the last word

Photography meets digital computer technology. Photography wins -- most of the time.

  • site home
  • blog home
  • galleries
  • contact
  • underwater
  • the bleeding edge
You are here: Home / The Last Word / 2 180mm lenses on the Sony a7II

2 180mm lenses on the Sony a7II

April 20, 2015 JimK 9 Comments

The title is a bit misleading. I’ve been asked to compare the Sony 70-200mm f/4 OGG FE lens to the Leica 180mm f/3.4 Apo-Telyt-R. For this test, I set the Sony lens to about 180mm. The camera was the Sony alpha 7 Mark II, hereafter called the a7II. It was tripod mounted with a RRS L-plate to an Arca Swiss D4 head, which was attached to a set of RRS TVC-43 legs. EFCS was on, IBIS was off. Selftimer set to 2 seconds. Manual focus at f/3.4 in the Leica’s case, and f/4 in the Sony’s. Developed in Lightroom 5.7.1 (where is Lr 6?) with default settings except a +0.12 EV exposure move in the Leica’s case, and switching to Daylight white balance because the camera chose different WB points for the two lenses.

The overall scene at f/4 through f/11:

Leica f/4
Leica f/4
Sony f/4
Sony f/4

About the same amount of falloff in both cases.

 

Leica f/5.6
Leica f/5.6
Sony f/5.6
Sony f/5.6

Maybe a bit more falloff  — look at the upper left corner — in the Leica’s case.

Leica f/8
Leica f/8
Sony f/8
Sony f/8

Pretty similar. The Sony’s a tad evener in illumination.

Leica f/11
Leica f/11
Sony f/11
Sony f/11

Too close to call.

Now the center crops, blown up 3:1:

Leica f/4
Leica f/4
Sony f/4
Sony f/4

The Leica’s a little bit crisper, not there’s not much difference.

Leica f/5.6
Leica f/5.6
Sony f/5.6
Sony f/5.6

A tie.

Leica f/8
Leica f/8
Sony f/8
Sony f/8

Also a tie.

Leica f/11
Leica f/11
Sony f/11
Sony f/11

Are you bored? Hang in there.

The upper right corner:

 

Leica f/4
Leica f/4
Sony f/4
Sony f/4

Not even close. The Sony is a zoom lens, remember.

Leica f/5.6
Leica f/5.6
Sony f/5.6
Sony f/5.6

The  Leica is a bit crisper. The Sony still has a long way to go.

Leica f/8
Leica f/8
Sony f/8
Sony f/8

This is the Leica’s sharpest f-stop overall. The Sony is not there yet.

Leica f/11
Leica f/11
Sony f/11
Sony f/11

The Leica has started to soften due to diffraction. On the Sony, it’s not sharp enough for diffraction to be an issue.

The only things that were unexpected for me in this test were that the Sony was as sharp as it is in the center, and that even stopping down to f/11 doesn’t crisp up the corner.

Remember that the Leica is a tough lens to compete with.

The Last Word

← What’s MTF50 = x look like? What’s MTF50 = x look like: sim pix →

Comments

  1. CarVac says

    April 20, 2015 at 3:47 pm

    Huh. Is this a bad copy, or is it that the subject is very far away compared to the test charts used in other reviews which are mostly positive?

    Photozone says it doesn’t have much field curvature, but that behavior could change farther away.

    Reply
    • Jim says

      April 20, 2015 at 4:12 pm

      The subject was a bit less than 100 meters away. I don’t consider this bad performance at all, for a zoom lens.

      Reply
      • Stephen Stephens says

        April 22, 2015 at 7:28 am

        To me it looks pretty bad. I just had occasion to retest the parallel Canon and Nikon offerings at 200mm f/8 at infinity, and I think only one of the eight corners appeared anywhere near as weak as the Sony one you posted.

        Reply
  2. Jack Hogan says

    April 21, 2015 at 1:13 am

    Jim, just curious, what algorithm are you using to blow them up 3:1? Many folks are probably unknowingly looking at your images zoomed/resized by their browser (so was I until I remembered to reset it:-)

    Reply
    • Jim says

      April 21, 2015 at 6:36 am

      Bicubic smoother, Lr version.

      Reply
  3. Jeff Kott says

    April 21, 2015 at 9:34 am

    OK, I’m going to show my ignorance. Does 3 :1 mean 3X a 100% crop?

    Reply
    • Jim says

      April 21, 2015 at 10:13 am

      Yes, it does.

      Reply
  4. Herb says

    April 21, 2015 at 10:33 am

    I picked up one of the Original 180mm R lenses for cheap, will try it out, although I don’t have access to the Sony for comparison.
    (not a zoom fan)

    Reply
  5. Arup Gupta says

    March 2, 2017 at 11:00 pm

    I got the Voigtlander heliar 75 mm F1.8 for about $500 on ebay….

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

February 2023
S M T W T F S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728  
« Jan    

Articles

  • About
    • Patents and papers about color
    • Who am I?
  • Good 35-70 MF lens
  • How to…
    • Backing up photographic images
    • How to change email providers
  • Lens screening testing
    • Equipment and Software
    • Examples
      • Bad and OK 200-600 at 600
      • Excellent 180-400 zoom
      • Fair 14-30mm zoom
      • Good 100-200 mm MF zoom
      • Good 100-400 zoom
      • Good 100mm lens on P1 P45+
      • Good 120mm MF lens
      • Good 18mm FF lens
      • Good 24-105 mm FF lens
      • Good 24-70 FF zoom
      • Good 35 mm FF lens
      • Good 60 mm lens on IQ3-100
      • Good 63 mm MF lens
      • Good 65 mm FF lens
      • Good 85 mm FF lens
      • Good and bad 25mm FF lenses
      • Good zoom at 24 mm
      • Marginal 18mm lens
      • Marginal 35mm FF lens
      • Mildly problematic 55 mm FF lens
      • OK 16-35mm zoom
      • OK 60mm lens on P1 P45+
      • OK Sony 600mm f/4
      • Pretty good 16-35 FF zoom
      • Pretty good 90mm FF lens
      • Problematic 400 mm FF lens
      • Tilted 20 mm f/1.8 FF lens
      • Tilted 30 mm MF lens
      • Tilted 50 mm FF lens
      • Two 15mm FF lenses
    • Found a problem – now what?
    • Goals for this test
    • Minimum target distances
      • MFT
      • APS-C
      • Full frame
      • Small medium format
    • Printable Siemens Star targets
    • Target size on sensor
      • MFT
      • APS-C
      • Full frame
      • Small medium format
    • Test instructions — postproduction
    • Test instructions — reading the images
    • Test instructions – capture
    • Theory of the test
    • What’s wrong with conventional lens screening?
  • Previsualization heresy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Recommended photographic web sites
  • Using in-camera histograms for ETTR
    • Acknowledgments
    • Why ETTR?
    • Normal in-camera histograms
    • Image processing for in-camera histograms
    • Making the in-camera histogram closely represent the raw histogram
    • Shortcuts to UniWB
    • Preparing for monitor-based UniWB
    • A one-step UniWB procedure
    • The math behind the one-step method
    • Iteration using Newton’s Method

Category List

Recent Comments

  • JimK on Shutter shock and the Nikon Z7
  • John Vickers on Shutter shock and the Nikon Z7
  • Brian Olson on Fuji GFX 100S exposure strategy, M and A modes
  • JimK on Picking a macro lens
  • JimK on Picking a macro lens
  • Glenn Whorrall on Picking a macro lens
  • JimK on What pitch do you need to scan 6×6 TMax 100?
  • Hatzipavlis Peter on What pitch do you need to scan 6×6 TMax 100?
  • JeyB on Internal focusing 100ish macro lenses
  • JimK on How focus-bracketing systems work

Archives

Copyright © 2023 · Daily Dish Pro On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Unless otherwise noted, all images copyright Jim Kasson.