Guy Mancuso
Administrator, Instructor
I know for awhile now i have been saying how much I really like the Sony 16-35 zoom and many people agree its a really nice lens but it does come with a limitation first being a F4 lens and more importantly the 35mm setting does not do as well as the wide end of this zoom and from 16-28 mm this lens is really really good for a zoom lens. What I did not expect here was just how good the Loxia 35mm F2 really was. I knew it would perform better than the zoom and the reason I got it was for that plus i pick up two stops. Now lets get to the Guys generally rule on lenses the best performance and I said this for years was two stops down from wide open it hits its prime resolving power. Thats a general rule sometimes every once in a while its actually better. Here is a case even at 1 stop down it performs very well. Not its best but darn good. The zoom on the other hand may need 3 stops down, thats not great.
Now first on the hit list as it seems to be a big concern is corner sharpness so lets attack this first than we will get into central sharpness and a surprise there.
Now this is NOT for artistic review saying I am the best shooter on the planet, far from it these are test images of a scene i always test lenses against because it is repeatable, always there and the texture and color are awesome to test with.
Full scene with the Loxia 35mm at F4. early morning tripod and 2 second delay all manually focused in live view with a hoodman loupe to make sure i am nailing focus. Im focused on the center like one normally would in most cases.
No lets do the upper left crop. Bonus I get F2 and F2.8 for free until I get to the zoom. LOL
Now here where the Loxia starts kicking in with the corners very well at F4
as you can see the Loxia just beats it up at F4 but again the zoom is wide open and really don't match the Loxia until F8 and the Loxia is at F4
Lets move onto 5.6 where the Loxia is pretty much not going to get much better. This is very very good here
Now the zoom finally hits it at F8 and very good at F11
and finally F8 on the Loxia. I did not shoot F11 as there was no point
Now first on the hit list as it seems to be a big concern is corner sharpness so lets attack this first than we will get into central sharpness and a surprise there.
Now this is NOT for artistic review saying I am the best shooter on the planet, far from it these are test images of a scene i always test lenses against because it is repeatable, always there and the texture and color are awesome to test with.
Full scene with the Loxia 35mm at F4. early morning tripod and 2 second delay all manually focused in live view with a hoodman loupe to make sure i am nailing focus. Im focused on the center like one normally would in most cases.
No lets do the upper left crop. Bonus I get F2 and F2.8 for free until I get to the zoom. LOL
Now here where the Loxia starts kicking in with the corners very well at F4
as you can see the Loxia just beats it up at F4 but again the zoom is wide open and really don't match the Loxia until F8 and the Loxia is at F4
Lets move onto 5.6 where the Loxia is pretty much not going to get much better. This is very very good here
Now the zoom finally hits it at F8 and very good at F11
and finally F8 on the Loxia. I did not shoot F11 as there was no point