Image courtesy: Christian Dandyk (Facebook / Berlin Backstage).

Christian Dandyk posted that very useful Batis and Loxia angle of view comparison on Facebook. I would love to see a 135mm Batis as next lens to get closer to the Zeiss logo on the image ;)

And our reader Trefoil posted a first Loxia 21mm unboxing report on SonyAlphaForum. First thing he noticed:

It’s small but quite heavy, a little bit heavier than my expectation. It will be a little too heavy for wristbands, but quite acceptable for common straps.(Read more on SAF)

Batis and Loxia store links:
Zeiss Batis 85mm f/1.8 lens in US at Adorama, Bhphoto. In Eu at Amazon DE, WexUK. In Asia at Digitalrev.
Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2.0 lens at Adorama, Bhphoto. In EU at Amazon DE, WexUK. In Asia at Digitalrev.
Loxia 21mm FE lens at BHphoto and Adorama. In Europe at WexUK.
Loxia 50mm FE lens at Amazon, BHphoto, Adorama., WexUK, CameraPro.
Loxia 35mm FE lens at Amazon, BHphoto, Adorama, WexUK, CameraPro.

Steel Chen contacted me yesterday. he is the maker of a completely new Nikon F to Sony FE autofocus adapter. This would be the second adapter after the [shoplink 43423 ebay]Commlite adapter[/shoplink].

He sent me a video showing the improved version of his adapter. Steel is using the [shoplink 43430 ebay]Nikkor 70-300mm lens[/shoplink] on the A7rII:

My Nikon/Sony E ring performs better AF because we can better leverage Nikon lens parameters, make it the best fit in PDAF on A7R II.
1. Engineering prototype demonstration.
2. AF-S lens support only, for now.
3. Fast full range PDAF on Sony A7R II, good CBAF speed on A7R II
4. Its status can be tracked here in http://forum.xitek.com/thread-1529533… , sorry its in Chinese .

Mine is still in prototyping, cause  I need to solve the problem of automatic Aperture control of Nikon G lens.

Compared to the Commlite adapter Steel Chen’s version seems to focus much faster and also absolutely no annoying autofocus motor noise! He is reading this site so feel free to comment this post with your questions and he will try to answer you. There is yet no exact plan about when the adapter will go on sale and for what price. But I surely hope to get my hands on that adapter soon as it really seems to work fine!

SAR readers DAN sent me the link to his video. It shows how the A7rII start-up time seems to have been reduced on the new 3.0 firmware:

Just a quick test of the new 3.0 Firmware and how much fast the boot time is over 2.0. Pretty negligible, but every bit helps, I suppose. Other benefits to the 3.0 firmware are well welcomed.

I hope other readers can confirm this. And I do hope Sony will reduce the many lags of the camera during normal operation (not only at startup) via future firmware update.