Sample image with 100% crop.

—-

SAR note: This is a guest post. Feel free to share your story or review at sonyalpharumors@gmail.com. Thanks!

—-

A second opinion on the Sony Zeiss FE 24-70mm f4 lens  (by Stefan Grosjean)

We have all read the reviews. They all seem to agree that the Zeiss Zoom for Full-Frame E-mount Cameras is somewhat “disappointing”: (1) It’s not fast enough, (2) the corners are not sharp, (3) the distortion is heavy, and (4) it’s also too big, too heavy and too expensive.
The Sony Zeiss 55mm lens in contrast was received very well. Reviews agreed that it’s an “excellent” lens. With f1.8 it’s quite fast, it’s sharp across the entire frame even full open, and there’s almost no distortion to speak of (but it’s also rather expensive and not really small).
What’s interesting to me is the fact that both lenses have actually more or less the same low light ability although they do it very differently: The Prime has an aperture that is 2.3 stops brighter, the Zoom has an optical steady shot which is supposed to allow for 2-3 stops longer exposure times – which gives you about the same brightness. So let’s do a very quick and simple test and see how the “disappointing” zoom lens and the “excellent” prime lens perform under poor lighting conditions.
For this test the 55mm was full open at f1.8 with exposure time being 1/160sec. If there’s no steady shot I always chose 1/160 or faster to be sure most of my images turn out sharp (I guess my hands are pretty shaky). The 24-70mm was full open at f4 with an exposure time of 1/30 and 1/40. Steady shot was activated. Focal length was set to 55mm and all the other settings were also the same. The light source was a window on a rainy day. ISO speeds were at 800 (comparison 1) respectively 1600 (comparison 2). All photos were shot by hand without using a tripod. The autofocus field (size M) was set to the very corner because that’s where we have to expect the most significant differences. Photos are JPGs shot from my a7.

into the darkness – SONY α7S 4K shoot

You remember Stanley Kubrick shooting with a f/0.7 special Zeiss lens to shoot a Barry Lindon scene with the sole candle light? Well, that’s what you can do now with the new Sony A7s (which will ship soon). The video on top has been shot by Yoshihiro Enatsu and shows you the A7s performance with the light of one single candle. Below is another low light video:

Also Photoblog.hk posted two new videos: A Frame rate speed test (youtube video here) and an Autofocus test (youtube video here).

A7s and RX100M3 Preorders:
Sony A7s preorder in USA/CA at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Sony USA, Sony Canada.
Sony A7s EU pages: Sony DE, UK, ES, FR, IT, NL, BE, AT, CH, SE, NO, FI, PL. And Wex UK.
RX100M3 preorders in USA at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Sony USA.
RX100M3 preorders in Eu at Sony DE, UK, ES, FR, IT, NL, BE, AT, CH, SE, NO, FI, PT. And Wex UK,
RX100M3 in Asia at Amazon Japan and Sony Australia.

US note: Free premium case with the first generation RX100 at Amazon (Click here).

Imaging Resource (Click here) posted an interesting RX100M2 vs RX100M3 comparison. And despite both having the same sensor the difference are quite major thanks to the new Bionz X processor on the new RX. At ISO 100 IR writes:

There is a bit more detail in the thread patterns captured by the RX100 III on the right. It also does a good job of rendering our tricky red swatch, which has proven notoriously difficult for most cameras with sensors this size and smaller, even at lower ISOs.

At ISO 1600 IR writes:

Even though the RX100 II holds a bit more detail in areas of subtle contrast, it also shows slightly less noise in areas of flat tint in the background. On the other hand, the RX100 III’s image has a lot more “pop,” so might look better in reasonable-sized prints, vs pixel-peeping at 1:1 as above.

Interesting to see how different these cameras work on different ISO’s!

USA preorders: RX100M3 preorders in USA at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Sony.
Europe preorders: RX100M3 at Sony DE, UK, ES, FR, IT, NL, BE, AT, CH, SE, NO, FI, PT. And Wex UK.

Roger Cicala from Lensrentals testes all the best 50mm lenses. The best lens is the 8000 Dollar/Euro [shoplink 27099 ebay]Leica Summicron f/2.0 (here on eBay)[/shoplink]. But the surprise is “again” the new Sigma 50mm ART lens. Roger writes:

I think it’s pretty cool that two SLR lenses (Zeiss Otus and Sigma ART) are able to hang right there with the f/1.4 Leica lens, the Summilux. Price-wise, you would hope the Otus would, but certainly the Sigma, one of the least expensive lenses in the test, has to take honors for hanging with the best at a tiny fraction of their price.

Note: The A-mount lens can be preordered in USA Amazon (Click here) at BHphoto (Click here) and Adorama (Click here). And in Europe at WexUK (Click here) and WexDe (Click here).

And the Sigma is very close to the Summicron lens at f/2.0 aperture:

Now let’s hope the 24mm and 85mm f/1.4 lenses coming at Photokina will be as good as the 50mm ART!

–

The A-mount lens can be preordered in USA Amazon (Click here) at BHphoto (Click here) and Adorama (Click here). And in Europe at WexUK (Click here) and WexDe (Click here).

SAR reader ED shared this Sony A77II AF Point Demo video. If you are (or will be) a A77II owner you might be interested to learn the new AF features.

Meantime Imaging Resource added the A77II test images to their comparometer. And this is the improvement over the previous A77 camera:

You can clearly see how the new Bionz X processor handles the noise in a better way.

UPDATE: WhatDigitalCamera (Click here) posted the full A77II review and the camera earned the Gold Award:

On the whole, with the Alpha 77 Mark II Sony has brought a host of advanced functionality to a consumer DSLT and as such is well worthy of consideration.

The camera will ship in 4 days from now according to Amazon US. Here are the full preorder links:

Sony A77 body in USA at Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), Sony Store (Click here) and BHphoto (Click here).
Sony A77 with 16-50mm lens at Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), Sony Store (Click here) and BHphoto (Click here).
Sony A77 body in Europe at Sony Germany, Sony UK, Sony France, Sony IT, ES, NL, BE, AT, CH, PT, NO, SE, FI and Wex UK.
Sony A77 in Asia at Digitalrev and Sony Australia.

Sony DSC-RX100 III test by BHphoto.

The RX100m3 will ship in two weeks from now and here are a couple of new RX100M3 image samples and tests. On top you can see a hands-on video from BH. And now let’s talk about a small surprise:
The ISO comparison done by Focus Numerique (google translated) shows how the RX100M3 beats the larger sensor cameras like the G1X and GM1 and almost matches the APS-C sensor performance of the Rico GR:

Quite amazing or not?

More tests:
RX100M3 Studio Comparison at Dpreview and real world samples (Dpreview).
Sony RX100 Mark III Photo Set on Flickr.
Fresh test of RX100iii, in Swedish on Swedish site Cyberphoto.
RX100M3 review by Yodobashi (google translated).

USA preorders: RX100M3 preorders in USA at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Sony.
Europe preorders: RX100M3 at Sony DE, UK, ES, FR, IT, NL, BE, AT, CH, SE, NO, FI, PT. And Wex UK.

There is a new MK III version of the Contax G to Sony E-mount AF adapter from Mitakon. The video on top shows you how fast it focuses with the Contax lenses. The new version will be sold online soon (on eBay).

These are the Contax Full Frame lenses you can use on the A7-A7r-A7s and APS-C E-mount camera with full autofocus and electronic aperture control:
Hologon 16mm; 1:8 on [shoplink 16235 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
Biogon T* 21 mm; 1:2,8 on [shoplink 16236 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
Biogon T* 28 mm; 1:2,8 on [shoplink 16237 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
Planar T* 35 mm; 1:2,0 on [shoplink 16238 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
Planar T* 45 mm; 1:2,0 on [shoplink 16239 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
Sonnar T* 90 mm; 1:2,8 on [shoplink 16240 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
Vario-Sonnar T* 35 – 70 mm; 1:3,5-5,6 on [shoplink 16241 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].