While there are many prime alternatives, especially some fast vintage prime lenses (let's not talk autofocus here as most of them are manual focus) those older lenses despite being fast and sharp with amazing DOF have one disadvantage. Color Rendition meaning that they would give you that vintage fell, the color sometimes are warmer than they are in reality, sometimes they have a slight blue tint, but i like colors in my raw file to be accurate so i can add any creative effects that i want in post processing.
Speaking of color produced by Sony 55mm f1.8 Zeiss Sonnar T it is accurate. It is what i see in reality if right white ballance is set.
Sony A7R II Sony 55mm f1.8 Zeiss Sonnar T* @ f/1.8 1/1000 iso 100
The Reds are Reds, The Greens are Greens and The Blues are Blues.
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Sony A7R II Sony 55mm f1.8 Zeiss Sonnar T* @ f/1.8 1/8000 iso 100
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Sony A7R II Sony 55mm f1.8 Zeiss Sonnar T* @ f/1.8 1/8000 iso 100
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Sony A7R II Sony 55mm f1.8 Zeiss Sonnar T* @ f/1.8 1/2000 iso 100
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Sony A7R II Sony 55mm f1.8 Zeiss Sonnar T* @ f/1.8 1/500 iso 100
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Sony A7R II Sony 55mm f1.8 Zeiss Sonnar T* @ f/1.8 1/320 iso 100
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Sony A7R II Sony 55mm f1.8 Zeiss Sonnar T* @ f/1.8 1/2500 iso 100
Did i mention that Yellows are Yellow too? Though it is not a primary color it just show how well Red and Green at equal proportions are mixed.
Sony A7R II Sony 55mm f1.8 Zeiss Sonnar T* @ f/1.8 1/4000 iso 100
Sony A7R II Sony 55mm f1.8 Zeiss Sonnar T* @ f/1.8 1/320 iso 100
At first i was a bit confused looking at the reddish skin tones. But then i realized that the majority of my subjects are here in Tenerife for the first week, emerged from their cold and dull flat/caves and has caught some cute reddish sun tan :)
Sony A7R II Sony 55mm f1.8 Zeiss Sonnar T* @ f/2 1/5000 iso 100
To be honest there is nothing much i can add. The Colors ARE Accurate. I am not a tech geek so i will not be analyzing chromatic aberrations and etc. as these even if present are easily fixed in post.
So far i am extremely happy with this glass. Some focusing issues are mostly caused by not that good AF of Sony A7RII I have never had a lense that is so sharp, that produces such a pleasant DOF and is so color accurate. If you can spare 900 USD for a prime i would recommend it 100% (This is where Sony is supposed to pay my for advertising, but apparently they won't as they would rather pay some Instagram schmuck that is posting for likes).
I really had second and third thoughts about this lens as my budget is rather limited, but until now there was no single frame that made me doubt my decision to go for it. In fact you'd better save on the body and get a good sharp glass which Sony 55mm f1.8 Zeiss Sonnar T* definitely is.
Bokeh review.
Sharpness review.
David
Nice review and interesting points. But I think I still prefer the vintage manual primes for a very different reason. They have distinctly more bokeh and character and even in the cases when they are not as sharp as the modern options, they allow me to get more creative. And even if color reproduction is imperfect, that doesn't bother me too much as I tend to go for quite the surreal edits most of the time, so I play with that a lot anyway.
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That was exactly my point, i love vintage glass. The Bokeh some of those older lenses produce is nearly impossible to replicate in post production (unless you are a photoshop god). It all depends on the subject and shooting style. The purpose of this review was to see how accurate the color is. I also do a lot of portraiture wide open and commercial work that is why i also need autofocus. I was actually wondering what lens did you use on those flowers in the image you have uploaded to BeScouted the other day. The bokeh is totally sick and the overall mood of the shot is very dreamy indeed. I am following you there already and i will follow you here too :) Great work and welcome to BeScouted!
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Oh, sure, I understand where you're coming from.
Thank you for the kind words about my flowers. If you are talking about the flower shot I think you are, it was shot with a hacked Helios 44-2. By hacked, I mean it was modified to enhance it's swirly bokeh to a really insane level. It's my favorite lens by far because of that as its bokeh is really distinctive and awesome. I'm really in love with it.
And I'm very happy to be on BeScouted, awesome work on that! :)
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That bokeh is totally unique! We are just starting on BeScouted, consider it Alpha version. We have just secured investment round and you will see improvements coming in regularly :)
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Great clicks awesome dear
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Thanks
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Hot damn that thing is sharp wide open. That shot of the yellow mini, I would NEVER have guessed that was shot wide open. Seems like a pretty killer combo, especially for travel.
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Do you personally think, it could be worth to upgrade the newer FE 50mm 1.8 with it? At the moment I've bought it, my expenses on gear were still small but grew over time.
I shoot a big variety from sports over weddings to landscapes.
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