was saying.
Read into things much?
I love you call me out, not the person who was making the implication of it affecting results. Something I don't believe I did in my comments.
Just commenting on your statement that the pre-corrected image would have a lot of distortion…my view is it doesn’t matter as long as the end result is good. I’m not laying anything on you other than re-enforcing the distortion is not an issue. Have a sip of wine and chill a bit.
Appreciate the replies.
I'll try out the Sony and the Viltrox, both are returnable.
I don't think I need either lens, but I should try out an AF version of my most-used focal length and see if I've been missing out.
I received my Sony FE 20/1.8 G lens today, and I am absolutely thrilled
with its very fast and quiet autofocus, optical performance, and brilliant sharpness even at open aperture.
I am also impressed by the size and
weight of the Sony FE 20/1.8 G lens compared to my VC 21/1.4 Nokton aspherical, but I'm keeping the VC 21/1.4 Nokton aspherical because of its absolutely brilliant aperture stars.
I use the outstanding Sony A7RV with the 61 MP sensor, and these lenses perform really excellently with it.
The Sony FE 20/1.8 G lens has impressive image quality, the kind you would expect only from Sony GM lenses.
tsdevine wrote:
If one cannot see it in the final image, does it really matter? Asking for a friend.
What difference does it make which camera or lens you use at all? Asking for myself. Seems rather arbitrary to discuss the characteristics of specific cameras and lenses with great fervor, then decide that the image processing software doesn't matter.
You could shoot all your images using a 180 degree fisheye lens. Then use software to flatten the images, crop and interpolate to get the tiny slice of the image you want. Would you work that way if AI processing could synthesize enough data to fool your eyes into believing the end result was real?
The Viltrox arrived today, just before sunset, so I only had a few minutes to do a dozen or so test shots in the back yard.
It's a very good performer, sharpness is admirable.
Edge to edge? Remains to be seen in real-world shooting.
It also has a warm cast, so every shot has to be cooled down ~500K to get it to look neutral.
Tiny and very light.
I'll have to test it out with passers-by and other quick-moving things and see if the AF is up to snuff.
I also look forward to comparing it to the Sony 20mm next week.
