It’s rare to find both Loxia in Stock in USA. Here they are:
50mm Loxia in Stock at Adorama, [shoplink 38519 ebay]KenMoreCamera[/shoplink], [shoplink 38520 ebay]Popflash[/shoplink].
35mm Loxia in Stock at Amazon, [shoplink 38518 ebay]KenMoreCamera[/shoplink].
Today Panasonic announced the new GX8 (specs here). The camera is rumored to be the first MFT camera using the new Sony 20 megapixel Four Thirds sensor. Sony recently listed three new sensors on their website including the 20MP FT sensor.
Sony is now conquering the MFT world with their sensors?
The very first batch of the new Batis FE lenses shipped yesterday in Hong Kong! You can see first user image samples from Samlee at SonyAlphaForum (Click here). He writes:
I got the Zeiss Batis 85mm F1.8 Yesterday at Hong Kong. The price around 0.9 x1199 USD with Free B+W filter. Light, Very Very Fast AF, Sharp Sharp Sharp, nice Broken
This new Zeiss Batis series meets all expectations. The Batis optics are specially designed for those who want to exploit every ounce of your sensor without sacrificing good design and a completely intuitive.
Capture The World (Video on top): “I’m currently working on a project to create a series of short travel films called Capture the World. We shoot everything with the A7r, A7s and RX10. This is our most recent piece of Siem Reap, Cambodia…”
Robbert: “Last week I got my new DJI Ronin M and shot a Brazilian Zouk dance party with it and my A7s + Sony/Zeiss 24-70 f/4. Left the OOS in the lens on to correct for small shakes and used autofocus all the time which did surprisingly well in the poorly lit environment. Shot everything with 50 frames/sec in S-Log2. This might be a nice video to feature on the site. The link: https://vimeo.com/130699038“
The 90mm Macro that just started shipping is nothing short of exceptional. Yes, some folks may claim it is too big and some may even claim too expensive at $1098 USD. But for the price you get a solid really well designed lens that is dust and moisture resistant.
As Yasuyuki Nagata (Sony General Manager – Lens and Peripheral Business) stated in an interview with us at Photokina, consumers are looking for three things from their lenses – compactness, quality and a good price – and with a full-frame sensor, it isn’t easy to deliver on all three fronts. In the case of the 90mm, Sony has prioritised optical quality and performance above all, and it shows in the resulting images.
Now the question is, should I buy the 90mm Sony macro or the 85mm Batis lens? Damn it…
Conspicuously missing from the Sony A7R II feature set is Olympus-style pixel shift, which in my testing can deliver roughly a 32-megapixel image from a 16-megapixel sensor. On the 42-megapixel Sony A7R II sensor, a similar technology would deliver ~63 megapixels, or maybe more like ~80 megapixels using a Zeiss Otus. It’s a pity that Sony is not offering pixel shift, since it has Olympus-style sensor stabilization. Perhaps it will appear in a firmware update, but that seems dubious, since it is a terrific feature to brag about at a product release (and would be a first for a full frame camera).
