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New lens lineup for the A7rII

ShooterSteve

New member
Hmmm ........ I'm probably going the other way. After testing all my Canon lenses last week with my A7R2 and a Metabones 4 I first eBayed the ones that definitely didn't work (135L & 200L). I then realised that I had the ranges of my Canon 35L and 50L well covered by my Zeiss 35 F2.8 and 55 F1.8. So the Canon glass has now gone. And I didn't think I'd get much use for the 24-105 F4L so that now has a new owner.

This leaves me with the 70-300 DO which performs quite respectably with the Metabones adapter. And my 85 F1.2L II. Frankly, this lens was the primary reason that I had held on to my Canon gear and 5D2 (now sold) for so long.

I've ordered both of the Zeiss Batis lenses (though I've no idea when we'll see them in the UK) and it will be interesting to see which of the two 85mm lenses I eventually keep. I'm presently thinking that the integration of the native lenses with the A7R2's features will be enough to win me over. The IBIS on the A7R2 is brilliant - and more than compensates for the loss of aperture.
What didn't work with regard to the Canon 135 f2 L? Was the the AF or optical issues? I have had good results with that lens on my A7R and had planned to keep it.
 

jpaulmoore

Active member
The only native mount lens I have for my A7r and A7r ll is the stellar 55mm Sony/Zeiss. I was just about to pull the trigger on the 16-35 zoom until the Batis 25 was announced. I know the 16-35 would be more flexible (especially in the 16-28 range). How much better is the Zeiss Batis 25mm than the 16-35 at 24mm? I shoot an equal amount of landscapes and architecture.

I have the Metabones IV adapter and the following lenses.

Canon 17mm TSE
Canon 24mm TSE ll
Sigma 35mm
Canon 70-200 f4 zoom
Canon 100mm Macro.

Where is the weakness in my lineup? I think what I am trying to do is build a lightweight alternative to all of the Canon/Sigma glass.
Thanks all!
J. Paul
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Your weakness is a lightweight 24/25 for walk around kind of shooting. Take your 35 a 25 let's say and if you had a 85 a great kit for just travel, walk around kind of shooting. The 17, 24 TSE are great lenses but for more serious shooting, not fun to carry around. But depends on what you do too


You could also do a VC15, 25 Batis, 35 Loxia and Batis 85. Just a really nice kit there.keep the TSE glass the 70-200 and maybe sell the rest
 

jpaulmoore

Active member
Guy, thanks for you input! Being a stickler for high quality files, I should probably get the Batis 25mm for sure. I am wondering how much difference there is in the Sony 70-200 f4 and my Canon 70-200 f4. Any experience there?
Thanks,
J. Paul
 

mark1958

Member
I like your collection the most and believe it makes the most sense-- probably because most similar to mine :D

WATE-16-18-21-- This is just outstanding especially with the Voigt close adapter (amazing what you can do)
Leica 28mm 2.8 Elmarit R
Sony/Zeiss 35mm 1.4
Sony/Zeiss 55mm 1.8
Voigtlander 75mm 2.4 and I have the 1.8 version as well but prefer the former (so small)
Leica 90mm Elmarit M
ApoTelyt 135
I also have the Sony 24-70 for walk around shooting.

I am considering the Batis 25mm and even selling the Leica 28mm and getting the Sony 28mm f2. The Leica 28mm R is just such a beautiful lens but again if traveling rarely makes it into the bag. Images are just so gorgeous. At some point would like to compare with the Sony 28mm. One of my major interests in the Batis 25mm is the ability for close up focus-- but with the WATE and close up adapter--- perhaps redundant.. Of course f2 and AF is so nice.. geez.. keep going back and forth on how to deal with this 25-28mm range.

I also am not using the Leica 90mm that often For travel I have the 75mm and 135 so figure that range is fairly well covered without the 90mm. If a good 200mm option becomes available perhaps 90mm would become more important and replace the need for the 135mm?

I tried a 70-200mm and thought the 200mm side of things was really quite good but the lens is much too big and heavy-- otherwise would go back to my Nikon system.


WATE 16-18-21
Batis 25
Sony 28/2
Sony/Zeiss 35/2.8
Sony/Zeiss 55/1.8
Batis 85
ApoTelyt 135
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Guy, thanks for you input! Being a stickler for high quality files, I should probably get the Batis 25mm for sure. I am wondering how much difference there is in the Sony 70-200 f4 and my Canon 70-200 f4. Any experience there?
Thanks,
J. Paul
I think don't quote me but the Canon is supposed to be very good. The Sony is great and you will get all the AF points which I'm after as well. Now at 200 the corners maybe a little weak.myself I'm trying to go all native and retain complete AF functions for when I need it
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
I like your collection the most and believe it makes the most sense-- probably because most similar to mine :D

WATE-16-18-21-- This is just outstanding especially with the Voigt close adapter (amazing what you can do)
Leica 28mm 2.8 Elmarit R
Sony/Zeiss 35mm 1.4
Sony/Zeiss 55mm 1.8
Voigtlander 75mm 2.4 and I have the 1.8 version as well but prefer the former (so small)
Leica 90mm Elmarit M
ApoTelyt 135
I also have the Sony 24-70 for walk around shooting.

I am considering the Batis 25mm and even selling the Leica 28mm and getting the Sony 28mm f2. The Leica 28mm R is just such a beautiful lens but again if traveling rarely makes it into the bag. Images are just so gorgeous. At some point would like to compare with the Sony 28mm. One of my major interests in the Batis 25mm is the ability for close up focus-- but with the WATE and close up adapter--- perhaps redundant.. Of course f2 and AF is so nice.. geez.. keep going back and forth on how to deal with this 25-28mm range.

I also am not using the Leica 90mm that often For travel I have the 75mm and 135 so figure that range is fairly well covered without the 90mm. If a good 200mm option becomes available perhaps 90mm would become more important and replace the need for the 135mm?

I tried a 70-200mm and thought the 200mm side of things was really quite good but the lens is much too big and heavy-- otherwise would go back to my Nikon system.
Mark the Batis 25 you can get really close. It's a stellar lens. I'm falling for it big time
 
Looks like I'm late to the party but here we go:

Batis 25/2
FE 28/2
FE 35/2.8
FE 35/1.4
Zeiss 45mm Contax G
Jupiter 8 50/2
FE 55/1.8
Batis 85/1.8
Zeiss 90mm Contax G
ZA 135/1.8
FE 70-200/4

Lot of sonnars (and clone) in that list!
 

slickster

Member
After having sold off my Nikon gear which was d800 plus
14-24
24-70
70-200
85 1.4
300 4
400 2.8
600 4

I now have the a6k, a7r, a7rii plus
16-35
24-70 (BTW, I like this lens a lot. Its better all-around than my Nikon 24-70 2.8 ever was)
25 batis
35 1.4
55 1.8
70-200 4
85 batis

Speaking plainly, I could not be more satisfied with my move to Sony, Zeiss.

I also picked up an Nikon1 v2 with 70-300 for reach on feathers.

Cheers, Monty:)
 

douglaspboyd

New member
I haven't laid out serious money for lenses so far-- working on living with what I have. Just finished testing all my lenses. So this is what I have found works well on A7rII:

1. Sony 10-18mm zoom lens. This covers the range of 12-16mm for me with minor smearing in the corners. Not a problem, becuase I often prefer the 5:4 format over 3:2.

2. Tamron SP A-mount 17-35mm f2.8-4 on LA-EA4. This lens is sharp in the center wide open, and edges are good 1-2 stops down. LA-EA4 allows phase focusing in very low light.

3. Sony 28 mm f2 lens. This lens has to be stopped down for edges, but is small and light. I got it because it was only $400, but it is not better than the Tamron zoom in IQ.

4. Sony 28-70mm kit lens. I'm not using this much, but in the bag for possible use in travel or walk-around.

5. Minolta 70-210mm f4 "Beercan" on LA-EA4. This lens is sharp from f5.6. Again, good for low-light AF due to the LA-EA4. I used this last night for a sunset shoot.

6. Nikon 85mm f1.8 "D" lens on Nikon adapter. This lens is good for narrow DOF portraits. Manual Focus and aperture setting on the lens. The downside is no exif data.

All of these lenses are sharp down to the pixel level on A7rII. They all show higher resolution on 42 mp A7rII compared to the 24 mp A7II. Most are available in a $100-300 price range (not 800-2000).

One thing to keep in mind from my testing: if you go above ISO 800, the differences in resolution between different lenses and bodies becomes negligible. Noise processing wipes out the difference.

Another thing that I am noticing: Several pros have commented that A7rII is not good for weddings due to poor auto-focus in low-light. For those who need low-light auto focus, the LA-EA4 solves the problem. You just need a couple of A-mount lenses. If I were going to do a low-light wedding with AF, I would consider using only the two A-mount zooms in this list.

For the future, I am thinking about getting an AF FE lens in the 85-135 mm range for portraits to take advantage of eye tracking AF.

I have a bunch of other Minolta lenses, but found huge chromatic aberration, beyond Lightroom's capability to correct. These include Minolta 20, 24-105, 75-300, 100-300.

I've also tried several of my longer Leica and Contax G lenses, but saw no advantage over the above list.

==Doug
 
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jlm

Workshop Member
just tried AF with my Sony/Zeiss 135/1.8 A-mount with Sony LA-EA4 adapter;

also the CV12mm shows no color cast or vignetting

and the Contax G 90 with metabones helical focus adapter

all work great
 
I prefer manual focus on the normal and wide end and autofocus on the tele end.

So I'm going to wait for either a Batis 135 or Zeiss ZA 135 with SSM.

Right now I have

Zeiss ZM 15, Leica Cron 28 and Cron 50 APO. 3 lenses + 2 bodies amount to a little over 4.6 lb and all can fit into a ThinkTank Turnstyle 10 :D.
 
V

Vivek

Guest
just tried AF with my Sony/Zeiss 135/1.8 A-mount with Sony LA-EA4 adapter;

also the CV12mm shows no color cast or vignetting

and the Contax G 90 with metabones helical focus adapter

all work great
Leica 75/2 AA? TIA!
 

rhern213

New member
I would like some opinions on which wide lens combo to try out first.

I'm a minimalist so I figured one of these 2 combos I can start with, and then see where I go from there:

Either:
16-35
28 2

Or:
25 Batis
35 2.8

For me the 25 Batis is better than the 16-35, but the 28 is better than the 35. But I'm not going to carry around a 25 and 28, :-/.

So how do you guys feel about this?
 

Viramati

Member
I would like some opinions on which wide lens combo to try out first.

I'm a minimalist so I figured one of these 2 combos I can start with, and then see where I go from there:

Either:
16-35
28 2

Or:
25 Batis
35 2.8

For me the 25 Batis is better than the 16-35, but the 28 is better than the 35. But I'm not going to carry around a 25 and 28, :-/.

So how do you guys feel about this?
I think option 2 would make more sense but I would consider the FE55 and FE16-35 giving you a greater range
 

dandrewk

New member
I would like some opinions on which wide lens combo to try out first.

I'm a minimalist so I figured one of these 2 combos I can start with, and then see where I go from there:

Either:
16-35
28 2

Or:
25 Batis
35 2.8

For me the 25 Batis is better than the 16-35, but the 28 is better than the 35. But I'm not going to carry around a 25 and 28, :-/.

So how do you guys feel about this?
Agree with Viramati. For me, as much as I'd love the 25 Batis, when I want wide, 25mm won't do it. I carry the 16-35 and the FE55, but I have ordered the Batis 85 and will probably take that instead of the FE55 for a two lens bag.
 
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