I\'ve had the Batis for a few weeks and the GM showed up this morning.
It\'s 27 degrees (April 9th !) in Chicago (but at least it is sunny) - so i\'ll be mostly indoors today.
Whoever said (J.Lanier?) that the Batis and GM feel \"about the same\" is a j@ckass. The GM is 2x the weight and you feel that right away. If you\'re going to be on a tripod, who cares - but if you\'re walking around, it will be a material difference and something to consider.
The AF motor on the 85GM definitely is not quiet, but sounds a lot like a small motor i\'ve used with my kids for lego robots. An explanation from Sony would calm my nerves on this issue.
The 85GM also hunts more than the Batis - which is quiet and fast.
I shoot my 35/1.4 @ f/2 if i\'m trying to isolate the subject and take advantage of that lens’ rendering (i have a good copy and that\'s just where things look clean to me), so i\'ll start by shooting all of these @ f/2.
I\'ve respected the Batis b/c it looks really good wide open to me.
In subsequent shooting, I\'ll want to push the Sony 85GM and see if f/1.7 is still \"clean\" but adds even more *wow* factor to its rendering.
My purpose is not a direct side-by-side comparison of every shot - but rather to look at groups/dozens/hundreds of shots of each lens and develop a sense for each. If, after that, I don\'t have a substantial \"wow\" feeling for the GM it\'s going back because there had better be some real \"something special\" to justify the additional price and weight.
I have no doubt that both of these lenses are beyond sharp enough for my a7r2. What I\'m trying to do for myself is develop a general impression of each and decide for my own uses if the Sony 85 GM is worth 150% in price and 200% in mass. It may turn out that for me, I\'m not going to get that much out of it, but others may - i hope this is of some use to you in making your own decision.
I\'ll post Sony GM shots in one post, followed by Zeiss Batis shots in a subsequent post.
These are not side-by-side but rather a bunch of shots of the same scene shot immediately after one another so you can get the general feel for how each lens renders.
Processing: RAW (lossy compressed) into Capture One v9 where sometimes I adjusted the White Balance (but mostly not) and sometimes just hit \"auto\" (Exposure, HDR, Levels, not white balance and probably dialed back it’s ExpComp a bit), otherwise I made no changes; Then, export JPG (size: tall edge 1440px so fits nicely on 30\" monitor).
Apr 09, 2016 at 04:18 PM
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