Showcase Sony FE 16-35mm f/4

[quezra]

All I can say is I am thinking of selling the 28-70. In fact I am almost certain to sell it. There's just no range the 16-35 and 55/1.8 can't cover either with zooming, zooming with feet, or light cropping (and the 55 is amazing at what you can crop down to and still have very crisp images).

 

[Snowy]

I also checked my Lightroom stats and found a large percentage at 28mm. Much more than I expected so that underlines my 'need' for the 16-35. I'm thinking of selling my wide Rokkors (24mm and 24-35) to defray some of the cost.

 

[serhan]

Camera Canada is having a sale now, CD1399 ~ USD1100:
http://www.cameracanada.com/enet-cart/product.asp?pid=SEL1635Z

 

[serhan]

Photozone review is out:
http://www.photozone.de/sonyalphaff/897-zeiss1635f4oss

The resolution characteristic varies a bit but it's generally pretty impressive. The center quality is nothing short of outstanding and it's a safe bet to state that it easily exceeds the capabilities of the 36mp sensor at mainstream settings here. In the low to mid range the border quality is also very good to excellent and even the corners are sharp. Unfortunately the 35mm setting isn't quite as impressive. While the center is still fine, and even superb at f/5.6 and f/8, the corners are soft at large aperture settings. However, to be fair - they recover nicely till f/8 so from a real world perspective this may be less relevant. Diffraction has an impact from f/11 onward.

 

[WestOkid]

Photozone review is out:
http://www.photozone.de/sonyalphaff/897-zeiss1635f4oss

When you look at the numbers, this lens looks like a landscape beast.

When you look at the numbers from this lens they are as good or better than any other ultra wide angle FF zoom, yet they seem Luke warm on it. They give it a 3.5 out of 5 performance. So what is an excellent ultra wide angle zoom?

 

[quezra]

That's the Photozone bias effect, who knock off 0.5-1 star if it's Sony just because. They actually gave it 3 stars initially, then someone in the forums was like "Huh." and then Klaus hiked it up to 3.5 - which shows how arbitrary and worthless their star ranking is. Charts are useful, though interestingly they actually rate the 16-35 better in the center than DxO does (their peak is only 16 perceptual-MP, which suggests it doesn't outresolve the A7r at all)...

 

[TedG954]

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[WoodWorks]

Charts are useful, though interestingly they actually rate the 16-35 better in the center than DxO does (their peak is only 16 perceptual-MP, which suggests it doesn't outresolve the A7r at all)...

Which shows why I place so little value on these lens testing sites. Even with sophisticated measuring equipment, their numbers often don't agree. When considering this lens, I spent most of my time examining photos taken with the lens on Flickr and other photo hosting sites. Sure, there are a range of images there from awful to brilliant, but at least those that had EXIF data attached to them could be examined for things such as corner sharpness or smearing, and many of them gave me a decent idea of the lens's micro contrast, color rendering, and vignetting. It may not be "scientific," but in the end the information I got was much more useful to me than any lab test.

Edit: I realize that I came off as some sort of anti-technological luddite there. I didn't mean to. But in the end, for me at least, I don't really get a very good idea of how a lens is going to work for me by reading lens tests. The 24-70, for instance, got fairly mediocre scores at all of the labs, but became one of my all-time favorite lenses.

 

[dmward]

When I was shooting Canon, I had what I consider "the zoom set" i.e. 16-35, 24-70, and 70-200. All F2.8 L glass. the 70-200 was IS.
I originally got an A7R to use with my TSE lenses for architecture. I tried one of the Canon zooms on a Metabones adapter. It worked OK for aperture control and M focus. Naturally AF was out of the question.

Finally I decided to try the FE 16-35 to see what I though. Its a very nice lens. Sharp, easy to use and relatively small. The F4 doesn't bother me. The OSS is a nice benefit.

A winter sunrise on Lake Michigan

Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)

Here is a link to some images I've made with the lens. All hand held.

http://davidmward.photography/forweb/fe1635/index.html#BENCH_HDR2

The two interior shots were made from a bracket set that was combined in Lightroom into a 32 bit file for editing.

Here is an article on my blog site describing the process I use: http://digifotografi.com/articles/processing-sony-a7r-6-ev-bracket-set-in-lightroom

 

[TedG954]

Rather than cross-post, here is a link to a bunch of 16-35/4 shots taken with the A7II.


https://www.talkemount.com/threads/10943/#post-84908

 

[dmward]

I wanted to try using ND filter(s) on the 16-35 to get slow shutter speeds.

This is the result. Stacked ND 1.2 and 3.0 gave me a 15 sec shutter speed at ISO 100 F8.

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There is a color version here and also a shot of the same pilings done last summer shortly after strong wave action from the south east exposed them.
I've lived near this area Lake Michigan beach for nearly 15 years and the first I saw these pilings was after a strong southeasterly wave event eroded at least 4 feet of sand from the beach.

 

[tomO2013]

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Edmonton at night by tom.ohle, on Flickr

 

[izTheViz]

Will certainly get one very soon. Just one question how do you guys manage to do infinity focus or long exposures when the autofocus can't help ? My fear is to feel that I have to switch back to MF lenses in some situations and need to bring a few wa mf lenses and then lose the benefit of this wa zoom...especially when traveling far. Fed up carrying so much pieces of metal and glass with me.

 

[tomO2013]

I can only speak for myself but for night photography either I go to DMF or manual focus. I typically don't trust AF to give me tack sharp at night on any system.
On the A7ii it's ridiculously simple - focus peaking and magnification works great to highlight those areas that are in focus. It obviously works better in good light than low light, but still much easier than trying to pull focus on a system without magnification view, no EVF and no focus peaking.

 

[tomO2013]

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Alberta Legislature - B&W by tom.ohle, on Flickr

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Democracy flows. by tom.ohle, on Flickr

 

[Ad Dieleman]

Late to the party in getting this lens, as usual . Upon revisiting my earlier test shots I found out that one shot at 35mm was slightly out of focus; fortunately I was able to still buy that same sample 3 weeks later. It's a nice lens.

"ILCE-7"    "FE 16-35mm F4 ZA OSS"          1/60s   

"ILCE-7"    "FE 16-35mm F4 ZA OSS"          1/200s   

 

[WoodWorks]

Congrats on finding an acceptable copy, Ad. I look forward to seeing what you capture with it.

 

[dbmiller]

I got to handle one in person this past weekend. Only snapped off two shots with my A6000 and haven't looked at them yet, but it handled well. Looks like I'm planning on the 24-240 and 16-35 as my next two lens purchases.

 

[WoodWorks]

Looks like I'm planning on the 24-240 and 16-35 as my next two lens purchases.

I endorse both purchases, db!

 

[tomO2013]

The 16-35 is one of my favourite lenses available on any system that I own. It's got fantastic image quality. Super sharp. Great colours. It's a very good reason to shoot Sony. It's also very challenging for me to shoot as I don't naturally see the world at 28mm. I tend to be crap at anything in the very wide end but I'm enjoying learning.