24mm Elmar

[anerjee]

I'm thinking of buying the 24mm Elmar, primarily for use with my Zeiss Ikon and my Bessa r4m. I do also own a Sony a7s.

The alternative is the 25mm biogon, which is just as well reviewed, but does not perform well on the Sony FF digital cameras.

I'm thinking -- the Elmar is a recent digital-age design. Does that show up as better performance on the Sony cameras?

If the difference in digital performance is not much, I might choose the biogon and save some money.

My primary use would be with b&w film, digital is a nice to have.

 

[Bille]

My primary use would be with b&w film, digital is a nice to have.

Here´s the 24 Elmar on the a7R:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/royprasad/11372936866/

Corners are pretty bad (full res available).

 

[Godfrey]

I use the lens on the Leica M-P. It performs beautifully in combination with the Leica's lens id enabled ... Without that, it's not much better than the Color Skopar 28mm with regard to color shifting and corner problems. For that reason, I suspect it would not perform particularly well on the A7 cameras.

G

 

[rscheffler]

Get the Biogon and take some of the money you saved to send the Sony to KolariVision for the sensor modification ($400). It's the only way you're going to get good results with most wider RF lenses that will be technically inline with what is possible with those lenses on a digital Leica, or on film.

Now, if you were to only shoot the lens at near distances with some subject/background separation, and edge/background sharpness wasn't important, then it wouldn't matter much. It's when you're shooting farther subject distances and want the best possible across-frame performance that the edge smearing problem becomes quite evident. Though some live with it and stop down a lot to mitigate it.