Sony A7RII/ Batis 25mm , Batis 85mm and Sony 35mm 1.4 System Tests

[Guy Mancuso]

Well I always said you buy a system not a piece of gear, so I am doing something completely different here on this thread . Folks it does not get much better than these 3 lenses and a A7RII. So why not put it all together in one package. I will start with the lenses and move into the A7RII with some specific tests and most everything was shot with these 3 lenses plus my little sweetheart of a lens the Voightlander 15 Version III.

Now the lens tests are boring and I apologize right out of the gate . But its a scene I have tested hundreds of lenses against and it has what i need for a good test. I can test the corners and central sharpness with ease and I can immediately tell how good a lens is or if it has a issue which my 35mm does and I will bring that up as well. I have a assymetrical issue with the Sony 35mm 1.4 which seems a few folks have the same issue. The left side is worse than the right top corners but at F4 its very clean in all the corners. But the reason its not going anywhere is even at 1.4 in the center 5.6 is no better its that good wide open. For landscape I would only care at F4 , 5.6 for the corners but for people shots wide open I do not care about my corners. So its a keeper

So lets get on with it

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Lets start with the Batis 25mm. Here I am only concerned with the corner performance of the lens and when we get sharp across the image. Wide open these are blazingly good in the central part of the image. I will show that after the corners on these 3 lenses.

Tech details. A7rII on a tripod shot with 2 second delay, EFSC is on. Steady shot is off and all lens corrections in camera are off.

One point of note is i am in very bright daylight and shooting at 1.4 and F2 I exceeded 1/8000 shutter limitation so these frames are overexposed than I brought the exposure back down in post. I also did correct in post some of the vignetting as to keep the corners looking the same as far as exposure. I will post raws and you can play if you want

This building is not straight in any way shape or form. No distortion correction in post either. Thats a test i need to shoot specifically for that

I am processing everything in C1 Pro with a sharpening setting of 325,.5,.5

Nothing else has been done. This is my basic sharpening for this new Cam. The A7r was 300, .6, .6

These files are much different than the A7r. I said this within the first days of getting this camera that the files are much smoother in look than the A7r and more getting into look more like film and MF digital backs. I owned 5 Phase backs so I know MF extremely well. This is the best i have seen ANY 35m cam come close to look of a MF back. Thats saying a truck load right there.

Okay here we go

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Batis 25mm F2 lens

Overall scene here> no vignetting adjustments here

 

[Guy Mancuso]

As you can see even wide open at F2 is pretty good looking and by F4 right on the money. Note at F11 you start to see the effects of diffraction. So use F11 with caution. This looks very normal if not better than most 24/25 in its class. I have seen worse but not sure i have seen better.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Lets get into the 85mm Batis and i will save the Zeiss /Sony 35mm F1.4 last becuase it does look to have a slight skew/asymmetry issue.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Looks pretty good wide open but again around F4 its starts to put the pedal down on corner sharpness. Just a hint here wide open centrally is a real surprise. I even hit the nyquist frequency handheld wide open in NY shooting a building. Thats never happened

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Lets move on the the Zeiss 35mm 1.4 lens which I find this lens to be outstanding. Although I may have a slight issue with skew/asymmetry issue. My left upper corner looks softer than my right upper corner. Lets post the test than I will compare those two in another post. Again shooting at 1.4 i am pretty overexposed so I did have to bring that down maybe 1.5 stops in post. Just FYI

I forgot to shoot F11 here but you see see the diffraction starting to set in

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Hard one to call because of the skew/asymmetry issue. But even at 2.8 it looks pretty darn good and really gets going at F4.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

So lets go back to the 35mm at 1.4 image I processed both corners. Upper left and Upper right. As you can see the upper right at 1.4 looks better than the left side and remember i did post the left side above. Now even though I see this as a slight issue the question remains at F4 and wider type shots for me at least they are people or things I want more of a artsy look anyway so I am really not concerned about corners so much. When i get into my advertising work and landscape than yes I want sharp corner at F4 and below. Now here is the clincher why I am not sending it in for repair. Centrally I never seen a 35 1.4 perform so dang good wide open. Maybe the Sigma 35 art but that lens has a lot of field curvature and Af was not always brilliant and worse I had to go through 3 copies of it. So don't just blame Sony here every lens and every OEM there are a few duds that make it past the IQ dept. But here is my basic problem. There is no guarantee they can fix it for one, or buy another and take a chance and will I get a copy so good centrally. Im not so sure I want to take that risk. YMMV of course

 

[Guy Mancuso]

So closing out the corner test. There is no doubt the 35mm 1.4 will test better in the corners maybe with a more corrected lens so that F4 looking pretty darn good might be a 2.8. Just something to keep in mind or I did a right side test. LOL

I think you all get the idea

Moving on to the center sharpness of these 3 lenses. Wow here i have to say i am just blown away. i never tested 3 lenses that centrally are so sharp wide open that stopping down only helps DOF. This is pretty interesting and frankly i am not going to post after F4 as there is no point in it.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Let me add here is where to look at the Vignetting of each lens as i did not correct that at all since I am working on this centrally. Again i did adjust exposure in post to bring down the 1.4 and F2 over exposed shots because of the bright light.

Lets start with the 35mm

I do see a little CA in the 1.4 shot but sharpness wise its just brilliant wide open. Its not a cheap lens and you get what you pay for is all I can say.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Batis 25mm and again i shot past F4 but no reason to post. I will upload the whole series though

 

[Guy Mancuso]

The Batis 25mm is just amazing. Im lost for words on it. You decide


Batis 85mm

 

[Guy Mancuso]

So there you have it with 3 of the best Native lenses you can hang off your A7rII.

Just a note from me. I love all three , very fast AF, well balanced and just outstanding performance. We need more obviously and the Batis line I am very very impressed with. There light and they just feel good on the camera. Note to Zeiss 135 and 200 right away please. Oh and don't forget a 18 or 21


Lets move on to the A7RII. This is not a review and i have my personal reasons for actually not doing one after this announcement for Sony I felt some reviewers blew it on some things , so I don't want to be that guy.

Now lets be very clear here before I go one step further. No one pays me to do these test, Im not sleeping with Sony and Google ads are not making me rich and Im certainly not doing a subscription site. I admit to a few things I am part owner of GetDPI and I do put on workshops after that I get my money from clients that hire me and they don't give a hoot on what I am shooting just what i am delivering. I do these tests mainly for me to know what i have in my hands when i am getting paid to shoot. Its that simple, buy one don't buy one I don't really care but if you ask for advice i will certainly give it as I have done hundreds of time. My goal is be ready for anything on a shoot but my ultimate goal is just to give back to a life long career in this industry. Thats it

The A7rII has been talked about quite a bit lately and its release has seemed to spark the industry with its cutting edge technology. Im not going to go into all that detail but I will say this out of the gate. At this moment in time its the best 35mm digital camera i ever had in my hands . PERIOD
I owned them all and I owned many Medium Format backs and I made 5 statements when I had this the first two days. Here they are and I am sticking to my guns here and my mind is even firmer on it after a couple weeks. Do we have some things to address . Yes Sony does but Im not getting into that at the moment , maybe later when we get more answers.

DR better by maybe 1/2 stop over the A7r
Noise floor looks like two stops of high ISO advantage over the A7r
Smokes the crap out of the A7r on feature sets and fixes
Major improvement in AF. It actually works
File: best 35mm files I have seen that have a very smooth look to them with a film like look and closest to Medium Format yet. This one is the most important. The files just do not look that digital. There is a lot of headroom for sharpening but out of the box its very very smooth. Whether you keep that look or apply sharpening is up to taste but you get some nice options

I'll add another C1 seems to be doing a very good job on these files. Not sure i can say that right now for ACR and LR. I am not sure Adobe has tuned it to perfection yet from what I am seeing. Those are not fighting words just what I am seeing and yes If I have a bias C1 is it.

Here is a Link to all the files above

https://www.hightail.com/download/bXBhT201YUlYSHpFdzhUQw

 

[Guy Mancuso]

12 bit vs 14 bit In REAL WORLD


Lots of discussion on this topic and Im sure there is lost data and all that stuff but what i was wondering in a real world shoot would you really see something dramatic in the file. So I just finished shooting the lens test and camera still on tripod so I thought whats the simplest way to get into 12 bit. Silent shutter was a easy one to go back and forth

So I took the normal 14 bit shot or Sonys standard than flipped on Silent Mode and did that. Here is straight out of the camera

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Now the question is this would I deliver this image like it is presented here to a client. And know that 12 bit affects the shadows. So I decided to lift the shadows in both images and lets take a peak deep in the corners of the dark world. LOL

So I went in back to C1 and gave the Shadows a 50 percent increase in exposure

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Some 100 percent crops

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Im not seeing anything at this level but maybe there is something there that I am just not seeing but in real world makes one wonder. This was something I just wanted to try and just visually see. BTW Batis 25mm at F8

Here are the raws and if you see something post it please

https://www.hightail.com/download/bXBhT20zcHZoeWJFdzhUQw

First file is 14 bit 9271
12 bit 9572

 

[Guy Mancuso]

A7RII Noise Test

This was shot in a little church in Jerome that is just a great place to run some tests. The altar is perfect for noise tests as you can see it come up and detail go down as you go up the scale.


Now I processed these in C1 with C1 standard noise settings everything at 50 and single pixel I put at 1. I will load these raws up as well and let you folks play

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Im really loving the fact that ISO 6400 is totally usable and with a little touch of pixel dust in C1 not to mention all those great noise programs out there this has become a very very useful low light camera. Pretty exciting stuff