Sony 70-300mm and Zeiss 24mm tested by Photozone!
Image courtesy: Photozone
Today I read the article where Ken Rockwell criticizes the Sony lenses. But maybe he should took a look at the following two tested by Photozone! Both lenses do deliver a very good and in case of the Zeiss an impressive image quality!
Zeiss ZA Distagon T* 24mm f/2 SSM
The Zeiss Distagon T* 24mm f/2 SSM may not be as fast as its Canon and Nikon counterparts but it’s capable of delivering a better image quality at comparable aperture settings. Click here to read the review at Photozone. And don’t forget that there is a $100.00 Instant Savings at Amazon
Sony 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 SSM G
The Sony 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 SSM G impressed during our APS-C format test and it is capable of delivering high quality results within the full format scope as well. The build quality of the lens is very good and a step above than the mainstream. Click hee to read the review at Photozone. And also in that case you have a $50.00 Instant Savings at Adorama and BHphoto!
And visit our full US Instante Rebates page (Click here)!!!
panfruit
3 years ago |We need an old fashioned Tamron VC vs Sony 70-300 shootout right about now. Get on it!
KaKtusSs
3 years ago |Ken Rockwell is still making me laugh !
Just read this :
“I support my growing family through this website, as crazy as it might seem.”
He just could have said :
“As crazy as it might seem, my biased reviews are paid by Canikon. Btw, Sony sucks LOL”
Seriously man !
Tubal
3 years ago |No doubt.
In his review of the a55:
“The A55 is a nice taste of what cameras might become in a few years when Nikon and Canon offer professional models with pellicle mirrors.
If you need to shoot videos with this camera, it’s probably better than any Nikon or Canon DSLR today, but I still prefer video shot with a camcorder, or my iPod Touch.
For still photography, the ergonomics and the pictures are much better from Nikon or Canon cameras, at least to my taste.”
He’d rather use his iPod to shoot video???
panfruit
3 years ago |Entry-level SLTs are kind of boring.
Show me a77 or a99999 advanced cameras with SLT — ones that are competitive to Nikon/Canon/Pentax mid-to-high level cameras! Do it now; do it often.
Ezio
3 years ago |ok SAR, stop posting shit from KR.
Chris
3 years ago |dont feed the troll.. literally ^^
did you already post the sony 85mm f2.8 review from kurtmunger? i probably just missed it.
seems like a crazy good cheap lens.. it made the sony alpha 900 alias in the center to mid section which means it has a higher res than the sensor.
FreeRadical09
3 years ago |I think that pretty much all of us can conclude that Ken Rockwell is nothing more than a glorified hack.
I find it very curious how in his lens “reviews” there isn’t a single pair of shots between the dreadful Sonys and his loved Nikons. If I was going to take that much trouble in criticizing other maker’s products, I would have at least provided evidence to support my claims so no one would contest the results. Did he? No.
I bet that if Kurt Munger did a head to head comparision, Rockwell’s adored 18-55mm would be proven to be in the same league as Sony’s lens.
That being said, I’m willing to bet five bucks that in two weeks, Rockwell will say he was only kidding and how Sony’s A55 and it’s lenses are the best thing to happen since toilet seats and how he is buying 4 of them.
Just like he said about Nikon when he bought the Leica M9, but he bought the D31000 and D7000 on release day, just like said about primes being better than zooms but he bought the 28-300mm on release day too.
Rob
3 years ago |Why doe SAR publish trolls like this, Troll Hogan, and the Samsung woman? There are SO many professional reviewers out there – why waste space and peoples’ time on twits like this?
admin
3 years ago |Hogan and Rockwell are ten time more “famous” than we are. You can like them or not but they are very respected by the Photo community. Should I start to ignore them?
acolyte
3 years ago |The Photo community sometimes doesn’t mean the Sony community, Andrea. I think Hogan still is slightly more critical than Rockwell. We like critical reviews, not trolling or bashing. Sometimes it just tires us to have to read through them, because we won’t be complaining much about the article if we haven’t read them.
The reason I haven’t complained much this time, is because I’m not planning to read them anytime soon.. Sometimes our community speak for themselves XD Just as we don’t like Sony fanboys who forgot that there are good or better competitors out there, we have our reasons against mindless trolling also
admin
3 years ago |Ok I will try to be more carful in future!!!
Rob
3 years ago |There are equally famous reviewers who are objective – why not focus on them? Also, have you considered that maybe Rockwell and Hogan are famous for the wrong reasons? So, yes, ignore them!
Rob
3 years ago |Compare the thoroughness of this reviewer to Hogan. So what if it’s nin photoclubalpha’s website – quality is quality. Why did you not feature Kilpatric’s review? Hogan misses the point of the Sonys he reviews – showing he IS a Nikon fanboy.
http://www.photoclubalpha.com/2010/12/11/alpha-55-in-depth-pros-and-cons/
Myst
3 years ago |i second David’s review it’s a great review that shows both pros and cons, Hogan is so and so, but KR should leave sony alone if he can’t come out with a proper review.
traveller
3 years ago |I’m going to be up front and admit that I shoot Canon (but I read SAR because I like to keep abrest of all manufacturer’s developments).
With that out of the way, I would like to agree with a lot of your readers: Ken Rockwell’s lens and camera reviews are virtually worthless! His site is a fun read but not one that I would use for serious information. He changes his mind on what he likes and is very inconsistent; worse his reviews are too casual and he makes bizarre assertations. An inexperienced photographer using his recommendations could easily end up making poor decisions. For example Ken reccomends the non-IS canon 18-55mm as sharper than the IS version; this is contrary to every other test that I’ve seen published!
When it comes to super-zooms Ken fails to point out that ALL of them are in some way compromised: they all suffer from higher than average distortion and CA. The Sony 18-250mm seems to be the sharpest of the camera brand lenses below 100mm and tails off the longer you go. The Canon is weak at wide angles, but better at normal – telephoto. The Nikkor does well overall but is very soft around ‘normal’. All of the lenses are considerably better when stopped down. As to what he says about the Sony 18-55mm, every other review I have seen disagrees. If you check out the SLR Gear or DPReview tests, it is sharper than the Nikkor!
Please don’t lump Thom Hogan and Ken Rockwell into the same category. Yes they are both opinionated and criticize what they don’t like, but Thom does tend to give better reasons why, pointing out that this may not apply to photographer with different needs.
FreeRadical09
3 years ago |We really can’t expect that Nikon fanboys to actually start praising Sony gear, can we? That would just be wrong business-wise since their public would immediately consider them worthy of a private cell in Arkham and they wouldn’t sell as many guides to Nikon DSLRs as they do.
Rockwell once criticized Hogan for selling guides when he does the same too…
It’s like if Gary Friedman posted that everything Sony does sucks and that he is going to Canon, you know how many books he will sell after that? None.
The main difference between Hogan and Rockwell is that Hogan at least sticks to what he says and usually makes more sense in general about what he says, unfortunatwely he does lend himself to gossip and rumours and that has cut into his credibility badly.
Rockwell on the other hand has proven to be a 7 year old boy in a 40-and-something man body and his site is mainly a Myspace account in disguise. Therefore his site is full of his opinions and nonsense but once in a while he allows himself to let that Nikon fanboy inside him to roar with fury and say that unless it’s made by Nikon, it’s crap.
I do wonder however what would have happened if he actually stuck to Minolta and remained an A mount user to these days; would he still be the same fanboy in disguise he is but with another brand?
Both are famous, yes, but that doesn’t mean they are right. Sarah Palin and Lindsay Lohan are also famous, should we pay attention to the dumb things they do or say as well?
Ezio
3 years ago |We can expect Nikon fanboys to bash the Sony sensors inside their Nikon cameras, but that would be irony since they love those Sony sensors so much to the point where they think Nikon made it.
ChenAlan
3 years ago |They would choose Sony sensors over Canon sensors (and much more Samsung sensors!) Hahahaha
panfruit
3 years ago |Sony fanbois vs Nikon fanbois: which will win? The only winning move is to not play.
Rob
3 years ago |Are you listening to this Andrea?
admin
3 years ago |Yes! thx for your comment. I will take them into account. I will also contact Thom Hogan and Ken Rockwell to talk about your comments. I want to hear what they think!
Sky_walker
3 years ago |ok… now THIS can be VERY interesting.
Though I don’t think Rockwell will try to respond all the criticism given to his review and all will end up with pathetic avoiding like “it’s my opinion, only my and you don’t need to share it”, and he’ll keep recording video with iPod. lol
I seriously doubt we’ll have any constructive discussion out of this, though… I’d love to be surprised and see real response from him.
As for Hogan – well, if you’ll just skip his predictions of future (like LOL Sony quit the FF LOL) than it isn’t that bad – biased, yes, but at least your eyes don’t bleed from reading Canikon advertisement like it’s in Rockwell reviews.
ps. Tom, if you read this – stop making any predictions of Sony future. Yes, it makes your website peak with activity but also makes you loose remains of creditability in eyes of non-Nikon users.
Ezio
3 years ago |LOL ask them what they think about Carl Zeiss and their lens offerings for all 3 mounts
(but don’t feed them the future A mount zeiss rumors!)
Doobie
3 years ago |Wow! Another idiotic review from Ken Rockwell! Here are two points:
1) Let’s start with the fact that he thinks you can make generalizations about a manufacturer’s lenses from looking at a 14x zoom. A lens like this is necessarily going to have sub-par performance. People who buy mega-zooms have decided that what they want is the convenience of a huge zoom range in a single lens. They don’t care about chromatic aberration or color fringing. Anyone who cares about these issues *and* uses a mega-zoom is an idiot. I read in another comment that Ken uses an 18-200mm or something like that, so that makes him an idiot.
2) “I’d rather shoot with an old Minolta MAXXUM 50mm f/1.7, which has much better optical performance…”
Hmmm… a prime lens has better optical performance than a 14x zoom. Gee, who knew? Anyway, it doesn’t matter how much better the performance of the prime lens is if what you want is a 14x zoom. What an idiot!
FreeRadical09
3 years ago |To be frank here, I doubt that the two of them are not aware of what most people think of them. They are both perfectly aware. Asking for their opinion about the stir they’ve caused won’t result in anything but a polite and subtle dismissal by Hogan and a sarcastic and polemic reply by Rockwell.
I don’t see any point in adding logs to the fire when we know it will just increase the fire and will last longer.
If any asking and discussion is going to be done, why not tell Sony that we’d like it to keep making OVF DSLRs along with SLTs?
I think that’d be far more productive for us A mount users than hitting the Nikon beehive.
ash
3 years ago |The commentary by fanboys is drivel in reality. Every one of them attempts to portray themselves as “professional” and toot their own horns but the evidence proves that they are amateur hacks at best. The problem arises in that their “popularity” on the internet has made them defacto experts and this is the biggest danger of all. As one comment pointed out above when inexperienced users seek guidance and read the comments of self-styled experts they take their advice as gospel. Then they make unwise decisions.
Unfortunately the reality is that the internet has elevated stupidity to an art form and the more hits you have on your website the more of an “expert” you are and thus you are “to be trusted”. It is the sad truth I am afraid.
Kudos to Andrea for listening to and responding to comments from the users of this site. Sony makes good products. Are they perfect? No, but then no company makes the “perfect camera” as yet. Each maker has their strengths and it’s all a matter of which strengths you want to play to.
Those are my 2 cents
alex
3 years ago |and nobody talks about the 70-300 or the zeiss… what a bunch of loosers here..just a bunch of fanboys and girls, who are outraged because of a review, that they don´t like.. how silly can someone be? do you really make identifaction of yourselves with some camera-brand,or do you just go out and shoot for yourself?
this site is all about tech-stuff, not about photography..people jabbering about: ´i want this, i want that´, ´test-charts proved that lens x does this, and is better than lens y..´ OMG! some morons are even crazy enough to know, what a camera will do, or that they want it, even before it is even put on the market… the best camera is the one, that is with you, and chase jarvis said that, and he makes even with a silly iphone, better pictures than most of everybody here…
stop whining, just go out and shoot the darn thing.. i don´t give a crap about what a reviewer says about a camera.. if it is good for me, than i don´t care…
just my 2 cents, and get a life…