SonyAlphaBlog tested the new Sony 16mm f/1.8 G lens and concluded:
The Sony 16mm F1.8 is an excellent lens : ultra sharp, very compact and light, top ergonomics and AF , vire nice bokeh balls and color rendering, very good resistance to flare. It is of the same family and quality as the Sony 20mm F1.8 G . It will ideal for landscape , low light street photography, or astrophotography
The Laowa 100mm F2.8 Tilt Shift macro (1559 euros) is a very good lens optically , very well build and with very good ergonomics for macro and tilt shift. The Tilting effect works particularly well in photos and video However it is a big , heavy lens, and quite costly and with quite specialized used cases to deliver its full potential. If you are just looking for a 50mm F2.8 or a macro lens cheaper and lighter option exist , for for a 50mm Tilt shift it is the best you can find on E mount Recommended for Tilt shift users
The price tag of the Laowa 100mm f/2.8 Tilt-Shift 1x Macro is surely a big entry hurdle, but you are getting a lot of a lens for your bucks in return. It’s certainly not a lens for everybody. However, in the right hands it can deliver magic – well … almost.
The new Zeiss Otus lenses have had a controversial start. From what I’ve heard, pre-order numbers are low and many feel that the price is just too high for what you get. Unlike 5-10 years ago when Zeiss basically had little competition, today you can get many excellent lenses for very little money.
Christopher Frost tried to dig into this new lens and highlight what makes them unique:
The Zeiss Otus ML 50mm f/1.4 looks, feels and performs like an utterly uncompromising lens. It’s designed and built for optical excellence, pure and simple, with no modern fads like autofocus or image stabilization, or even camera-driven aperture control. Manual-focus lenses won’t find a place in everyone’s dream team but I like that this new lens for mirrorless cameras is smaller, lighter and more affordable than its DSLR-based forebear. Even so, it’s still very pricey for a standard prime!
The new Schneider-Kreuznach Samyang AF 14-24mm f/2.8 lens is now avaialble for preorder in Europe though stores liket Fotokoch, Calumet, FotoErhardt, WexUK. There are no US preorders open yet. But we finally have the first English review:
Opticallimits tested the new Viltrox AF 35mm f/1.2 LAB FE lens and concluded:
Viltrox delivered another impressive lens – this time the ultra-fast Viltrox AF 35mm f/1.2 LAB FE. It’s not only fast, but also capable of producing great image quality. It’s very sharp at f/1.2 and reaches greatness from f/2. Lateral CAs are low. Axial CAs are noticeable at large aperture settings, although not excessive. The vignetting is typical for such a lens. Images shows a slight pincushion distortions – and our pre-prod sample didn’t have a correction profile to eliminate them. The background bokeh is very smooth and out-of-focus highlights are nicely rendered.
The build quality is up to professional standards thanks to a weather-sealed all metal housing. The focus control ring is smooth. We wished that Viltrox had used a marked aperture ring instead of “infinite scrolling” but that’s a matter of taste. A more precise aperture change per “click” would have been nice, though. The AF is quick and noiseless.
Some may find it almost suspicious that we rated many (although not all) Viltrox lenses so highly. However, most of our rating depends on data, and it matches with what we can see in sample images. So, it is once again … highly recommended!
