DannyBurkPhoto wrote:
Agreed, congrats on your Loxia trio! I love them and have been using them as much as I can since spring conditions have finally got here.
A comment about the 50mm: be careful when buying used copies. My first one came from Ebay and was in mint condition, but had a slight "wiggle" when mounted on the camera, causing errors with exposure. I didn't realize that this was a known problem until I researched it. I returned it and bought a new one from B&H, which is perfect. There were apparently problems with this issue when it first became available.
I went down to the beach to do some test shots at lunch time - certainly not "golden hour" light, but I was more interested in detecting flaws while I was still within the return window for the lenses. After a quick look at the images in LR, these are my first impressions:
The Loxia 21 is very sharp at most apertures although I am seeing some weakness at wider apertures, primarily on the left side, but a small tweak in focusing can mostly clean it up. I wish the acutance/resolution of the A7R II screen was better so you could more easily detect and correct this in the field.
The Loxia 35 is definitely soft in the corners with some smearing but the central image is very sharp, and the rendering is nice. The corners do seem to clean up by f/11. It reminds me a bit of some older Canon lenses (16-35mm f2.8L, 17-40mm f4L, 24mm f1.4L) in the corners, but with more micro contrast and a more pleasing rendering.
The Loxia 50 is insanely sharp - I don't think I've ever used a lens this good - and the rendering is very nice as well.
