SongRaw Moonlit 50mm F1.2 FE Review | We Have a New Challenger!

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[Music]
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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today to give you a review of a brand new lens from a brand new lens maker. I am
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filming on the new Song Raw uh autofocusing moonlit 50mm f1.2 lens.
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Now, if you've never heard of Song Raw before, it's because until this year really no one had, at least in the
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industry, as this is their very first lens, and they are clearly ambitious.
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Most companies that are new in the market that I have seen start off with inexpensive manual focus lenses, build a
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reputation there, then take on a little bit more complex lenses, maybe with brighter maximum apertures, then maybe
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start to add autofocus, then start to add additional features like aperture
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rings and function buttons and weather sealing and things like that. But not
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Song Raw. They're going right to the top, right from the beginning. And so this is not only an autofocus lens, it
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is a full-frame 50 millimeter f1.2. It's got weather sealing. It's got an aperture ring. You can declick the
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aperture. It's got a function button. It's got all of these things and a price tag of about $1,000.
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That in and of itself is both a strength and a weakness because it is significantly cheaper on the plus side
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than either Sigma's 50mm f1.2 Art, which is about $1,550.
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And then of course then Sony's own 50mm f1.2 G Master which is closer to $2,300.
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So there is a huge amount of potential savings here. But of course $1,000 for a
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brand new lens from a brand new lens company is also a little bit of a challenge to overcome in terms of the
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perception of reliability and value and all of those things. And so today's
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review is a little complicated. And so I'm going to dive into and show you how this is in many ways a really remarkably
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good lens, but also there is some remarkably good competition for it on
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the market already. So is the Songra Moonlit 50mm F1.2 a lens that you should
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consider? Well, let's jump in. Let's find out. So in full disclosure, this lens was sent to me by Songra for
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evaluation. They have had no input, however, in my review process. they will
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not be seeing this video before you do. And as always, my findings are my own.
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Let's take a look at the lens. So, the new Songwra 50mm f1.2 is falling under
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the moonlight branding, and I think that the moonlight indicates a series of lenses, as I've seen similar branding on
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their announced upcoming 85mm f1.2. I suspect Moonlight refers to the fact
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that these are big maximum aperture lenses that you can shoot and focus by Moonlight and and so they'll probably
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have other brands for subsequent series to come, which it certainly seems like they're planning for both APS-C and
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full-frame lenses for the future. Now, the design of this, although this is a brand new lens from a brand new company,
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and it does have some unique design aesthetics, but the flocked finish of it actually reminds me of some of the
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earlier Canon L series lenses. I also saw a similar kind of flocked finish on earlier Sigma lenses before they moved
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to the newer art or contemporary series designs. And so, it does feel a little bit familiar, but there are some unique
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design touches that we'll get to in just a moment. The main thing that stands out to you about this lens though, it is it
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is big and heavy. Now, the only real 50mm comparison that I have on hand at
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the moment is my daily driver, which is the Sony 50mm f1.4 G Master. Now,
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obviously f1.4 is not f1.2. However, you can see sizewise that the song raw is
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huge compared to the G Master lens. Now, obviously that difference would be a
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little less pronounced if we were looking at the 50mm f1.2 G Master, but
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obviously you have to be willing to take on some size and weight because you really feel the difference between these
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two lenses. Um, it is actually larger than any of the other 50mm f1.2 lenses
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on the Sony E-mount platform. And frankly, it is the probably biggest 50mm
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lens that is available on E-mount. It is 90 mm in diameter or 3.54 in. It is a
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whopping 129 mm or right over 5 in in length. To give you some perspective, if
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this is 129 mm, the Sony 50mm f1.2 G Master is 108 mm whereas the Sigma F1.2
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Art lens is 111 millime. And so this is a full 18 mm longer than the the longest
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of the 50mm uh F1.2 two lenses on the platform, more akin really to the S-line
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lenses from Nikon in terms of the overall physical size and dimensions
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here. It weighs in at 900 g or right under 32 oz. And so the Sony GM lens is
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778 g and the Sigma uh F1.2 is 740 g. Now
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900 g obviously is very heavy. I have actually tested heavier 50mm lenses uh
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from Zeiss for example before and for that matter even the first Sigma Art 50mm f1.4 was 850 grams and so that was
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only f1.4. So if it had been an f1.2 lens it probably would have been a kilo or more. So this is big and heavy no
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question about that. And so if you're looking for small and lightweight this is not going to be your lens. However,
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it is a very well-made heavyduty lens here. It is made out of all aerospace
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grade aluminum alloys and so it has a very dense kind of zeicish type feel to
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it. Uh and so I mean I suspect that probably if they have if they're around long enough to do Gen 2 in the future,
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probably their second series of lenses will be a bit smaller and lighter kind of like what Sigma has done. you know,
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downsizing in their second generation. And, you know, that's something that takes some experience to do after a
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while. And if Sigma is just getting there, I'm going to give Somra a bit of a pass for their first generation here.
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Up front, we have 72mm front filter threads. That's pretty common. That's what the other two 50mm f1.2 lenses have
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as well. One of the other design cues that I saw that kind of reminded me a bit of another lens was actually the
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kind of orange yellow paint here for the uh the aperture markings and that
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reminded me a bit of a Zeiss Otus style. Um it's a little bit orer than that but it's kind of that bright high contrast
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paint. Now, when it comes to that aperture, we do have an aperture ring here. And so,
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you have the ability to have either clicks or you can de-click the aperture, which does allow you to do smooth
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aperture racks. As you can see here, it does have a bit of resistance at F-16,
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but not much. It's not hard to go past F-16 and right on into the automatic
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mode. And there is not an aperture lock. And so, uh, that's our iris lock. That's
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one thing that I would like to see them add in the future. Right underneath the uh the click dclick is actually a gasket
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covering covering a USBC port. I don't love gaskets on lenses where it just
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kind of to me it interrupts it a little bit. I would prefer it to either be on the lens mount like Viltrox does it or
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with a just an open weather sealed USBC port like Tamron has been doing. However, it's that's just my own, you
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know, personal preference. It's no big deal. The gasket does fit in there tightly and it has a little tab that helps at least to be easy to pull out
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and it also it doesn't come all the way out. It actually is connected on one end so you're not going to lose it unlike
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some other lenses that I've really critiqued over that. The aperture Iris itself is a really high blade count of
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13. And so as you might have saw on the aperture rack and we'll run through it again. It does a really effective job of
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keeping a circular shape. So kudos to them on that. On the other side of the lens we have an AFMF switch. Always
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welcome. And then we have a customer function button and it gets extra style points. It's actually got a a stylized
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song raw um SR on there. And so that's kind of cool and it clicks and moves
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fine. And obviously that uh function you're going to set within the camera just like you would with any other lens.
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The big manual focus ring here, it moves very nice. Very nice damping. I will
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note that of course with mirrorless lenses, they're all focused by wire if they're autofocus lenses. So that means
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any input on this ring is routed through the focus motors. In this case, the focus motors aren't completely silent.
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And so what that means is that you do hear just a little bit of sound when you're manually focusing. However, it is
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nice and reactive. It's not it's not like lag or anything. So the manual focus experience is fine in terms of the
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feel, but you will hear just a little bit of sound and you may not be accustomed to that. The song raw 50mm
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f1.2 also features thorough weather sealing. So that starts with a gasket at the lens mount, seal points as you can
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see throughout the lens itself, and then a special coating on the front that is similar to flooring. It's to keep it
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from, you know, getting fingerprints or collecting moisture on there. Helps it to be easier to clean. And so you are
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getting a professional grade of not of build quality on the outside, but also in terms of weather sealing inside. It
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does come with a lens pouch that if you've ever owned Canon L series lenses, is going to feel very, very familiar
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there. and then the included lens hood. It is uh it's nicely made. And one thing
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I will that stands out to me is that it does have that rubberized front edge. I always like that addition because it
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means that um it's easy to set it down like that. That's a stable way to set it down. And also if you happen to bump uh
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on this, that bit of rubber does help to um absorb a little bit of vibration and so there's less vibration that is
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actually transmitted into the lens itself. So all good on that front. Minimum focus distance here is 52
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cmters. That's not as good as either the Sony or the Sigma lenses that can uh I
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think about seven or eight centimeters closer. And thus the maximum magnification is 0.13 times here whereas
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the uh Sigma and Sony are 0.16 and 0.17 times magn magnification uh with them.
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So a little bit better. It's that's not a a I wouldn't call that a make or break for most people. It's not a huge
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difference, but you definitely will see the difference in that amount of magnification generally because it has
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such a huge maximum aperture. You can still really strongly blur out backgrounds at close focus distances.
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So, that's all nice. Now, price is the final thing we'll evaluate here. $999
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for this lens, which yeah, that's a chunk of change. However, the Sigma is about $1,550,
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whereas the Sony is nearly $2,300 US. And so, if you're looking at it from
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a pure value proposition, this is an easy winner in that regard. Overall,
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other than being large and heavy, there's not really any kind of big missteps here for a very first lens.
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This feels very wellmade, very prograde, and it works really nice. So, let's talk
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autofocus. Song Raw hasn't employed an STM focus motor or a stepping motor
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here. Though they also claim that it is a closed loop monitoring system. That's not language that I've heard before. And
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essentially looking at their description, it is a system where it's doing real-time evaluation and constantly being sure that focus is
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being micro adjusted to be accurate at all times. I'm not sure how that differs from the way that lenses normally
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operate, but I will say that they do get good marks for reliability and accuracy
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of focus in my test. Now, they are facing an uphill battle here because the
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primary challengers from Sigma, Sigma uses dual of their HLA, which is their
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high-speed linear actuator. So, linear style focus motors with two of them employed. whereas on the Sony side, the
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G Master lens has four quad uh XD linear motors that are being used there. And so
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obviously the in terms of the the order of of quality of focus, you're going to have the G Master at the top, then the
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Sigma, and then the Song Raw at the bottom. In this case, however, last place is not bad at all because
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autofocus, while it's not as instant as those other two, it is good and
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confident. It moves with, I think, nice damping. It's not that instantaneous back and forth, but it there's very
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little lag going back and forth. And for most situations, I had zero problems having fast enough autofocus to get the
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job done. Every now and then, I would make a really big focus change from maybe shooting right up close to
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shooting towards infinity, and I would notice just a little bit of lag, but in most situations, uh, focus zipped back
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and forth just fine. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised uh that when I went out to buy my beehives and I started
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tracking bees, I actually could nail some of the bees in flight. And what's more, when it came to my actual portrait
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session, all of the portraits were perfectly focused. My everyday shots, even shooting at f1.2 and very narrow
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depth of field, I got very good focus accuracy on all of those things. Some shots of, you know, pets, I got great
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autofocus. And so in general, other than it not being as fast and maybe a little bit more focus noise than those lenses,
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I would say that autofocus was really quite good. And particularly considering that this is a brand new lens from a
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brand new lens maker, I think that they've actually done a really good job because autofocusing any f1.2 lens comes
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with some challenges with that shallow depth of field. But I've never felt like this was a lens that was overmatched.
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And frankly, if I was evaluating this a few years ago, I would say that autofocus was was quite exceptional. In
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the last couple of years, companies like Sigma, like Tamron, like Viltrox have
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been moving up to higherend autofocus motors. But really, Song Raw is where those companies were just a couple of
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years ago in terms of quality of focus. And frankly, that's not a bad place to be. There's plenty of accuracy here.
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Focus is not perfectly quiet, but quiet enough. And certainly it does very good when it comes to accuracy. So at the end
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of the day, while it's not maybe as high as the competition, it's still at a pretty high level. So let's talk video
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autofocus. We'll start our evaluation by seeing how it does in situations where I
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approach the camera like this. And then also what happens if I step out of frame
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and back in. How is it picking me back up? Out of frame and back in.
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out, out, and back. So far, you can see it's
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actually snapping back pretty quick and doing a good job of latching on to me.
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So, how about autofocus in other situations? Well, when it came to my focus pools, I actually felt like it did
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a really good job there. As I noted in the previous section, there's a nice damping feel to autofocus here. So, I
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think they've done a good job with their algorithms on that. And so you can see that it moves back with good back and forth with good confidence. But also
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what I'm seeing is that there's no visible steps there. There's no settling or pulsing, but it's doing a really good
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job of just locking in and delivering good autofocus in that setting. Likewise, when I did my hand test, I saw
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really solid transitions back and forth from my hand to my eye, back to my hand.
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And there is, however, some focus breathing, some very apparent focus breathing in that. And I will note on
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that front that you're not going to be able to get any kind of focus breathing compensation in camera on Sony. That is
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reserved only for first-party Sony lenses. And so if you are your video use requires uh having some very low focus
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breathing, you're going to do kind of major focus pulls, that is something you might want to watch out for. Outside of
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that, however, I was pretty pleased with my video results and I got some nice
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looking clips and static shots were fine. I've shot some of my YouTube segments without advertising on this
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lens and it's been stable for those. So, in general, I think that video AF is really quite good. So, let's talk optics
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here. The optical design of the Moonlit 50mm F1.2 is 15 elements in 10 groups.
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Now, that those 15 elements are made up of seven high refractive index elements, four extra low dispersion elements, and
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two aspherical elements. And if you're counting, you're up to 13, which means there are only two ordinary elements in
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the optical design. So, they've really gone all out on the exotics here. Um, and obviously their goal is to try to to
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create a lens that really is a competitor for the G Master and the R series lenses. And in many ways, you
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know, they have largely succeeded with that. The MTF chart is a little bit different than many IC. rather than it
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kind of having a linear fall off, you know, center down to the corners, you'll see it kind of goes up and down a little
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bit, a bit of a sine wave pattern there. So that means you're going to get some es and flows in terms of sharpness
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across the frame rather than just that constant falloff towards the corners. Now, on paper, when I lined up the MTF
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charts, the Sigma looks to be about on average about 10% better across the
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frame. So, as we can see here in my actual chart test, as I compared my
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current results from the Sombra and looked back to when I tested the Sigma, I actually found that in the center of
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the frame and in the mid-frame, they were very similar and with only a minor variance in the corners where I thought
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that the Sigma had the most advantage. And so, this is a very sharp lens, not just a paper tiger in terms of
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performance. I also feel like they've done a good job of not overcorrecting this lens. Obviously, it does have a lot
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of exotic elements in it, but as we're going to see, it does still have some of the character left in it, and it isn't,
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you know, kind of a sterile clinical type lens. What I found in terms of some
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of the just aspects of testing, and I'll give you an overview here. If you want the deep dive, hang around till the end of the video. In this, most of the
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frame, there is no distortion. There is a little bit of ping cushion distortion right out at the edges. However, if you
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correct for that, you actually introduce some barrel distortion into the middle of the frame. I would just leave it uncorrected until a correction profile
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is available. No big deal. It actually has the Sigma is kind of similar in that, but the Sigma has actually a hair
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more of that effect. Though Sigma does get better correction profile support than what a brand new lens maker like
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this would. Terms of the vignette in the extreme corners, I saw a enough that it
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needed a plus 73 of correction. And to get again to give you perspective, the Sigma I needed a plus 64. And so not a
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radical difference, but enough to be visible in that regard. I found when
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testing for fringing that I saw just a tiny bit of longitudinal style chromatic
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aberration before and after the plane of focus. Saw a tiny bit on the test chart and you could see a bit of it with my
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dad's old SLR there. Uh nothing significant, however, no deal breaker there. The when it comes to lateral
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style chromatic aberration is actually a really really excellent performance. Basically no fringing apparent there at
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all. and really sharp contrast uh in those corners. And so that actually looks really, really excellent. Now,
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when it comes to testing for sharpness and contrast, I tested with a 61 megapixel A7R Mark 5, and I'm going to
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show you crops at 200% magnification. So, here's the test chart. And if we take a look in the center of the frame,
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it looks very good. In the mid-frame, it looks very good. And then definitely softer and a little more jittery looking
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in the corners. I was kind of curious about that. And so, I tested focusing in the corners. And sure enough, if you
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focus in the corners, you get a much sharper looking result. Um, as you can see here in this comparison. Now, the
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good good part of that is that it means that wherever you're going to focus, particularly if you're shooting at this,
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you know, wide f1.2 aperture, you're likely to get actually pretty good sharpness and contrast there. And most
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of the time, if you're shooting off near the corner, you're not trying to get the whole frame in focus anyway. But that is
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the downside. It's not a perfectly flat plane of focus. And so, you're not going to get at f1.2 too. At closer focus
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distances, you're not going to get all four corners all consistently in focus with the center at the same time. So,
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what I found because there there's a little bit of this up and down depending on where I focused and the situation,
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sometimes micro contrast looked excellent, like in this shot here. I thought it looked fantastic. Sometimes
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it feels like there's a little bit more stigmatism, just a little bit more of haze on the textures and as you can see
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here. And so it really is kind of situational, but even at its worst, it's a very usable amount of sharpness and
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contrast. Even at f1.2 for portrait work, for example, here you can see there's plenty of detail on the eyes and
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the face. And um you know, it's it's it's a strong performance there. I didn't see much of a difference when
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stopping down to f1.4. At f1.8, however, I definitely see a jump. And by f2,
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you're getting pretty much to perfect in the center of the frame. By f2.8, 8 that perfection is everywhere right off into
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the corners. Uh from f2.8 to f8, this is a fabulously sharp lens that sharpens up
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to levels that frankly you only get in a small percentage of lenses. It is exceptionally sharp. Beyond that, at
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f11, you'll start to get a little bit of softening due to defraction. It's a little bit more pronounced by f16,
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though frankly not too bad all things considered. And so in many ways,
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sharpness here is quite excellent. And if by the time you get to f1.8, It it is exceptionally good and remains that way
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throughout most of the aperture range. When it comes to the bokeh and the rendering, my overall grade is it looks
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excellent. Look at this shot for example. You can just see just everything looks really soft and and lovely in the background. My least
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favorite is actually if there are bright specular highlights in the frame. Uh the bokeh highlights, they're just it's not
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so much onion rings, but it is just busy in there. there's a pattern in there and frankly it does remind me of some of the
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Zeiss lenses that I've seen before that have beautiful bokeh in general but sometimes some busyiness and specular
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highlights and that is certainly true here uh in most situations however I thought that the bokeh looked really
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really nice uh very soft uh you there's some situations where you might get a little bit more of that swirl effect but
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if you don't want the swirl effect you stop it down a little bit and you get those consistently round specular highlights all across the frame subject
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isolation is really lovely from this lens and uh and you might have seen from some of the outdoor segments. It looks
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really really nice in those settings even for video as well. Flare is a
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different matter. I feel like coatings is maybe an area where there's room for improvement for song raw. Uh in some
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situations at wide aperture I'm fine. It's you know there's a little bit of a veiling effect but it's it's generally
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pleasing to me. But as you begin to stop the lens down you start to see more and more issues. And so, you know, for
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example, in this video clip here, you can see as you close the aperture down, you actually start to get this halo effect that becomes increasingly
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pronounced as you stop down. And in this second shot here, you can see that while wide open, there isn't much. As you stop
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the lens down, you start to see more of a pronounced ghosting pattern that's showing up there. And so, again, at
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large apertures, I like the lens fine when it comes to flare, but at small apertures, not so much. So, they could
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use a little bit of improvement on their coatings. I also felt in terms of the color signature of the lens that it's
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largely good, but it is it's not in my opinion quite neutral. It's a little bit on the cool side and colors are shifted
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just a tiny bit towards magenta in their tent. And so what I found, for example, in this portrait comparison that I added
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about 500 Kelvin's worth of warmth to it. And then I also took off about seven
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points uh on the the tint slider. So from the magenta side towards the green
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side to get the color balance that I thought was the most pleasing. And I just felt like consistently it was
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there's just a little bit of shift in that direction. Not any kind of big deal, but if you're trying to color match with other lenses, that might
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potentially become a factor. I was able to shoot the night sky and generally my impressions were very favorable. Star
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points look nice and crisp and uh you know obviously there is some vignette in the corner so you're going to have to adjust for that. And there's also a
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little bit of coma out there though it's not strongly pronounced. And again, the great thing about an f1.2 lens is that
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it sucks in a lot of light. And with a little bit longer focal length like 50 mm means you can get those uh you don't
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have to keep the uh the exposure up as long where you might get start to get the star trails. And so anyway, I think
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that it was useful for that. And so it's not a flawless optical performance, but frankly, it's a really nice optical
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performance. I feel like it's a nice balance between having great sharpness and contrast um but then also having
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some really nice looking rendering as well. And so if you're purely if you're not so much about brand and you've never
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heard of this brand before, but you're more just about the overall character of lenses, this is a lens that has pretty
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sweet character. It's just a little bit big. So in conclusion, I think that just
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evaluating this lens in a vacuum all by itself, it really is quite a good lens.
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It has got some very good optical qualities to it and as you can we have seen it is really pretty competitive
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with the Sigma 50mm f1.2 in terms of metrics like sharpness like contrast uh
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even areas like fringing and distortion and vignette. It is very much in that
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class of lens. And while it isn't perfect, I do think that it could do a
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little bit better in the flare resistance department, for example, so maybe a little bit better coatings. But really, outside of that, there's a whole
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lot here that I like and very little that I have to criticize. I think it actually strikes a pretty nice balance
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between having good enough uh sharpness and contrast wide open without being so
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overcorrected that it loses its character. It actually has pretty nice drawing to it. outside of those somewhat
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busy specular highlights in some situations. But in general, I think the bokeh is nice, the rendering is nice,
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the look of the images is really quite nice. All things considered, at the end of the day, I think that the challenge
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for Song Raw comes in just the way that they're entering the market. Obviously, there's a lot of competition on the
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market already. And while a thousand US dollars is actually a a good price for a
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lens like this, I think it's a very competitive price. And in many ways, it may be the cheapest 50mm f1.2 that we've
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seen on the market. Their challenge is not the value of the lens itself, but whether or not they actually have the
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brand cache being brand new to pull off a $1,000 lens. And frankly, I don't know
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the answer to that. I suspect the people that buy the lens are really going to enjoy it. And I'm excited to see they
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already have an upcoming 85mm f1.2 two for Sony E-mount, which frankly hasn't
27:11
been done before yet. Viltrox says that they have one coming in their lab series, but possibly Song Raw might be
27:17
the first to the market with it. And so, in this case, they're definitely really going for it. And I hope for their sake
27:24
that there is a market for these lenses that are they're not expensive, you
27:29
know, relative to others, but in a absolute sense, $1,000 is still $1,000.
27:34
And so for their sake, I hope that as people evaluate reviews like this, they'll look at them and say, "I'm
27:41
willing to take a chance." And obviously, if that is you, I wish you the very best with your new moonlight
27:47
50mm f1.2 lens. Now, if you want a deeper dive into that optical performance, stay with me right now. And
27:53
we're going to jump into that in just a moment. Or if you're more of a text person, you can check out my deep dive
27:58
written review that is available on the newly redesigned dustinbott.net. So go check that out as well. Now without
28:05
further ado, let's jump into the optical deep dive. Okay, we'll start by taking a look at vignette and distortion. And so
28:12
you can see here if you look at the lines that are inside the grid, you can see that there's basically almost no
28:18
distortion there or very, very little. There's a tiny bit of pin cushion distortion. But the problem is is that
28:23
if you try to correct that pin cushion distortion, what you're going to do is actually create some barrel distortion
28:28
inside. I would say wait until the correction profile comes and just allow it to do that because it's it's very
28:35
very negligible in real world shooting. You're probably not going to see this at all. As far as the vignette goes, it's
28:41
definitely concentrated there in the corners and so you will notice that in some cases without correction. I needed
28:47
a plus 74 to correct or about 10 points more than what I needed to correct uh vignette on the equivalent Sigma lens.
28:54
Now you can see here as we look for uh longitudinal style chromatic aberrations there is a little bit of fringing before
29:00
and after the plane of focus but very very minimal nothing significant and here if I take a look yes I can see a
29:07
little bit of fringing on those areas but it's not pronounced enough to be a real world issue at all you will note
29:13
here as I mentioned earlier probably my least favorite thing here is that there is a fair bit of busyiness not quite the
29:20
onion rings but just kind of some general patterning in there that I don't love in the specular highlights. Now, in
29:27
this shot, this is another one of the things that I'll often shoot here. While there is, you know, contrast isn't like
29:33
off the charts good here, what I do see is it's able to produce really actually
29:39
good detail and contrast here, uh, you know, not again, not record setting or anything, but quite good for f1.2 there.
29:46
Lal style chromatic aberrations are great. Um, I don't see any evidence of them here. And I actually see really,
29:52
really great contrast from black to white. Uh, just really good pop here at f8. Uh, typically lateral style
29:58
chromatic aberations even show up a bit more at smaller apertures. And so in this case, it's doing really good as you
30:04
can see at a even at a very high level of magnification. Now, when it comes to contrast and resolution here, 61
30:10
megapixels and 200% level of magnification here, you can see that the center looks great. Again, contrast is
30:16
not like pin sharp starting off, but it's really strong. It's very usable amount. Mid-frame continuing to look
30:22
good. You can make out all of the small writing here with fine detail. No problems there. As we look here, you can
30:28
see a little bit of drop off as we go towards the corner, but remember it kind of goes up and down here. And so, you
30:34
see that up and down. And that this zone right here is actually softer than this zone. And so, it just it's just the way
30:41
that it kind of plays out in that unique way. As we look at the other side, we see about an even amount in here. It's
30:47
actually looking really good in that zone. Up in this upper left corner, I would say it looks a little bit stronger than that lower right corner and upper
30:54
right corner also looking strong there. And so, um, you know, it's so it's in give and take across the frame. So, as a
31:01
point of comparison with the Sigma, both lenses at f1.2, we can see here in the middle of the frame, it's a little bit
31:08
of give and take. I actually think resolutionwise that the Song Raw is very close to being as good if not better. I
31:15
think contrast wise the uh Sigma has a little bit more contrast. Uh the mid-frames can't read anything from
31:21
there cuz those sides don't match up. Just my charts change a little bit. And this zone here on the left side, the
31:27
Song actually looks better here in the mid-frame than what the Sigma does. A little bit more pop there down in this
31:33
zone. I would say the same is true. It looks stronger there. Lower right corner.
31:39
It's I would I say I would that I like the Sigma a little bit better particularly here. This is kind of a weak zone for the song Raw and over on
31:46
this side it's I would say Sigma is a hair better but it's very close to being a wash. Now as noted previously I did
31:55
find that here where I focused into the uh this lower right corner as opposed to
32:01
the center of the frame. You can see that yes, it's capable of much sharper results here at the edge of the frame if
32:07
focus is there. So, it doesn't have a perfectly flat plane of focus. The good news with that is that if you're focused
32:13
in that area, like on this shot, you actually have a very good amount of resolution and contrast there, even at
32:20
f1.2. And you're not going to be in most cases not worried about everything else trying to be in focus because you're
32:25
specifically wanting focus to be in a key zone. So, it's really not a bad thing at the end of the day. Now,
32:32
because the profile is up and down in terms of performance, you can see that
32:37
some shots like this, this looks fantastic at f1.2. Um, it's handling the bright, you know, highlights coming
32:43
through there very well. Uh, very good resolution and contrast and of course a nicely defocused background. This shot
32:50
here, however, I mean, it's it's it's not bad. It's a usable amount, but you can see it's just not quite as crisp
32:56
looking uh in that particular zone. this shot of a loaf of bread here. It holds
33:02
up just fine. Lots of detail and contrast there. And actually, I think that in this shot, the defocus, the
33:07
transition defocus is really, really nice. Very nicely handled. This shot I was impressed with. It's rendering some
33:15
of those fine details really nicely. So, this is obviously a sharp zone here. And the ability to defocus that so quickly
33:21
is great. We've looked at this image already. How about this one here? Again, it's a similar kind of thing in these
33:27
these little flowers that are higher like contrast themselves. They're bright. You can see that there's a
33:33
little bit of like a spherical aberration there that robs a bit of contrast with that. But the image as a
33:38
whole looks looks great as you can see. And then here for a portrait shot really
33:43
I mean it's like I've seen like in this setting I was also shooting the Viltrox Lab 35 F1.2 and yeah it definitely has a
33:51
bit more micro contrast but that looks fine. I mean, that's an absolutely good
33:56
amount of contrast and detail there at f1.2. Perfectly usable for portrait work. Now, here at f1.4, I didn't find
34:03
that f1.4 made a really noticeable difference in terms of resolution contrast. I think there is a tiny degree
34:10
of extra contrast there, but not enough to be meaningful. Stepping down a little bit further to f1.8, however, and you
34:17
can see that there is a noticeable difference. Both detail and contrast have ticked up really nicely there. And
34:23
here by f2 it looks great in the center. Up here into the corner it's looking
34:28
really nice and crisp. No problems there. Here in the mid-frame looks
34:34
pretty awesome. You know all basically everywhere you look you're getting really good detail and contrast. We'll
34:39
check back in with the Sigma here for a moment. You can see in the center of the frame both lenses are looking really
34:46
really good. Obviously, there's a little bit of difference when it comes to the the way that they've metered and so the
34:51
song raw looks brighter in this setting, but you can see the results look really really good here. You know, text is
34:58
looking nice and crisp really on both of them, but probably to an equal amount in this zone here. Again, the song raw
35:05
result is brighter, but I would say that the actual results are close. though if you look down here like at the nine you
35:12
can see that this text looks crisper and better defined as it does with the first national assembly showing up here. So uh
35:19
definitely the song raw it sharpens up really nicely to obviously a very competitive level versus the Sigma.
35:25
We'll do one more point of comparison here at f2.8 and you can see that again both lenses are in a very competitive
35:32
space in the center of the frame very very close in this mid-frame zone. I really feel like the Song Raw is
35:38
probably crisper. I just look at different things and I feel like like look at this five here. It's just, you
35:44
know, it's popping a lot more in that zone. Down in here, I definitely prefer the Song Raw. And if we look down into
35:51
the corners now, um maybe in this corner, the Sigma is still a little bit
35:56
better. Uh overall, up here on this edge, you can see that they are similar, but Song Raw looks a little bit crisper
36:02
and so it really does sharpen up super nicely. That means for landscape images
36:08
at smaller apertures here at f5.6 you're going to get really great looking results. You can see that there's just
36:14
lovely detail here in the plane of focus and it's really consistently good right off here to the edge. Lots in this area
36:21
there's tons of very very fine details to resolve and it's doing a really impressive job of doing that. So finally
36:28
defraction is going to start to show up at here at f11. Although you can still see it's still looking really good and
36:33
it is softer at f16 but not to any kind of unusable level. It's certainly I
36:38
would consider that to still be very usable. Now I did note that I felt like colors were just shifted to the cool
36:45
side a little bit out of the song raw lens. You can see here this is out of camera in terms of the rendering and you
36:52
can see that it just it tends to just be on the cool side and a little bit of a magenta shift. And so here on the right,
36:59
I have warmed it just a little bit, 500 Kelvin, and then taking a little of that magenta shift over towards green. And I
37:05
think producing a more natural looking skin tone. However, I mean, your mileage may vary. You may like the cooler tones.
37:11
And so I just wanted to show you as far as color temperature, I felt like compared to the other lenses I was shooting in the same setting, 300, three
37:18
other lenses in the same setting, they all tended to be more consistently a a little bit more like this, whereas the
37:24
Rang RAW was a little bit cooler by comparison. So maximum magnification is not particularly particularly high as
37:30
you can see here. However, up close performance does look good here. The plane of focus feels to be fairly flat
37:37
and so I'm getting a good consistent result in terms of sharpness there. Now it's not as sharp down here in the
37:43
corner and so that's where some of that field curvature may come in. But quite a lot of this is consistently in focus and
37:50
looks really crisp. So not bad at f1.2. stop it down if you want more bokeh
37:55
quality. Uh, as we've already seen, it can tend towards busyiness in some zones, but in many situations, it is
38:02
really, really nice. You can see here that the colors are all kind of swirling together in a really pleasing way. No
38:07
hard edges here. These like these are like wooden beams, and you can see that they've just really softened up nicely
38:15
here. Again, there's a lot of things that are in the transition zone here and here, but you can see it's handled
38:21
really nicely. You know, a very usable amount of detail and contrast there. And then a nicely blurred out background.
38:27
The shot of Ferrari, you can see really nice transition towards defocus. And that uh that look there where you got a
38:33
really crisp area of focus right here at f1.2 and then a nice fall away beyond
38:39
that. This shot here is at f2. And so you can see if your desire is to get more con of the consistently circular
38:46
specular highlights, you can certainly achieve that by stopping down a little bit. It's, you know, perfect circles everywhere, but the bokecast still looks
38:53
very nice and soft here. It hasn't gotten hardedged at all. Looks great.
38:59
Now, when it comes to flare here at wide open, this is what I consider the the good version of here. And so, yeah,
39:05
we've got this little um ghosting butterfly that's flying away there. So, I mean, but this I think is very usable.
39:12
You can see a little bit of a halo type effect, but all of this falls within the category of which I think is
39:17
artistically pleasing for people. Uh, however, this is not. And so, here's what starts to emerge at f2.8, a more
39:24
pronounced halo effect. And then as you stop on down, it gets ugly. And so, that
39:29
I don't love. And I don't think that there's anything really artistically pleasing about that. So, just watch out
39:34
for that. Finally, when it comes to the coma performance here, shooting the night sky, uh, you know, star points
39:41
look nice and crisp here in the center of the frame. No problems there. And as we pan towards the corner, yeah, there's
39:47
a little bit of coma smear here, so it's not perfect at f1.2. Uh, definitely, you
39:53
know, there is some coma effect, but at the same time, you can stop down a little bit and eliminate some of that.
40:00
And overall, I would say the look here is great and the light gathering potential is fantastic. So, there's some
40:07
nuance and everything is not perfect here, but this is a lens that still retains a lot of nice character. And outside of the flare related issues,
40:14
it's pretty sweet optically. So, thanks for sticking around to the very end of the review, and I hope that
40:20
the optical deep dive has helped you to determine whether this brand new lens from a brand new company is the lens for
40:26
you. As always, thanks for watching. Have a great day. And let the light in. [Music]

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