Sony Camera and Lens In Use: Part Three
AuthorPostedbyZeiss Loxia 35mm F2 lens
Further thoughts and comments
Today I am discussing the Zeiss Loxia 35mm F2 lens in part because I have now had it about 9 months and I feel now able to say that it is a tie with the Sony Zeiss Distagon T* FE 35mm F1.4 ZA for my favourite lens on the Sony a7 series of cameras.
It took me a while to develop my method of working with it, as it took me buying a lens TAAB to really make the lens come alive for me. For a few years just prior to the release of the a7 series, I used a Leica M camera and while the lens where great, the thing I finally realised that made them special for me was the Tab underneath the lens. With a tab on a lens you can focus by feel, you learn to know where your focus is set by where the tab is.
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With Zeiss Loxia Lens and TAAB at Infinity -
With Zeiss Loxia lens and TAAB at minimum focus distance
Camera and Lens with TAAB attached.
When the Tab on the lens is directly below the lens is focused to 1.2 meters, when it is as far to the right as possible the lens is at infinity and when the tab is half way between the two the lens is at 3 meters. This make is very easy to focus the camera. I can do it by feel and this speeds the process up for focusing. It takes a bit of time to learn to guess distances but with practice like all things you get better at it. I find that when I am using this lens I do not think about the focus points and how relevant these are to where my subject is within the frame. I think about the composition and the meaning of the image, this is allowing me to make more interesting images as I am concentrating on the image that I am making.
I did a series of lens tests checking the quality of the corner sharpness (which will be in another post). I rate the centre sharpness as being good on all three 35mm lens for the Sony a7 series. The Sony Zeiss Distagon T* FE 35mm F1.4 ZA is the sharpest in the courses with the Loxia being the next sharpest and the Sony Zeiss Sonnar T* FE 35mm F2.8 ZA being only a little softer in the corners. But in real world situations none of these three lens are bad lens, each of them has their strengths.
I have been working on a project now since early January to photograph the city of London that is going to take me a while. I am anticipating that I will have a good set of images sometime over this year and that I maybe working on this project for the next two years.
Below are some images made since January 2016 on the Zeiss Loxia 35mm f2 lens.
