Loxia 35mm VS 16-35 at 35mm test

[Guy Mancuso]

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

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Even at F11 the zoom is not matching the Loxia. Maybe defraction who knows but the Loxia is certainly a winner at F4 and actually not that bad even at 2.8. I actually call that good as we don't always go here in reality with corners on some subject matter.

lets move on to centrally and the Loxia does some real damage to the Zoom. Now it would be nice to have the 35 F2.8 here and the new 35mm 1.4 but I owned many 35mm lenses in many different flavors, Canon, Nikon , Sigma ART, Zeiss ZE and others and this lens looks pretty darn comparable to the market and when I hit more light it really lit up well. Here Im a little diffused with the sun this early in the morning.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Okay being called out to run errands . I will get back to this later

 

[iiiNelson]

To me it looks like the corners are acceptable but not great at f/2.8 but get significantly better from f/4-8.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Exactly . 2.8 you can certainly get away with sometimes for sure. F4 looks really dang good.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Oh forgot to mention all with the A7r

 

[Paratom]

The reason I didnt keep the 16-35 was the performance in the 28-35mm range.
In this range the 24-70 was better than 16-35 (my sample) in the corners, and the Loxia was better than the 24-70, and at 2.8 the 35/2.8FE was still a little sharper than the Loxia in the corners.
:watch:
I found the 16-35 dissappointing in the 28-35mm range.
The difference between Loxia and 35FE in regards of corner sharpness seemed tight.
IMO the Loxia is an excellent lens with very nice handling and very balanced IQ. Also the Bokeh is great.

 

[Steve P.]

The more I see of this Sony/Loxia match-up, the closer creeps the day I have to put my VM and ZM lenses up for sale. F2 with stabilisation on the A7II and a pleasurable (unlike Nikon's green dot) manual focusing experience is making it tough to resist.

 

[Jack]

Honestly Bud, I don't see much from either that impresses me. The Loxia renders corners about like my ex Nikon 35/1.4 did and the ART would kill them all.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

This test is not done yet by the end of it my bet will swing your vote. It has a nice look very sharp centrally nice corners. Really a lens not to complain about.

 

[Jack]

Okay, I will wait more patiently LOL!

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Honestly Bud, I don't see much from either that impresses me. The Loxia renders corners about like my ex Nikon 35/1.4 did and the ART would kill them all.

Sorry bud but your wrong the Art 35mm does not do corners well until 5.6. I owned that lens on the Nikon and Sony system . Its a nice lens but it has very little character to it. I'm after character I said that numerous times with this Loxia. The Sigma is very nice but it is also without character . My surprise here is the Loxia is actually very sharp in the center that test is coming up. I'm still running Nancy around like driving miss Daisy today. Lol

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Jack seriously I found very few lenses in my day that at 2.8 looked pretty good at 2.8 sure 5.6 is the optimum like so many others but 2.8 is not to shabby. We are talking 1 stop down which is unusual .

 

[k-hawinkler]

Thanks Guy for the ongoing review.
So far I get the impression my A7R is already doing quite well at the wide end with the Leica M 16-18-21/4 WATE and at 35 mm with the Leica R Vario 28-90/2.8-4.5 and even the FE 35/2.8. What did I get wrong?

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Nothing at all all very good lenses but none are F2

 

[k-hawinkler]

Nothing at all all very good lenses but none are F2

That's true. Thanks.
It seems the Loxia needs to be stopped down as well for optimal performance.
So, unless I want to shoot something other than landscapes, my lenses should be sufficient.

 

[ggibson]

Neat comparison, thanks. I don't really see these two as substitutes, but more compliments. I guess this is good evidence that the Loxia 35 fills a role where the 16-35mm is weak.

I'd be interested to see the Loxia 35/2 vs the Zeiss 35/2.8 since those two are probably competing for the same spot in people's bags.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Yea really if you want to get away from adapters and third party lenses we now have three choices the 35 2.8 which has a serious vignetting issue and mine had corner issues and its 2.8. Than we have the new 35 1.4 which is the most expensive and is big and heavy and they are both AF but we now have these Loxia lenses which may just fill a void for manual focus lenses designed exclusively for the FE mount which does eliminate or can eliminate some third party options. For others it fills what the 16-35 has a harder time at being the 35mm focal length and also giving you 2 stops. Now I don't want to take away from the zoom since I think its one of the best wide zooms around and at 16mm its amazing and even through the range to 28mm. I tested this against the Canon 17 TSE and 24 TSE known to be outstanding lenses and it was right there with them.

Okay having said all that lets move on to the central zone of the lenses. A little bit a a lighting issue since I was sort of in the shade so maybe a little tough to see the Loxia at F2 but I have plenty of F2 shots in more daylight that really highlight its sharpness. Here it looks good but I have far better after this test of images.

Here is the scene

Okay my free 2 F stops here

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Lets move on now to the F4 images

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Now the light changed a bit but the fact remains the zoom is soft wide open. No real surprise but it is softer than what I would like to see.