A7 and my lenses...

[sjgslack]

Hi All,


I'm considering an A7 to replace my Nex 6 which I use for my M lenses along side my M6.

I've got 4 M lenses: ZM 28 Biogon, 35mm Summicron ASPH, 50 Summicron II (rigid) and ZM 50 C-Sonnar.

It seems that the consensus is that the 50 'cron will be fine, but trawling through old threads the other 3 get very mixed reports.

Can anyone chime in and reassure / warn me about any of these lenses in particular? Especially with regard to corner smearing wide open.

Many Thanks!

Silas

 

[YYV_146]

For legacy lens use I'd always suggest the A7s over the A7. I used to have two A7's and recently replaced one of them with an A7s. Couldn't be happier. Easier to scale focus, better EVF refresh rates when it gets dark, and lenses that are softer wide open doesn't show with the big pixels.

The cron and Sonnar will be fine. Both are longer-register standard lenses. My experience with the Sonnar is that it's so soft wide open and in the extreme corners that I can't tell if there is any smearing with the A7 over the M9. I suspect the fully spherical design has a large amount of field curvature...but it sharpens up respectably after f2.8.

The Cron ASPH should be fine as long as you're not shooting at infinity and F2. I haven't tested the lens on the A7, but my 35lux FLE shows only very minor corner degradation at F1.4 and none at F2.8. I rarely use the stops between 1.4 and 5.6 (DOF covers 2m-infinity) so this has been a non-issue for me, but different people may have different user cases.

The ZM might be fine with sharpness, but be prepared for a bit of color shift. Easily fixable with Cornerfix/Flat Field plugin, though.

 

[sjgslack]

Thanks!

Yes I had a suspicion that when people criticised the performance of the Sonnar they were only describing its normal characteristics! There was mention of chromatic aberrations wide open 🙂

I'm less worried about the 28, but only because I don't use it all that much. It's the 'cron ASPH I'm most worried about really.

The A7s would be ideal, but it's nearly double the cost at the moment...

Silas

 

[YYV_146]

Thanks!

Yes I had a suspicion that when people criticised the performance of the Sonnar they were only describing its normal characteristics! There was mention of chromatic aberrations wide open 🙂

I'm less worried about the 28, but only because I don't use it all that much. It's the 'cron ASPH I'm most worried about really.

The A7s would be ideal, but it's nearly double the cost at the moment...

Silas

You can get one from one of the eBay Hong Kong dealers for less than $2,000 now, so maybe $400-500 more than a brand new US A7, and comes with an extra batteries and the very nice Sony compact charger ($110 in insane Sony accessory pricing). Of course, it'll be without US warranty...

I like the Sonnar. Very nice Bokeh and good contrast. Would have picked up one but my experience with M-mounts Distagons has seriously burned...I won't be buying any more Zeiss in the foreseeable future, sufficient to say.

Anyways, I think it really depends on how you shoot. There might be a bit of resolution loss in the corner, at wider apertures, but even with lenses like my 15mm Distagon (which has more of the corner smear issue than maybe any 35mm) I hardly notice, since for me shooting wide open is usually for separation of foreground. I shoot still scenes at f8 or f5.6 focused to 2m, and the problem goes away.

I guess the question is, do you shoot in a style that will place in-focus objects at the 10% margins of a frame, with a 35mm at F2 or 2.8? Not that there's anything wrong to do so, but that'll be the only time the ASPH cron is going to give problems.

 

[sjgslack]

I love my Sonnar - it's my main lens on the M6. I sent it back to Germany earlier in the year and it came back like new and calibrated to focus at f1.5 on the Leica - I fell in love with it all over again 🙂

To be honest, i don't think I'd notice the corner smearing if i didn't know about it! I just don't want it to be too noticeable.

I'm in the UK, so the same price thing applies with getting it from HK. I can get an A7 for about £800 and an A7s for maybe £1500..... Still - lots of money to justify to the wife 🙂

What you've said is pretty reassuring though. So thanks 🙂

 

[YYV_146]

I love my Sonnar - it's my main lens on the M6. I sent it back to Germany earlier in the year and it came back like new and calibrated to focus at f1.5 on the Leica - I fell in love with it all over again 🙂

To be honest, i don't think I'd notice the corner smearing if i didn't know about it! I just don't want it to be too noticeable.

I'm in the UK, so the same price thing applies with getting it from HK. I can get an A7 for about £800 and an A7s for maybe £1500..... Still - lots of money to justify to the wife 🙂

What you've said is pretty reassuring though. So thanks 🙂

I see. I've heard about how much UK customs sucks...700 pounds extra sure is a lot 🙁 Maybe you can get them to label as gift or something?

I looked for shots with my 35lux FLE wide open and at infinity, and only came up with this ISO 8000 shot...anyways, no crops and you can see a bit of smearing in the branches. F2.8 gives really sharp corners, though.

Feel free to check my 500px, most photos up there are from the A7 and A7s with adapted lens 😀 I'm probably one of the few people insane enough to shoot exclusively with those setups, even for paid stuff...

 

[sjgslack]

That's a lovely shot 🙂

There's some great stuff in there. I'll have a look through, thanks

 

[tuanvinh2000]

i would say use your own judgement. i used to read that the 21mm ZM biogon 2.8 doesn't work well with the A7 but now i have it i think it works much better than expected, a bit color cast at the far corner but not as bad as the internet made it to be.
i also have a cron asph 35 and it seems to work fine too. at f2, the corner might not be in focus to determine smearing/lost of resolution.
give it a go! and if you look hard should be less than 700 quids. dont forget to factor in a good FE to M Mount adapter. i went with a metabones since the release button design seems to be foolproof.
I enjoy the results and resolution of the evf. still not used to the handling, keep knocking on the extra settings that i dont care about (like bracketing or accidentally change the shutter speed). just need to work out the handling of the camera to fit my use.

 

[Huss]

My experience with the Sonnar is that it's so soft wide open and in the extreme corners that I can't tell if there is any smearing with the A7 over the M9.

Hmm, my Sonnar is not like that at all wide open. It's not bitingly sharp like my Lux, Crons, or even the Planar, but not remotely 'so soft'. I think yours must be missing focus. Mine is optimized for 1.5, it seems yours is not especially since you mention how it comes together at 2.8. That actually is the other choice for focus optimization with this lens.

 

[sjgslack]

Hmm, my Sonnar is not like that at all wide open. It's not bitingly sharp like my Lux, Crons, or even the Planar, but not remotely 'so soft'. I think yours must be missing focus. Mine is optimized for 1.5, it seems yours is not especially since you mention how it comes together at 2.8. That actually is the other choice for focus optimization with this lens.

I think in comparison to other things it's relatively soft, though of course a lot of its reputation for being so comes from the fact that people focus it at f1.5 when it's optimised for f2.8 from the factory.

It's still true to say that it has its eccentricities!

 

[sjgslack]

i would say use your own judgement. i used to read that the 21mm ZM biogon 2.8 doesn't work well with the A7 but now i have it i think it works much better than expected, a bit color cast at the far corner but not as bad as the internet made it to be.
i also have a cron asph 35 and it seems to work fine too. at f2, the corner might not be in focus to determine smearing/lost of resolution.
give it a go! and if you look hard should be less than 700 quids. dont forget to factor in a good FE to M Mount adapter. i went with a metabones since the release button design seems to be foolproof.
I enjoy the results and resolution of the evf. still not used to the handling, keep knocking on the extra settings that i dont care about (like bracketing or accidentally change the shutter speed). just need to work out the handling of the camera to fit my use.

Thanks very much for the reassurance with the 35 'cron! A trawl of flickr revealed pretty good results, but of course it's hard to know if things are cropped. Good to hear that you're happy with it on the A7

 

[sjgslack]

@tuanvinh2000 I see lots of shots in Cambridge in your Flickr stream... I live just up the road (relatively speaking!)

 

[tuanvinh2000]

you are welcome to check out the a7 if you are in town 🙂 i just got it last week to mostly scan my medium format negatives so i dont have anything to share on flikr yet. slowly learning through it. (my lightroom for example can't process the sony raw files!)

 

[sjgslack]

It's a great town. My wife's sister is studying there so we go down quite a lot