New Zeiss Batis reviews by PcMag, John Sison, Chad Wadsworth and Otto Schulze

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Carl Zeiss 25mm F2 Batis Lens Review by John Sison

PcMag tested the 85mm Batis and writes:

The Zeiss Batis 85/1.8 is a near-perfect lens, at a price that’s well shy of the company’s manual focus Otus line. It’s tack sharp from corner to corner, even at f/1.8, captures a heck of a lot of light, and draws wonderful portraits with a very shallow depth of field. The only real complaint is the pincushion distortion that it exhibits, and that’s something that’s easily corrected on a computer. If you’re in want of a prime lens in this focal range for your Sony mirrorless system, and you put an emphasis on portrait and general photography, look no further.

Chad Wadsworth writes:

The a7R II/Batis combination was simply praise worthy – it focused quickly and accurately, producing razor sharp images with pleasing bokeh.

Otto Schulze writes:

Yes, the Otus just in terms of sheer IQ wins but I was surprised by how close the Otus and the Batis were in pure IQ. Add to that equation the size difference and addition of fast and quiet AF and I have an absolute winner for my destination wedding work. And the 25mm Batis met all my needs on the other end of the spectrum as well. Just superb!

quick test between the Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2 and the Sony FE 28mm f/2 on Admiring Light.
Why I’m returning my Batis 85 mm f/1.8 (Alin Popescu).
Skydiving with the Batis 2/25 and Alex Torre (Lenspire)

Batis store links:
Zeiss Batis 85mm f/1.8 lens in US at Adorama, Bhphoto. In Eu at Amazon DE, WexUK. In Asia at Digitalrev.
Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2.0 lens at Adorama, Bhphoto. In EU at Amazon DE, WexUK. In Asia at Digitalrev.

 

 

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Sony finilized the Toshiba’s image sensor business acquisition for 19 billion yen

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Toshiba-Sony

Sony’s world sensor domination plan made one step further. They announced the definitive acquisition of Toshibas Semiconductor Fabrication Facilities:

Tokyo, Japan, December 4th, 2015 — Based on the memorandum of understanding entered into between Sony Corporation (“Sony”) and Toshiba Corporation (“Toshiba”) on October 28, 2015, the parties today announced that they have signed definitive agreements to transfer to Sony and to Sony Semiconductor Corporation (“SCK”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony, certain Toshiba-owned semiconductor fabrication facilities, equipment and related assets in its Oita Operations facility, as well as other related equipment and assets owned by Toshiba (the “Transfer”).

Under the agreements, Toshiba will transfer semiconductor fabrication facilities, equipment and related assets of Toshiba’s 300mm wafer production line, mainly located at its Oita Operations facility. The purchase price of the Transfer is 19 billion yen. Sony and Toshiba aim to complete the Transfer within the fiscal year ending March 31, 2016, subject to any required regulatory approvals.

Following the Transfer, Sony and SCK plan to operate the semiconductor fabrication facilities as fabrication facilities of SCK, primarily for manufacturing CMOS image sensors.

The parties expect to offer the employees of Toshiba and its affiliates employed at the fabrication facilities to be transferred, as well as certain employees involved in areas such as CMOS image sensor engineering and design (approximately 1,100 employees in total), employment within the Sony Group, upon the completion of the Transfer.

via Engadget

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This is the new world’s smallest Sony A7rII :)

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[shoplink 42428 ebay]A7rIIdrive[/shoplink]

This is one of the coolest Sony A7 gadget ever: An exact replica in miniaturization of the Sony A7rII can be bought for $49 on [shoplink 42428 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink]. And it’s actually a useful 16GB flash drive too.

This is for real hardcore A7 fans out there ;)

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Jason Lanier shares first pictures shot with the soon to be announced new Sony FE lenses!

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Jason1
Image by Jason Lanier

The two images you see here have been taken with two different “top secret” FE lenses! Jason did remove all EXIF data and not share any spec info on Facebook. So it’s SAR readers duty to guess what the lens on top is and what the lens below is. MY guess:
On top the 24-70mm f/2.8 G lens
Below the 85mm f/1.4 G lens

As a reminder: Sony scheduled a product announcement event for January 5!

Jason2

Image by Jason Lanier

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Sony Tidbits…

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Sony Distagon T* FE 35mm F1.4 ZA Product Overview

Sony A7s II & Hitting Things – film riot on Youtube.
Sigma 20mm f/1.4 DG HSM A1 MTF Curves (Lensrentals).
Zeiss Milvus 21/2.8 on a7RII (SonyAlphaForum).

Andrè:This holiday video was shot on the A7S in summer 2015 in Croatia! A beautiful destination! It was a great challenge to try and capture a variety of shots with 50 people! But with a small full frame camera like the A7S it was quite effortless simply because of its portability. Sony really started something special with their A7 range. Something I believe many of their rivals are rushing to imitate! Please share this link with the SAR community to see.
Croatia Holiday Video
http://youtu.be/anfdbSqScvc
More content shot on A7S & Leica M (typ 240)
www.amgv.london

Julio:I work in downtown Manhattan and shoot street almost every day. I’ve been posting to Tumblr for a couple of years, my Sony Rx1 is my go to street camera but I recently got the A7r2 and love it so I thought I would send you a link. http://sloppy96.tumblr.com

Chuck:I wanted to share a video that I made covering the current line of Sony A7 Cameras: https://youtu.be/g4Amfujo6RI

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SLR Magic will improve the Cine 50mm f/1.1 FE performance before it ships.

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Time Stood Still – An Extreme Low Light Video – Sony a7SII & SLR Magic 50mm f/1.1
from Johnnie Behiri on Vimeo.

The new SLRmagic 50mm f/1.1 FE lens was actually supposed to ship on December 10 according to BHphoto (Click here). But after some concern raised by early reviewers SLR Magic sent a message to Cinema5D:

From the two weeks of real life testing by several testers, we received 3 main concerns.
– Corner softness at infinity
– Sharpness at f/1.1
– Lens flare
We are currently making some changes within our capability to address the issues. The new changes would improve corner sharpness at infinity by approximately 20% but do not expect perfection after the changes. Sharpness at f/1.1 is not affected. Lens flare would be addressed with an optional lens hood.

So it’s yet unclear when the lens will actually ship.

SLR

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