The new Sigma 135mm f/1.8 tested on the Sony A7rII

The German Blog Docma (translation here) is the first site testing the new Sigma 135mm f/1.8 on the Sony A7rII. Their conclusion is:

1) the mild Background effect is (almost) unique and perfect for “full body” Model Shooting.
2) The lens shows no compromise in any area
3) The Bokeh is very harmonic and shows no artifacts
4) the lens is sharp from edge to edge even at f/1.8 aperture.

Sigma 135mm f/1.8 lens at BHphoto Adorama.

Found via Dpreview forum

Review – Digital Medium Format on a Budget! – Kipon Baveyes MF Focal Reducer (Mattias Burling)

The new Kipon Baveyes Medium Format to Sony E-mount focal reducer adapter are now shipping in different versions:
Pentax 645 adapter at Amazon US and Amazon DE. (lenses here on [shoplink 56447 ebay]eBay[/shoplink]).
Alpa at adapter Amazon US. (lenses here on [shoplink 56449 ebay]eBay[/shoplink]).
Pentax 67 at adapter Amazon US and Amazon DE. (lenses here on [shoplink 56446 ebay]eBay[/shoplink]).
Hasselblad at adapter Amazon DE. (lenses here on [shoplink 56448 ebay]eBay[/shoplink]).
Mamiya 645 adapter at Amazon DE. (lenses here on [shoplink 56444 ebay]eBay[/shoplink]).

Mattias Burling reviewed the Kipon Baveyes MF Focal Reducer. The full review can be read at Gunpowdervideo. The conclusion in short:

Should you buy it?

YES if you are an analog MF shooter that has lenses.
YES if you are an A7/Leica shooter that want to get into analog MF as well.
YES if you are an A7/Leica shooter that loves vintage glass and experimentation.
MAYBE if you are primarily a digital shooter that wants some fast portrait lenses or just happen to have $500 burning a hole in your pocket.
NO if you think DOF is everything.
NO if you think megapixels is tha shit!

Pros:

The awesome MF lenses!
$500 isn’t much to give another dimension to your camera.
Quality is great.
80mm f1.9 at x0.7 crop is awesome.
Its the Medium Format Experience on the cheap.

Cons:

If you don’t have an interest in MF film it becomes niche.
No AF.
Some MF lenses are big.
Not all MF lenses focus to infinity (according to rumor).
$500 is still $500 and used once aren’t gonna be very common.

The adapters are also available [shoplink 50187 ebay]trough eBay sellers[/shoplink].

 

Check out the bokeh performance of the soon to be announced new Batis FE lens!

Zeiss posted a new set of images shot on the soon to be announced new Batis tele prime FE lens. The Photographer Irwin Wong said this about the lens:

Great low light performance, which helped when I shot this bamboo grove in twilight.
I can’t tell you too much about it except that it is a telelens. What’s something that we all use telelenses for? That’s right, sweet, sweet bokeh. I think this lens will not disappoint in that regard, as you can probably see from this photo of some plum blossoms.

Here is an image that shows you the nice bokeh of that lens (Click on it to see large size version):

The lens should be a 135mm lens will the aperture could be f/2.8. But for sure I would be glad it would have a faster f/2.4 or f/2 aperture.

The lens will be announced by end of the Month. If I could guess the date it will be March 21 because usually Zeiss announces stuff on Tuesday. But thats’ just a guess.

Dpreview tests the Fuji GFX and says the advantage over the A7rII is negligible…

DPreview  added the Fuji GFX studio samples. The camera uses the Sony 51MP medium format sensor. But despite the size advantage there doesn’t seem to be a big quantum leap over the Sony A7rII:

“In terms of high ISO noise, the GFX 50S performs fairly similarly to the Pentax 645Z and, as sensor size alone would lead you to expect: better than the Canon EOS 5D SR. However, because Sony’s a7R II sensor uses a more modern BSI design, it’s able to be more efficient, which means it’s able to close the gap to the bigger sensor cameras. “

As I stated many times I think Sony should use the much larger 55x41mm sensor if they ever are going to make a medium format RX or system camera. That should really give us a visible difference in both, quality and esthetic of the images.