The lenses identified
First I want to give a heart felt thanks to everyone who participated. I really appreciated the feedback everyone gave.
Ok, now on to the results.
Lens B was the Zeiss and Lens A was the Tamron 28-75. I mentioned to Jono that the trick I've found with Tamron is to assume you are going to need to send it in to be calibrated. Once they calibrate it, it usually comes back like a whole new lens. I bought a used one on Ebay for my D700 last year and it was absolutely terrible but after I sent it in and it returned it pretty much matched the Nikon 24-70 so I ended up keeping the Tamron. I think it's holding its own against the Zeiss quite well here. The build quality of course doesn't come close but on the other hand it's much lighter.
Oh, and remember I mentioned there was a little twist...
Well I never did mention that both lenses were Sony mount
, in fact the Tamron is a Canon copy mounted to a Canon 5D Mk II. I suppose I'll be tossed to the curb for my "little twist" but I really couldn't resist since I'm evaluating both and wanted to get unbiased opinions. :angel:
They are both great cameras with their own charms and idiosyncrasies. I just wish I could afford to keep both, but I've got to decide on one so I'm evaluating them and weighing the pros and cons. I'm still waiting to see what the Sony can do in great light but the weather has been conspiring against me for the last 4 days.
The pros and cons for me of both systems are:
1) Image stabilization - very nice having it with every lens. I did find it not to be quite as effective as the lens stabilization in lenses such as the canon 70-200 F/4 IS or the 24-105 F/4 IS. I could get shots at similar shutter speeds after multiple attempts but my hit rate has been significantly higher with the lens base IS. Probably just need more practice to even things out. Of course the lenses for Canon are much more limited so overall this is a definite plus for the Sony.
2) The Zeiss glass. Even with the above test I think the Zeiss is ultimately a nicer lens. Especially the 16-35 vs the Canon alternative (although I currently only have the Canon 17-40). On the other hand, I have a couple of lenses for Canon that I absolutely love such as the 35 1.4 and the 85 1.2 plus I can mount many of my Nikon lenses on it with a simple adapter.
3) Handling, I know I'm going against the tide on this one but there are things that I'm not quite getting on with on the Sony. A few nits:
The ISO button seems misplaced to me as this is something I change often and on the Canon it's directly accessible right under my shutter finger (it took Canon something like 3 iterations on their cameras to figure this one out as they seem to shuffle the buttons on each new camera) but the Sony I have to reach way back to hit the button.
Focus tracking. I use my thumb to focus and have the shutter button set not to focus. On Canon, I put the camera in AI Servo mode and as I move the camera around or stay on a subject that is moving back and forth it will continue to track. I haven't found the equivalent mode on the Sony where I can do a single point focus of my choosing and have it track that single point before I shoot. It may be unfamiliarity, but the Sony seems to have to be in wide area mode to do this and I lose control over which focus point I can use.
Image review - this one definitely goes to the Sony with the single push to zoom feature. Canon requires you to hit play and manually zoom in each time. Sony (and Nikon) definitely got this one right.
2) High ISO - this is probably less of an issue than I originally thought it would be but it does appear to give up at least one stop to the Canon.
3) Live View - when shooting macros or landscapes on a tripod this one is pretty significant to me. I feel much more limited about where I can place my focus to get the precision I want that lets me get the most out of the 20+ MPix these cameras are capable of. On the Canon, I pretty much nail the focus darn near perfectly each and every time. On the Sony, I've had a number of cases where the focus was not quite right especially when shooting into more dense foliage.
4) Pixel peeping differences - not seeing much here, they are both phenomenal for the price. I think the Live view on the Canon often gives it the edge when you are trying to extract that list bit of detail.
5) Color rendering. Surprisingly I've not noticed much of a difference that can't be tweaked to get very similar rendering between the two. I think the examples posted bear this out but I'm still waiting for the Sun to come out and see if more differences show up. I have a feeling the blues are where the Sony may shine but I actually need to see some blue to find out. :ROTFL:
Once again, I want to thank everyone for their input.