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Sony A900 w/Zeiss vs ? - A Challenge

carstenw

Active member
I just now saw that the second shot was taken at f/3.5. I guess the mystery lens is not the Leica 35-70/4 then ;) I am trying to think of what other lenses it might make sense to adapt to the A900, and coming up short. I doubt that you would have converted a Leica 35-70/2.8, and not posted a comparison at f/2.8 :) Lens A looks warmer, definitely, so maybe the Zeiss is the B after all.

Anyway, this is dragging out too long. What is the answer?
 

Arjuna

Member
Jono - I don't think that Eoin was suggesting that you were frustrating, but rather that Greg and the challenge were frustrating (as well as entertaining, thought provoking and insightful).
 

Greg Seitz

New member
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 :eek:, 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.
 

Greg Seitz

New member
ISO button is meant to be pressed with the right thumb.
Tried that but it's a very awkward reach with the thumb and it doesn't give much tactile feedback. I would have much preferred to have it swapped with the Drive button since I'm changing ISO much more than the drive mode and hitting that button is more natural to me since my thumb continues to support the weight of the camera while it is up to my eye.
 

ryc

Member
in the last crop of both A and B, The image from Lens B shows a Power pole with transformer and power lines. I would like to see the same from Lens A. Please post it if you have it.

Thanks
 

Greg Seitz

New member
in the last crop of both A and B, The image from Lens B shows a Power pole with transformer and power lines. I would like to see the same from Lens A. Please post it if you have it.

Thanks
Jorge,

That's the left edge on both shots. The position of the camera shifted slightly between the two when I swapped them so things aren't perfectly aligned.

Thanks,

Greg

P.S. I've seen from some of your shots that you are in the Portland area. I'm in Lake Oswego, whereabouts are you from?
 

Paratom

Well-known member
Greg,
I would like to add one argument:
Canon offers a much wider range of lenses, with some very nice ones.
If I had to make the decision I would first carefully decide which lenses I might want in the future and then probably decide based on this.
The Zeiss lenses are excellent, but I can not imagine that lenses like the Canon 50/1.2, 85/1.2, 135/2.0, 24-70/2.8, or the PDE lenses should be behind in optical quality.
The other thing I find is that one of the big advantages of an SLR is to be able to also use higher ISO here and then.

Personally I find the A900 more tempting -its newer , it looks better, Zeiss sounds more sexy, the body is probably more rugged.
However if I would make a positive/begative list it would be probably the Canon.
(Anyways-in my case it is Nikon since I allready have owned many lenses)
 

douglasf13

New member
The ZA 135 1.8 and 24-70 are certainly better performers than the Canon equivalents. I saw a comparison review of the 85L and ZA 85, and it's too close to call, but the Canon has that 1/2 stop advantage. Canon's 50L is the lens in that group that has no Sony match for so far.
 

Eoin

Member
Moi? Frustrating . . I am wounded to the quick . . and from you Eoin as well
:cry:
Now where would you get this idea from?, witty, good humored, helpful, talented, generous would be some adjectives I'd use to describe you my friend ...... frustrating ..... is definitely not one of them. :ROTFL:
 

wayne_s

New member
Greg,
I suggest you look at some of the online lens review sites like photozone to study the strengths and weaknesses of Sony and Canon's lens lineup.
You picked the worst focal length for the CZ 24-70, 70 to pit against your Tamron.
The 24-70 is not a world beater at 50mm either. I suggest you take some pictures at the wider end of the zoom to see it strengths as well as take some shots of subjects with a lot of color too. No maker has a perfect lens lineup and so if you want to get the ultimate lens lineup you need to select from a lot of different alternative lens glass to fill the holes and get the best performance. Sony's lens lineup is obviously smaller and has more holes than Canon but except for the lack of Tilt-Shift lenses these other holes can e filled in by alternative lenses. Like for 50mm, I would go with the Sigma 50 1.4 or Leica 50 'Cron. Canon's 50L is sharp and fast at 1.2 but is known to misfocus and has alot of CA. Just look at Shelby's fine portraits here with the siggy 50 and A900 to see its sharpness and smooth bokeh.
The one thing which I wish the A900 had is live-view which I use all the time on my 1ds3 to accurately focus all my alt glass and wide angle lenses. The other thing I wish the A900 had are more ZS versions of all the great Zeiss primes like a ZS 21.
I have the 135 1.8 converted on my 1ds3 and found it slightly better in tests against a 135L. I would give the slight edge to the 85L over the CZ85 1.4 but to the Sony for both the 16-35 and the 24-70. I think you need to spend some more time shooting the A900 to see all its virtues before you decide, including using a RAW developer like C1 and not Lightroom. BTW, this whole challenge thing was more of a setup for the Sony camp if you ask me, which probably didn't win you too many friends. ;) IMHO
 

dbogdan

New member
The Tamron is a ringer to be sure, it's been argued for years... Not needing AFS for my work, I bought this screw driven lens and sold off my Nikon 28-70 to tuck a little extra cash in my pocket 4 or 5 years ago. You'll find it stands up well, optically speaking, against any zoom of its range on the market, including some primes .... Most noticeably at the focal lengths chosen.

So I have to agree with Wayne and see this as a setup, just a poke to stir things up... Could have dropped in any camp and pulled this off.
 
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Greg Seitz

New member
Hey guys, I certainly wasn't trying to set anyone up so if anyone feels upset I apologize. As I mentioned, I simply wanted to get unbiased results. If I'd gone in saying Lens A was the Tamron and B was the Zeiss what do you think the likely outcome would have been?
 

ptomsu

Workshop Member
Greg,

well you had your fun and you got your answers. I would never have done this, but this is up to you. Also I of course put my vote on the wrong lens :)

Anyway, I still would go for the Zeiss instead of the Tamron, just cannot say really why, but I do not even like how the Tamron looks like and not to say how it feels :(

But anyone has his/her own preferences and so you have yours and be happy that you found your choice.

Enough said about this stuff :confused:
 

jonoslack

Active member
Now where would you get this idea from?, witty, good humored, helpful, talented, generous would be some adjectives I'd use to describe you my friend ...... frustrating ..... is definitely not one of them. :ROTFL:
purr purr . . . .but you'd better not ask my 26 year old (who's been with the business for the last 6 months) :)
 
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