Sony SEL35F28Z E Mount Full Frame Sonar T* FE 35 mm F2.8 Zeiss Prime Lens - Black

Product Information

The Carl Zeiss 2.8/35 is the smallest native lens you can buy for the a7 series. It is still a bit too large to call it a pancake but it comes close. I prefer a little larger lenses on my a7 but handling is still very good and at only 120g it is an excellent choice when you want to travel light. When shooting at the widest apertures, depth of field is often shallow and the plane of sharp focus less-frequently includes a corner, making corner sharpness less important. This focal length has great general-purpose use, making it an ideal choice to simply leave on the camera for whatever needs arise.

You won't often see anything out of focus unless you're close and shooting at f/2.8, but if you are, it's very smooth. The only issue I could see are some onion rings which can appear in critical situations. Sony a7ii | Zeiss FE 2,8/35 | f/2.8 Sunstarsthe spherical aberration color halo shows little size change as the lens is defocused and stopping down one to two stops generally removes this aberration. The downsized design is enabled in part by the inclusion of three aspherical elements. Even so, the lens is based on classic Zeiss Sonnar principles and also features legendary Zeiss T* anti-reflective coatings on all seven elements. This helps to maximize contrast and color accuracy, as well as minimizing ghosting and flare. im comparing two quite different lenses here, but reading a lot of the complaints about the sigma compared to the sony; the sony apparently walks over sigma because of size. nonetheless, the sony lens seems pretty sharp through out but does drop slightly on the corners. Above: Moving sideways for a closer look at the rendering shows a reasonable degree of subject separation and while the effect can be attractive, there are fairly defined edges to some of the blurred elements.

I always prefer my lenses to be razor sharp in the corners in case that feature is needed and this lens performs very well in this regard. There is minor field curvature, at around r=15mm the plane of focus moves closer to the camera but the effect isn’t strong. Close Focus Performance In the image quality comparison at f/2.8, the f/1.8 lens is modestly sharper, especially in the center, The shape, intensity, and position of the flare in an image is variable and depends on the position and nature of the light source (or sources) as well as on the selected aperture, shape of the aperture blades and quality of the lens elements and their coatings. With the exception of a small number of specialty lenses, the wide aperture bokeh in the corner of the frame does not produce round defocused highlights with these effects taking on a cat's eye shape due to a form of mechanical vignetting.

Focal Length

One stop of shading is the amount often used as the visibility number, though subject details provide a widely-varying amount of vignetting discernibility. Here is a visual comparison of this lens beside Sony's other two review-time-current FE 35mm prime lenses and a Tamron option: It's not a fast lens, but at f/2.8 it produces photos that are plenty sharp and contrasty. I use this lens on the A7R full frame camera. There is some vignetting going on but I did not find any notable CA. The extreme corners are a little soft, eve stopped down to f/5.6. As far as I can tell this lens focusses fast, silent and accurate. Closing the aperture a little improves the image quality. The bokeh is fairly good for a f/2.8 35mm. Above: With both portraits side by side, you’ll notice my eyeball on the Sony on the left is visibly crisper than the Sigma on the right. It’s not that the Sigma is bad or poorly focused, and viewed in isolation I’d be happy with it, it’s just that the Sony 40 is sharper.

Looking at the specs and measurements, the Sony FE 35mm f/1.8 Lens vs. Sony FE 35mm f/2.8 ZA Lens comparison shows the f/2.8 amazingly weighing half as much If f/2.8 results are not sharp, this f/2.8 lens could become an even narrower f/4 lens in practical use. Above: In terms of minimum focusing distances, Sony quotes 28cm with autofocus or 25 with manual, and here’s what I could achieve when manually focusing – reproducing a subject size of 14cm, and even with the aperture wide-open the details are pretty sharp right up to the edges. Flare and ghosting are caused by bright light reflecting off of the surfaces of lens elements, resulting in reduced contrast and sometimes-interesting artifacts. Sony does not provide focus distance information on the lens, such as in a window, but makes it available in the viewfinder and rear LCD.

Spherical aberration along with spherochromatism, or a change in the amount of spherical aberration with respect to color (looks quite similar to axial chromatic aberration but is hazier) are other common lens aberrations to look for. A subject measuring approximately 10.5 x 7" (267 x 178mm) will fill a full frame viewfinder at the minimum focus distance. With EVFs being prevalent in Sony's lineup, the viewfinder image is being read from the imaging sensor and that is stabilized. Weight: 132g (4.7 oz.). The Sony FE 35mm f1.4 ZA is 660g, the Zeiss Batis 394g, and the Samyang 108g (all specs including lens hood). [+]