Zeiss 24-70mm f/2.8 tested at Photozone (on the A900)

Image courtesy: Photozone.

Last year Photozone tested the Zeiss 24-70mm on the APS-C A700 camera and the results were impressive. Today Photozone (Click here) tested the same lens on the Fullframe A900 camera and results are by far LESS impressive! The conclusion: “The [shoplink 6050]Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* 24-70mm f/2.8 ZA SSM[/shoplink] produced outstanding performance figures in our APS-C test but it’s not quite as good when used within its native full format scope. It is, of course, still able of delivering an outstanding center resolution but the corner quality disappoints at 24mm when using large to medium aperture settings. You may argue that the quality is fine at mainstream settings here (f/8-f/11) but for this amount of money you simply expect better results here. The lens is certainly very sharp at 40mm and still pretty good at 70mm. Lateral CAs may be visible at times in wide-angle images but it’s a non-issue in the middle to upper zoom range. A rather sour aspect of the lens is the quality of the bokeh (character of the out-of-focus blur) which could be better @ 70mm f/2.8 – this may cause headaches for some users. Bokeh fringing is very well controlled though. The lens is somewhat prone to flare.”

I am a bit surprised and you?

Check out the current price of the Zeiss lens at [shopcountry 6050].
The fullframe A900 at [shopcountry 3032].