The new Sony 50mm f/1.2 GM is cheaper, lighter and better than the competition. What else do you want?

Preorders:
Sony 50mm f/1.2 GM at BHphoto. Amazon. Adorama. FocusCamera. Fotokoch Germany. Calumet Germany, Foto Erhardt. ParkCameras UK. Jessops.

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A couple of years ago Nikon and Leica said they will be better than Sony’s lenses because of the wider mount diameter. Today Sony proved they can make better, smaller, lighter and cheaper lenses than the competition. You can make an accurate specs comparison ar this BHphoto comparison page.


Comparison I made based on Camerasize

Compared with the Canon 50mm f/1.2 the Sony is:

  • $300 cheaper
  • 178g lighter
  • 2.8mm tighter
  • 5mm less filter size
  • 11blades instead of Canon’s 10 blades
  • it has an aperture ring
  • it’s weather resistant
  • has much faster autofocus
  • focus is silent

Compared with the Nikon 50mm f/1.2 the Sony is:

  • $100 cheaper
  • 312g lighter
  • 42mm shorter
  • 2.5mm tighter
  • 10mm less filter size
  • 11blades instead of Nikon’s 9 blades
  • it has an aperture ring
  • has much faster autofocus
  • focus is silent

The mount diameter debate is over. It was just a fictional nonsensical discussion. Let’s drop the mic :)

Dpreview analysis: New Sony a1 sensor offers class-leading dynamic range, along with high-speed and high-resolution

Preorders:
Sony A1 at BHphoto. Adorama. Amazon. Focuscamera.
Sony XPeria 5G PRO at BHphoto. Adorama. Amazon.
Sony A1 in Europe at FotoErhardt DE. Calumet DE. Fotokoch DE. Park UK. WexUK.
Join the Sony A1 Facebook group here.

Rishi Sanyal from Dpreview tested the Sony A1 sensor and writes:

The sensor in the Sony a1 displays a marked improvement over the first-generation full-frame stacked CMOS seen in the a9 and a9 II, with increases in resolution, readout speed and dynamic range. Up until now it had seemed as though fast sensor readout and high dynamic range were mutually exclusive. The a1 has the fastest sensor scan rate of any camera we’ve measured, to our knowledge only roughly 1ms or ~25% slower than a traditional mechanical shutter.
And yet despite the speedy readout and shooting rates, the a1’s base ISO dynamic range is class-leading compared its sport-oriented peers, and lies within our measurement error of its class-leading high-resolution full-frame peers. Meanwhile, high ISO dynamic range remains competitive, surpassing that of many of its high-resolution peers and falling only slightly behind lower resolution cameras that have less cumulative read noise due to fewer pixels.
That means you won’t have to worry about trading off any image quality for the capabilities the a1 bring that hinge upon its fast readout. High contrast scenes such as the one above, and more challenging ones, can be handled with ease if you expose to retain highlights and tone-map underexposed tones to be visible in post-processing. And the dual gain design of the sensor ensures low noise levels as light levels drop. The Alpha 1 should offer a great deal of flexibility regardless of your shooting scenario.

Tamron 70-180mm FE review by Opticallimits

Opticallimits tested the Tamron 70-180mm FE and concluded:

While we have seen similar lenses from Canon, the Tamron 70-180mm f/2.8 Di III VXD is a refreshingly different approach to a fast tele zoom lens in Sony E-mount. With activated image auto-correction, it is capable of producing beautiful results. It’s very sharp across the image frame in the lower to mid-range and at least the center sharpness is very impressive at 180mm. Image distortions are nicely corrected and there’s just a tad of vignetting at f/2.8 in this case. Lateral CAs are also well controlled. Some flaws become obvious with deactivated auto-correction – namely high distortions and vignetting towards the long end but then few users are probably still using uncorrected images these days. The quality of the bokeh is typical for many lenses in this class. Out-of-focus highlights can be a bit busy and the foreground blur is not ideal. So when it comes to bokeh, primes lenses still rule the neighborhood. That being said – the Tamron lens is one of the very few lenses producing minimal bokeh fringing (LoCAs).
The build quality is on a very decent level. Typical for Tamron lenses, there’s an emphasis on low weight rather than (supposedly) super-tough materials – they are using plastics except for the lens mount. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though – also because it’s a really precisely assembled lens with no wobbly parts even in a fully extended zoom position. Tamron implemented some sealing against moisture but there’s no statement about dust protection. If you are expecting a dedicated tripod mount and some switches on the lens – don’t. There’s a transport lock but that’s about it. The AF/MF has to be set on the camera and there’s no image stabilizer. The Tamron is not a super-tele so the in-camera IS should usually be “good enough”. Generally, we don’t see any issue with these simplifications.

Overall it’s awesome to see that such lenses can be relatively compact and light-weight – and affordable, too. Kudos to Tamron for providing such an interesting lens. Highly recommended!

70-180mm store links:
In USA at Amazon, BHphoto, Adorama and FocusCamera
In Germany at FotoKoch DE, Amazon DE, Calumet DE.
In UK at Amazon UK, WexUK, ParkCameras.
In Amazon EU stores at Amazon FR, Amazon IT, Amazon ES, Amazon NL.

Tamron 17-28mm FE review by Opticallimits: “solid performer”

Opticallimits tested the Tamron 17-28mm FE lens and concluded:

The Tamron 17-28mm f/2.8 Di III RXD delivers a quite convincing performance with just a few caveats. Considering its ultra-wide character, it’s pretty sharp where it counts the most – the wider settings. The center quality is great and the borders/corners also on a comparatively high level between 17mm and 21mm. Many ultra-wide zoom lenses struggle a bit at their “long” end and the Tamron is no exception in this respect. While the results are good from f/5.6, the outer image field could be better at larger aperture settings here. The native distortion characteristic is very decent for such a lens and there’s nothing to worry about with image auto-correction. The vignetting figures are roughly in line with other lenses in this class. Reads: there’s some hefty vignetting at f/2.8 in RAW images. Auto-correction eases this is a bit but, a bit surprisingly, Tamron chose a non-aggressive correction profile here so you may still be able to spot some light falloff depending on the shooting conditions. The bokeh has its pros and cons. Out-of-focus highlights are comparatively nicely rendered whereas the overall rendition can be a bit harsh.

Overall, the Tamron 17-28mm f/2.8 Di III RXD is a solid performer. It doesn’t excel in any criteria but it does the job and, possibly more important than that, it does so for a reasonable price.

Tamron 17-28mm FE lens at BHphoto, Amazon, FocusCamera, BuyDig and Adorama.

Sirui 24mm f/2.8 Anamorphic lens tested by Marc Alhadeff

Marc Alhadeff from SonyAlphablog tested the Sirui 24mm f/2.8 Anamorphic lens:

The Sirui 24mm F2.8 Anamorphic allows to discover anamorphic lenses for a very reasonable price (1000 euros) compared to some SLR Magic anamorphic lenses (2000-3000 euros) or PL mount pro anamorphic lenses (10.000 – 50.000 euros). Its wider field of view will be particularly useful to complement the Sirui 35mm F1.8 Anamorphic, Sirui 50mm F1.8 Anamorphic
Results are very good and really give a cinematic look to your videos, that you can’t achieve by just cropping top and bottom of a traditional lens
Highly recommended !

You can now preorder the new Sirui 24mm anamorphic E-mount lens at BHphoto (Click here).