Sony FE 35mm F1.8 Review: Part 2 | 4K

0:00
Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today to give you part two of my review of the new Sony
0:10
Fe 35 millimeter F1.8. Now if you missed the first part of the video episode, I recommend that you
0:18
start by taking a look at that. And in that review episode, we took a look at the build and
0:23
the features of the lens and then also a close examination of auto focus performance for
0:27
both stills and video. So it's a great foundation from which we're going to move into part two today
0:33
But we're going to talk about the image quality. We're going to look at some of the video
0:37
performance as well as give you a final verdict on the lens after having used it for a while
0:43
So obviously this lens falls into a kind of a trio of other lens with a maximum apture of F1.8
0:51
Those include the 55 millimeter F1.8 along with the 85 millimeter F1.8 lenses that all
0:57
kind of follow a somewhat similar blueprint when it comes to the build, handling, and general
1:04
size and shape of the lenses. In many ways, these lenses have been amongst Sony's most popular
1:10
on FE because they hit a sweet spot when it comes to size and not being so expensive as to be
1:16
out of reach of the average photographer. That's not to say that they're inexpensive. They aren't
1:22
but relative to the F1.4 GM or in the case of 50 millimeter plane R or the 35 millimeter
1:30
distigone lenses, those all are considerably more expensive, you know, typically fairly close
1:36
to, you know, twice as expensive. And so that has left many photographers choosing with the
1:43
moderate F1.8 aperture, but there are cut above an expensive F1.8 lenses that might have
1:49
cheaper focus systems, poor build, and poor image quality. These are premium lenses, howbeit with a smaller maximum aperture than what many people associate with professional-grade lenses
2:02
And so today we're going to take a closer look at the image quality from the 35-millimeter F1.8
2:08
And of course, 35-millimeter is an incredibly important focal length. For many people, it will be their preferred focal length for a lot of situations
2:15
and it's a great pairing for a lens like an 85 millimeter, for example
2:21
that gives you, if you're a portrait shooter, for example, gives you a wider way to frame a scene
2:26
and then a more close one with the 85 millimeter. So let's jump in and let's take a look at how the image quality holds up
2:33
from this new lens. So we're going to start by examining our distortion and vignette here
2:39
And so on the left, I have purposely unselected the profile from the raw image
2:45
So just so you know, typically it will look more like the right image
2:49
and that the profile will be automatically activated, at least in Adobe products
2:54
And so, but anyway, if you remove that, what we can see is that there is only a very
2:59
very minor amount of pincushion distortion that's there and that it corrects out
3:05
obviously, you know, pretty easily there. No major problems there. As far as the vignette goes, it's not incredibly heavy in the corners
3:15
you can see it extends fairly far into the frame, and the profile does a pretty good job of correcting for it
3:21
Now, if we compare the raw version with the JPEG version, we can see that we achieve a fairly similar result
3:29
in terms of the vignette and, you know, the distortion correction, and so you're going to end up with nice and clean images either way
3:38
So if we look at center of the frame sharpness, we can see that our resolution is quite good
3:45
Contrast is good, though not exceptional, and you can see that there's still some area for improvement
3:50
and that the darks aren't as darks what they could be. The brights aren't as bright
3:55
If we move off towards the edge of the frame, we can see that towards the corners, there is some drop-off
4:01
Mid-frame here looks pretty good. The extreme corners are a little bit softer. Mid-frame here in the middle also looks pretty good
4:08
and we'll take a look at one more corner, and we can see there is a little bit of softening in the extreme corner
4:13
but throughout most of the frame, resolution and contrast looks fairly good, wide open
4:19
So taking that into a real world situation, we can see on the left at F1.8, that our, you know
4:25
our resolution here looks quite good, contrast looks fairly good. On the right side, we have got
4:31
a stop down to F5.6, a more typical landscape aperture. What we can see is there's just more
4:37
evidence of more contrast above all else, and I'm sure resolution is up here, but really what I, the
4:43
The big difference that I see is when it comes to contrast. Contrast has been boosted by stopping the lens down
4:51
Here another real F1 example and so once again we can see that we actually doing a pretty good job resolving fine details there in the center of the frame Towards the edge of the frame midframe it still actually fairly decent here in a real world situation
5:05
Take a look at the other side, and we can see that the same is true there. As we've seen before, there's just room for a little bit of a contrast uptick
5:14
Finally, one more wide open real world image, and so here I have cooled it for effect because I like the look
5:21
but you can see center of the frame. Again, contrast looks pretty good in the bark of the trees
5:25
we move off towards the edges, it's, you know, a little bit softer here. And as we move down
5:30
towards the corner, we're kind of also moving out of depth of field somewhat, and so you can't
5:34
judge it as precisely. But, you know, it's, the pattern seems to be pretty consistent at varying
5:41
focus distances. Now, from F2 to F2.8, we can take a look and see that now we're starting to
5:48
dial into higher contrast and resolution here at F2.8. And the center is looking really exceptionally
5:55
sharp moving down here into the corners we can see that there is sharpness that's
6:01
starting to reach into the extreme corners and better contrast here it's still not at the center
6:05
levels and mid frame is about the same it's it's a little bit improved but not as you know
6:11
it's not equal across the frame with what we see in the center of the frame so just out of curiosity
6:16
we'll compare it at f2.8 and this is the uncorrected version with the tamron 35 millimeter f2.8 now the
6:25
Tamron only opens up to F2.8, so this represents wide open for it, and so it lacks the, you know, light gathering
6:31
potential of the Sony, which, by the way, does become a factor when it comes to focus in low light
6:36
That's the biggest area that I've noted a difference. So what we can see is that whereas the Sony shows a bit of pincushion, you can see the curvature down
6:45
The Tamron shows about an equivalent amount of barrel distortion, and so you can see the curvature goes the other direction
6:51
Both of them correct fine. So as far as the resolution here, in the center of the frame, I would give an edge to the Sony at this point
7:01
It stopped down a little bit more. You can see its contrast. It's just a little bit better
7:06
You can see in this block here that I prefer the look of the Sony
7:10
Moving off to the edge of the frame, I find the same to be true here that the Sony has a bit of an advantage here when it is stopped down, obviously
7:20
and so while there's not much of a difference here in the extreme corners
7:25
the Tamron is fairly close in the extreme corners, I would say they're probably about equal
7:32
but in a lot of the frame the Sony has a little bit of an advantage
7:36
From F2.8 to F4 here on the Sony, we can see that the center of the frame looks just a little bit better still
7:43
You can see contrast has bumped up just a little bit more mid-frame
7:48
looking a hair better. If we look down in the corner, we can see that it is looking better
7:54
not equal to the center performance, but you can see that the resolution
7:58
is looking a little bit stronger there. Moving on to F5.6, we can see just a minor uptick in the corner
8:05
getting a little bit better, and so a little progress there. And if we move on to F8
8:11
we see again just a tiny bit of progress, but probably not enough to really be reckoned with
8:17
Now, as I've come to a couple, expect on high resolution bodies like the A7R Mark 3, we see that there's definitely some
8:25
drop off due to diffraction when you stop down to very small apertures. And so you can see here
8:31
that even compared to wide open, there's less contrast and apparent resolution as a result
8:36
at F22 compared to F1.8. So if we look at the bouquet quality here, we can see taking a look
8:43
at the bocasse circles, really pretty clean here. I mean, there's some of that general pattern
8:48
busyness that's I mean really really common when you have a you know this Christmas tree light kind of
8:53
test but we can see that the inner line is really not all that to find it's got a tiny bit of fringing
8:58
around it but not bad and even as far as geometry goes you can see that you know it does deform a
9:05
little bit towards the edges but this is actually quite a good performance it's still more round than it
9:10
is lemon shape if we stop it down to F2.8 I wouldn't say that the geometry is necessarily better looking
9:18
then wide open. You can see that the, you know, the right near the edge, it's still not completely
9:22
round. And so in some ways I found the shape at F1.8 a little bit more organic than what we can
9:29
see here. You can just vaguely begin to see the beginning of the aperture blade showing. And if we
9:34
stop on down to F4 here, you can see them a little bit more defined. But again, even here at F4
9:43
at this point, I think we still have pretty good geometry across the frame. Comparing F4
9:48
1.8 to F4 in a real world situation. We can see again that really the bouquet still looks pretty nice
9:55
out in a real world situation And we can see that you know depth of field and contrast has obviously depth of field has increased Contrast has increased a little bit too You can also see that there a little bit of
10:07
green fringing wide open that has corrected, that longitudinal chromatic aberration that has corrected
10:13
at the smaller aperture. Another evaluation of that here on, you know, bright and shiny objects with
10:19
lots of light on them. You get a little bit of purple, you get a little bit of green. But really as we
10:24
look at the main bouquet circles, I would say that's, they're more neutral than anything
10:29
A little bit of that, you know, kind of blue-green fringing that takes place there
10:34
But again, looking at it collectively, there's nothing that jumps out to your eye
10:39
catching from fringing that would make you say, I don't like the look of that. I thought the bouquet on this shot was pretty nice, the way that at a close focus distance
10:47
everything really melted away. So I liked the transition here. I also liked the transition on this to where I feel like it has
10:54
has and a fairly artful feel and it's not distracting. And so overall, I would say that I like the bouquet quality
11:01
from this lens. Now, how about for skin tones and looking here
11:06
at a portrait situation, we can see that actually, I think skin tones look here quite natural
11:11
and even here at F1.8, detail for portraiture is actually good. Sometimes being over sharp and overcorrected
11:18
is actually a detriment for portrait work. And so I would look at this and see potential for
11:24
a very nice portrait type lens. Skin tones handled well. And the rendering of the skin itself, I think, is quite good
11:32
Now, as far as flare resistant goes, light, sunlight being right up in this area
11:38
So what we can see is we've got kind of a little bit of a broad ghost slash veiling pattern here
11:44
that becomes more defined when stopped down to F11. However, looking at this collectively and looking at it as we pan back and forth from video
11:54
we can see that there are some flare artifacts, but flare is relatively well controlled, and general contrast isn't bad here
12:03
Now let's take a look at coma performance, and so we can see center of the frame that our star points look fairly good here
12:10
You can see there is a tiny bit of coma even towards the center of the frame
12:15
Some of the geometry is just a little bit off. So move towards the edge of the frame, however, we can see that on some of these brighter points, that there is a little bit
12:24
bit more coma on evidence here. And so this is not necessarily a great performance in terms of
12:30
coma resistance. If we go on to F2, we can see, and I'll toggle back here, you can see that the wings
12:37
are a little bit less defined and moving on to F2.8. Things are looking better, not perfect
12:44
you know, but looking better. And on this really obvious one from before, it's better corrected
12:49
And so this is not the top lens that I have seen for shooting the night sky
12:56
It's not terrible, however. And if you stop it down a bit to where a lot of times, like, you know, you would be comparing to the zooms, you're getting an equivalent type result
13:05
So finally, we can see that there is a nice amount of magnification, 0.24 times magnification, which is going to be really useful in a lot of situations
13:14
And even better is that even at F1.8, our close-up image quality is quite good here
13:18
pretty good contrast and good detail. It's actually lives up to its close focus potential
13:25
So a couple of things that jump out to me from that. First of all, I didn't note it while going
13:30
through the segment, but the fact that it has a little bit of a pin cushion rather than barrel
13:35
distortion is actually a net positive when it comes to shooting portraits. While that distortion
13:40
will be corrected in many situations, you obviously have the option to leave it uncorrected
13:45
And often portrait photographers find a little bit of pin-cooked. distortion to be a little bit flattering because rather than exaggerating features, it tends
13:53
to, you know, thin things down just a little bit. And so if you're going to have distortion
13:58
in either direction on a lens that you'd be using for portraits, that's certainly the preferred
14:02
direction to go. On a more negative note, the biggest thing that stands out to me as a potential
14:07
negative on image quality is that the corners never get what I would call pin sharp on this lens
14:13
I think they get sharp enough to where it probably won't be an issue for anyone, but certainly
14:18
it's nothing like, say, the Sigma 35 millimeter F1.2 that I reviewed a couple of months ago
14:25
where the many ways the corners were pretty much as sharp as what the center was
14:30
even at F1.2 and F1.4. And so that's not really the case here. And so you're going to have to
14:35
shoot at landscape apertures to get truly sharp corners. And so if that's a big deal to you
14:40
it might be something worth considering. That being said, for many people with most of what they do
14:44
the sweet spot of sharpness in the center half or two thirds of the frame is probably going to be sufficient for you
14:52
And so you know your mileage may vary as the saying goes You have to evaluate that for yourself So let jump in and let also take a look at the video performance here and see how this lens functions as a video related lens
15:07
As we saw in our first episode, video poles are nice and smooth
15:12
Video focus is very quiet. And as a byproduct of that, this is obviously a nice lens to use for video and that the
15:20
focus is confident. It's not hunting. You can see here that even under windy conditions and our suburbia
15:27
to moving around that it focuses holding. Also for just general purpose shooting
15:32
obviously this is a flexible focal length that you can use either for the full view
15:38
but also for APSC Super 35 and being a very nice focal link for various work
15:46
And so I found that when doing video work with it, I was very happy with the look of the footage
15:52
which you can see is nice and crisp. And hopefully it makes you feel very cold
15:56
because that will help you to appreciate how cold I was getting all of this footage
16:03
So once again, as we saw in the first episode, where focus is very silent, very confident
16:09
and focus pools are really nice and smooth. This is certainly a great little video lens, and that's actually enhanced by the fact that
16:16
unlike some mirrorless lenses, the actual focus ring here is linear in nature
16:22
and so it means that you can get a little bit more consistent focus
16:26
pulls and also you can get a little bit faster focus pools than what you can with some mirrorless
16:32
lenses and so i think positives on both of those fronts it's also obviously lightweight and and
16:38
compact and so it's going to be an easy lens to put on a gimbal as well so in conclusion there's a lot
16:44
that i really really love about this lens i love the form factor i think it feels nicely built i would
16:50
say that the only challenge that really is going to be there for some people it's when it comes to the
16:56
price point. Not that in an absolute sense it's incredibly expensive. At $799, it is a moderately
17:04
priced lens. However, the market to which it is being released is not the same as when, say
17:10
the 55 millimeter F1.8 sonar lens was released. And by the way, it does seem that Sony has
17:15
moved away from the partnership with Zeiss, at least to the extent that we no longer see
17:20
Zeiss branding on these type lenses, nor do we get any of the Zeis optical formula names like
17:26
Plinar, Sonar, Distagon associated with these lenses any longer. And so, you know, at that point, I think that in some ways, you know, when it entered the
17:35
market with the 55 millimeter, there was relatively few lenses available for the system
17:40
The Zeiss name, people are accustomed to paying a bit of a premium for that
17:45
At this stage, however, that branding, Zeiss branding is gone, and the market is much more saturated
17:51
with alternatives at this point. And so I think that, you know, Sony does face a little bit more of a
17:56
uphill perception battle at the very least when it comes to the price point of this particular lens
18:02
At the same time, however, I have of course used most of the alternatives and I would say having
18:08
spend time with them that this is probably a more premium lens than most of the alternatives
18:14
It's got an extremely nice build. It's got exceptionally good auto focus that's a cut above
18:20
It has a few more features than what alternatives I've seen. And so that may not be enough to offset the
18:25
additional price to you, but at the same time, I feel like you are getting fairly solid value for
18:31
money. And if this lens, it's currently priced at $799 US dollars, and I think that if it was priced
18:37
even at $699, it would be pretty close to a no-brainer at that point. And, you know, if it was
18:44
priced more similarly to the 85 millimeter F1.8, I think that they would have a hard time keeping
18:50
it in stock. And so that's, of course, a call that Sony's got to make. But at the same time, I don't
18:55
feel like you're getting ripped off if you purchase this lens. And I'm not surprised when I've heard that some people who have evaluated some of the other
19:02
alternatives and they've settled on this, even though it has a smaller maximum aperture
19:07
It really is. It's very sharp. It's very useful even at that
19:11
And at the end of the day, size is still a real issue for a lot of photographers
19:15
It may not be for you. And if it's not, I completely understand. But for a lot of photographers, it is
19:20
And I think that Sony has found a pretty nice sweet spot here of delivering size
19:25
and performance that is a very nice match. I'm Dustin Abbott, and if you look in the description down below
19:32
I do have linkage to a full text review. I also have linkage there to a photo gallery
19:36
If you want to look at more photos, I've shown you some in this review. There's more there to see
19:40
And there's also buying links if you'd like to purchase one for yourself and linkage to follow me on social media
19:45
to become a patron to sign up for my newsletter. And if you haven't already, please click that subscribe button right here on YouTube
19:51
Thanks for watching. Have a great day

Sony FE 35mm F1.8 Review: Part 2 | 4K

dustinabbott.net

EcoFlow Trail 300 Portable Power Station Review | A Campers Best Friend?

DJI OSMO POCKET 3 Review | A Content Creator's Best Friend?

Viltrox AIR 15mm F1.7 X-Mount Review (APS-C) | Budget Wide Angle Bliss?

Reduzca los archivos de vídeo en un 50% en línea (Guía sencilla)

オンラインでビデオファイルを 10MB 未満に削減する (簡単ガイド)

Reduzca archivos de video por debajo de 10 MB en línea (Guía fácil)

Tamron 35mm F2.8 M1:2 Review Part 2 | 4K

Sony 50mm F1.4 GM Long Term Review: The Sweet Spot of Price & Performance?

Exploring the 160 metre deep SS Nemesis Shipwreck

Super Bright Video Lights for Deep Wreck Diving - On A Budget

Up next in 10

Sony FE 35mm F1.8 Review: Part 2 | 4K

dustinabbott.net