DxO tested the new Sony 85mm FE: It beats the Batis and comes close to the GM

DxOmark tested the new Sony 85mm f/1.8 FE and concludes:

Large high-speed primes such as the 85mm F1.4 G Master are nice to have, but they are pricey, large, and sometimes intimidating. When it comes to moderate-speed lenses, it sometimes seems that manufacturers put price before outright optical performance. That’s not the case here. While not exactly cheap, the Sony FE 85mm F1.8 costs less than its premium G Master sibling or even the rival Zeiss Batis 85mm F1.8, yet it has a real nice balance of performance, with excellent sharpness and low lateral color and distortion. Apart from a little vignetting, with its unobtrusive size and low weight, this new lens looks to be an excellent alternative for all the right reasons.

This is troubling news for Zeiss as it seems there is little reason to buy the more expensive Batis unless you really need in lens stabilization. And for most people the 85mm GM will not be worth the much higher cost. The new 85mm G is a nice lens and I can only highly recommend it!

85mm f/1.8 FE at Amazon, BHphoto, Adorama. Amazon DE. Amazon UK. Amazon IT. Amazon FR. Amazon ES.

Kevin Raber tests the new 16-35mm GM: “proves that Sony is very serious”


The new 16-35mm and 12-24mm lenses

Kevin Raber from Luminous Landscape tested the new 16-35mm GM lens and wrote this:

I was impressed with this lens for the one day I had it.  It simply is a lens many of us have been waiting for, and once more proves that Sony is very serious about where they are heading in the Pro-Photography market.  I have placed my order for this lens to add to my Sony kit. I’ll do a follow-up review with a production unit when I receive my lens later this summer.  We were told that the lenses we were using were the final release products.

And Drew Geraci from out Sony A9 facebook group (join here) shared a set of RAW images shot with the new lenses:

For anyone interested in playing around with RAW Sony A9 Files (Astro and Daytime) with the 16-35mm F2.8, 12-24mm F4, and 24-70 – download my images directly from here: dropbox.com/sh/
***You’ll need Capture One V10.1 to view/edit them and I’ll only have the folder live for the next 5 hours***

16-35mm GM at Bhphoto, Adorama, BestBuy, Focus and Amazon. In EU at Calumet DE, WexUK, Jessops.
12-24mm G at Bhphoto, Adorama, BestBuy, Focus and Amazon. In EU at Calumet DE, Amazon IT, WexUK, Jessops.

William J. Claff claims the A9 has more than one stop advantage over the Nikon D5 at Low ISO


Image by J.Claff from photonstophotos.net

William J. Claff posted the graph above showing the revised Estimate of Sony A9 Photographic Dynamic Range (PDR). It shows that at low ISO the A9 is around 1 stop behind the A7rII but 1.2 stops better than the much more expensive direct competition from Nikon (D5).
Yesterdays Dpreview article created some surreal discussions on the web. If you think cool minded it is obvious the A9 doesn’t have the same A7rII Dynamic range performance. With double the pixels the A7rII is also the class leader in the FF world.
Moreover: The A9 is made for sports photography! And sports cameras are by nature trimmed to perform best at mid ISO settings because they mostly use the camera at fast shutter speed. If you complain about the A9 not having a good performance as the A7rII at ISO 100 it would be like complaining the A7sII has no 50 megapixel :)
What matters is that REAL professional photographers shooting with the Nikon D5 or Canon 1D now can have a camera with much higher dynamic range and speed…the Sony A9!

Some more good news: Jeremy Smith tested the A9 under condition he would typically see banding. And his quick and dirty conclusion is that the A9 has no banding issues (see video below). But I would hold on judgments until we see more because some other tester reported some minimal banding in mixed light conditions.

Focus Numerique tested the A9 noise performance:

You can easily push to 1,600 or even 3,200 ISO without any hesitation and even at 6,400 ISO, the pictures are really impressive.

There is also a field test from London Camera exchange:

Sony A9:
Sony A9 at BHphoto, Adorama, Amazon, BestBuy. FocusCamera. Calumet.de. Park UK. Wex UK. Jessops.
Sony A9 with Grip Extension Kit at BHphoto, Adorama and Amazon.
Note: US readers preordering the A9 at BHphoto or Adorama using our links (and our affiliated links only!) have a chance to win a Sony A9.

100-400mm GM:
Sony 100-400mm GM at BHphoto, Amazon, Adorama, BestBuy. Calumet.de. Park UK. Wex UK. Jessops.

Sony A9 accessories:
Sony A9 battery grip at Adorama, Bhphoto, Amazon. Wex UK. Jessops.
Sony A9 Glass screen protector at Adorama, BHphoto, Amazon.
NP-FZ100 battery for the A9 at Adorama, BHphoto, Amazon. Jessops.
GP-EX1 grip at Adorama, BHphoto, Amazon. Wex UK.
FDA-EP18 eye cup at Adorama, BHphoto.
MQZ1 multi battery charger at Adorama, BHphoto, Amazon. Wex UK.
BCQZ1 Z-series Battery Charger at Adorama, BHphoto, Amazon.

Join our new Sony A9 Facebook group!

Sony A9 Buffer by Jason Lanier and A9 review by Mark Galer

Jason Lanier posted this short A9 buffer test which once agains shows the impressive speed of the camera:

And Marc Galer posted a video preview of the A9 with a set of full size images on Flickr:

This is a new A9 video from Sony:

Sony A9:
Sony A9 at BHphoto, Adorama, Amazon, BestBuy. FocusCamera. Calumet.de. Park UK. Wex UK. Jessops.
Sony A9 with Grip Extension Kit at BHphoto, Adorama and Amazon.
Note: US readers preordering the A9 at BHphoto or Adorama using our links (and our affiliated links only!) have a chance to win a Sony A9.

100-400mm GM:
Sony 100-400mm GM at BHphoto, Amazon, Adorama, BestBuy. Calumet.de. Park UK. Wex UK. Jessops.

Sony A9 accessories:
Sony A9 battery grip at Adorama, Bhphoto, Amazon. Wex UK. Jessops.
Sony A9 Glass screen protector at Adorama, BHphoto, Amazon.
NP-FZ100 battery for the A9 at Adorama, BHphoto, Amazon. Jessops.
GP-EX1 grip at Adorama, BHphoto, Amazon. Wex UK.
FDA-EP18 eye cup at Adorama, BHphoto.
MQZ1 multi battery charger at Adorama, BHphoto, Amazon. Wex UK.
BCQZ1 Z-series Battery Charger at Adorama, BHphoto, Amazon.

Join our new Sony A9 Facebook group!

Sony 12-24mm FE G lens size comparison with Sigma and Nikon

Base image via CameraSize with Sigma lens addition from me:
Sigma 12-24mm on the left, Sony 12-24mm and Nikon 12-24mm on the right (The Nikon is quite an old lens)

Preorders:
Sony 16-35mm f/2.8 GM at Bhphoto, Adorama, BestBuy and Amazon. In EU at Calumet DE, WexUK, Jessops.
Sony 12-24mm f/4.0 at Bhphoto, Adorama, BestBuy and Amazon. In EU at Calumet DE, WexUK, Jessops.

Let’s focus on the new 12-24mm FE G lens. Specs and image samples can be found at Sony.net. Helpful hands-on videos of this lens by Max Yuryev and Dan Watson.

Curiosities:
– The lens weights half as much as the Sigma 12-24mm or Canon 11-24mm lens! And MTF graph is on par with the Sigma…promising!
– It is only priced $100 more than the Sigma. This is just to say that unusual for Sony pricing seems to be fair in this case :)
– Just like the new 16-35mm GM also the 12-24mm lens has a new fly by wire focus mechanism
– In first testings this lens is surprisingly resistant to flare. Unusual for such a wide angle zoom.

Our reader Joe noted that: “Sony 12-24/4.0 + Sony A7r2 weigh 1.19kilos Sigma 12-24/4.0 alone weighs 1.15 kilos 🤣” Image via Wei:

And here is the comparison with the Canon 11-24mm lens which costs $2,700 and weights twice as much. At last we can say Sony is cheap compared to a Canon lens :)

 

 

 

Dpreview says the A9 speed comes at the cost of over one stop dynamic range compared to the A7rIi

Dpreview analyzed the dynamic range performance of the Sony a9 and concluded:

We suspect the higher readout speed is leading to greater noise. In other words, it appears this sensor was likely optimized for speed at the expense of low ISO dynamic range.
There is little to no difference in base ISO dynamic range in different drive modes. So the good news is that the drop to 12-bit in continuous drive comes at no cost. The bad news is that the 14-bit Raws aren’t any better than the 12-bit ones.

But it has to be noted that the “cost” is quite small. Still the article is interesting because it explains how to get the best quality out of the Sony A9:

This means that if you’re shooting in conditions demanding high ISO, for any given focal plane exposure you may wish to at least increase in-camera amplification to ISO 640 to get most tones above the noise floor, if your scene demands the extra amplification to get a usable image. Dropping below ISO 640 to preserve highlights, and then raising shadows afterwards, will come at a greater noise cost than, say, Sony’s own a7R II.
Interestingly, this means there’s little advantage to those large (47MB) uncompressed 14-bit Raw files, save for the lack of compression artifacts. In a perfect world, Sony would have offered a 12-bit Raw mode with a lossless compression curve (without that second stage of localized compression that leads to edge artifacts) for smaller file sizes with minimal loss in quality.

Overall, the A9 is a camera made for sports photographers and for those who seek speed. And 1 stop loss of dynamic range will hardly be noticeable or important to them. If Dynamic Range is what you need then buy the A7rII or have the patience to wait for the A7rIII :)

UPDATE: SteveGJ made an interesting comment on Dpreview findings:

There’s a lot of rubbish some people talk about 12 vs 14 bit RAW files. The fact is, by the time you get to about 800 ISO even the best FF cameras only have about 10 bits worth of dynamic range (at the pixel level) so 12 bits are ample as the bottom 2 will just be noise anyway. It will only be at very low ISOs where you might see some difference, and then only if the sensor has low read noise. Of course you get a bit more back when downsizing, but RAW files contain per-pixel data.
On an ISO-invariant sensor you lose one bit of resolution for every doubling of ISO speed anyway, so even 12 bits becomes irrelevant. Of course this camera is clearly not ISO invariant as it’s probably optimised for higher ISOs needed for action photography (the Canon & Nikon equivalents to the same), so it might be that the loss of (bit) resolution doesn’t follow that precise model, but it’s true in general.

Sony A9:
Sony A9 at BHphoto, Adorama, Amazon, BestBuy. FocusCamera. Calumet.de. Park UK. Wex UK. Jessops.
Sony A9 with Grip Extension Kit at BHphoto, Adorama and Amazon.
Note: US readers preordering the A9 at BHphoto or Adorama using our links (and our affiliated links only!) have a chance to win a Sony A9.

100-400mm GM:
Sony 100-400mm GM at BHphoto, Amazon, Adorama, BestBuy. Calumet.de. Park UK. Wex UK. Jessops.

Sony A9 accessories:
Sony A9 battery grip at Adorama, Bhphoto, Amazon. Wex UK. Jessops.
Sony A9 Glass screen protector at Adorama, BHphoto, Amazon.
NP-FZ100 battery for the A9 at Adorama, BHphoto, Amazon. Jessops.
GP-EX1 grip at Adorama, BHphoto, Amazon. Wex UK.
FDA-EP18 eye cup at Adorama, BHphoto.
MQZ1 multi battery charger at Adorama, BHphoto, Amazon. Wex UK.
BCQZ1 Z-series Battery Charger at Adorama, BHphoto, Amazon.

Join our new Sony A9 Facebook group!

Sony 16-35mm f/2.8 GM size comparison and unique new focus mechanism info


image via CameraSize

This comparison shows the Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 on the left (790g and $1,999), the new Sony 16-35mm f/2.8 GM in the center (680g and $2,199) and the Nikon 16-35mm f/4.0 on the right (680g and $1,100). Note: there is no Nikon 16-35mm f/2.8 zoom.

The full specs, image samples and MTF graph of the new GM lens can be found at Sony.net. Helpful hands-on videos of this lens by Max Yuryev and Dan Watson.

A couple of interesting news about the lens:
– It is the first Sony lens with a new fly by wire mechanism. It allows reliable manual focusing! The info comes via Max Yuryev.
– Unusual for a wide angle zoom is that it has a 11-blade circular aperture which contributes to even greater bokeh quality
– The new GM lens weights only 160g more than the slower Zeiss 16-35mm f/4.0 lens. Good job Sony!

Preorders:
Sony 16-35mm f/2.8 GM at Bhphoto, Adorama, BestBuy and Amazon. In EU at Calumet DE, WexUK, Jessops.
Sony 12-24mm f/4.0 at Bhphoto, Adorama, BestBuy and Amazon. In EU at Calumet DE, WexUK, Jessops.

Full specs and features of the lens can be read at sony.com/electronics/camera-lenses/sel1635gm/specifications#features