7RII with 1.8 55 Sony/Zeiss - Chromatic aberrations

[nickywaldo]

Hi there,

 

Just got the 7RII - love it so far.

 

Also got the 16-35 F4, 90 Macro and 55 F1.8

 

Waiting for my Batis 25 and 80 to arrive.

 

Did a test on the 55 1.8 today and noticed some chromatic aberrations wide open, so just ordered a second lens from Amazon and will compare and keep the best, but I am curious what you think of the result I got from my current 55 1.8? Have you heard for CA wide open? Is this about normal?

 

I have attached a crop from my P1 IQ250 and one from the 7RII 55 1.8 - please let me know if you think the 55 1.8 is normal, or worse than normal.. Included the P1 image as a reference.

 

Many thanks,

Nick

 

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[Damo]

Don't have the link but I've read somewhere that the a7rii indeed cause CA on the 55 f/1.8. If I came across the link again I will post it here for you. The lens works perfectly on my a7R.

[nickywaldo]

Awesome thanks. Would love to read it. On Friday, I will post whether the second copy of the 55 1.8 is the same, better or worse

Nick

 

 

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[addicted2light]

First of all, I don't have the 55/1.8 but that level of CA and un-sharpness wide open looks a tad too much, at least judging from what I'm used to get from my legacy glass* on the A7r. That being said, without the possibility to do a side-to-side comparison this is just a random "gut" feeling.

 

*legacy, but not cheap. They are all lenses (Contax Zeiss, Minolta and Leica) that used to cost, when new, much more than the 55/1.8 costs now

 

The link that Damo was talking about was probably this one**:

 

http://www.digitalkamera.de/Meldung/Bildqualitaetstest_der_42_Megapixel_Sony_Alpha_7R_II_mit_1_8_55_Zeiss/9614.aspx

 

**originally found on SAR http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/new-sony-a7rii-tests-trick-to-save-battery-life-at-fred-miranda-scary-review-conclusion-at-digitalkamera/

 

Floran summed up the results this way:

“The well know review portal digitalkamera.de (Martin Vieten is one of their reviewers) has tested the A7RII together with the 1.8/55 and they found out that it perform massively worse in the corners with the A7RII compared to the A7R. Wide open the resolution drops as low as 32 lp/mm and only gets back to the level of the A7R at around f4!!!"

[nickywaldo]

Awesome. Thanks for the great reply. Having the phase one MF setup allows me to make a good comparison. I will post the results between the two copies of the lens on Friday. Will be interesting to see

 

 

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[Damo]

Yup that's the one. Thanks addictec2light!

[bbphoto]

Nicky, I have the Rii and a recently acquired 55 1.8 (that I cannot return as I bought from a third party) and am experiencing the same, if not worse, CA. The worst of which is the inclusion of both teal/blue and green fringing in background edges. It's still a very sharp and nice focusing lens, but the fringing is definitely increasing my workload ):

 

I look forward to seeing your comparison with a second copy on Friday. I haven't done so myself yet. Best case scenario, there's a firmware update to improve performance on the Rii!

[mahonyweb]

I have an A7r2 and a new 55mm 1.8 so will test tonight.

 

The lens I've been having issues with is the 35mm f1.4 (SEL-35F14Z) - I've now purchased two copies and both suffer horrific CA (green & purple) fringing, much worse than the 35 f2.8 that I also own and much worse than the Sigma 35mm ART I use on my Nikon D800e.

 

I've always been of fan of Zeiss glass having owned a number of their lenses with my Hasselblad 503CW, but it appears the Sony Zeiss lenses may not be worthy of the name?

[h4nc0]

I am having same problem.  Never a problem with A7M2, but noticed problem right away with A7R2.  Anybody else?

[rapazolla]

With the A7ii it worked flawlessly, with the A7rii I haven't noticed any issues yet but still haven't used it enough. Can you think of a scenario which gives you CA 100% of the time?

 

I can try to reproduce and give some feedback

[jonneymendoza01]

Latest firmware fixes CA so try that

[h4nc0]

Latest firmware fixes CA so try that

No, it doesn't fix CA.

 

rapazolla, try taking pictures of objects with high contrast. Occurs 100% so easy to check. I have looked at other A7r2 / 55.8 users' samples and this is a serious problem imo. Easy to fix but a problem nonetheless.

[jonneymendoza01]

No, it doesn't fix CA.

 

rapazolla, try taking pictures of objects with high contrast. Occurs 100% so easy to check. I have looked at other A7r2 / 55.8 users' samples and this is a serious problem imo. Easy to fix but a problem nonetheless.

It's on the release notes though. Says something about fixing some issues with a few lenses.

[rapazolla]

No, it doesn't fix CA.

 

rapazolla, try taking pictures of objects with high contrast. Occurs 100% so easy to check. I have looked at other A7r2 / 55.8 users' samples and this is a serious problem imo. Easy to fix but a problem nonetheless.

No problems, I'll have some time tomorrow so I'll take some photos, check them out and upload.

[pfogle]

Any follow up on this?

[rapazolla]

I promised some photos and I will indeed share them. I was @hospital the past 2 weeks so couldn't do the test yet...

[dcolak]

I have A7RII and the same lens. I am seeing the same problem!

 

I changed it twice, still the same, it's not the lens!

 

I also noticed most of my legacy lenses are now useless because of the horrible purple fringing that I never saw on other Sony cameras (NEX7, A7R).

 

I am afraid A7RII has big problems with the sensor. :-(

[dcolak]

I forgot to add, other then purple fringing, A7RII is causing many lenses (legacy and native) to glow whenever there is a high contrast in the picture.

What is going on?

[seb]

I changed it twice, still the same, it's not the lens!

I am afraid A7RII has big problems with the sensor. :-(

 

To shoot a picture you need:

a light source: may cause the problem

an object: the surface may cause the problem. synthetic fabric is difficult to shoot under any light. My with is a textile designer, I know what I'm talking about.

a lens: two copies of the same in a row may have the same issue

a sensor: hightech sensors may have issues under special conditions (e.g. silent shutter and lowframe-light)

a camera: software and hardware to save the sensor infos into a picture. 42mp shows more than 36mp or 24mp.

the situation: high iso could cause moiré. different light sources and fast shutterspeed. bokeh splits the light. overexposed white next to a dark color...

a raw-converter: they do all the same but in very different ways

a processing software

a calibrated display

an export: A file for print looks different than for web. and there it's good to save it in the right size.

 

So, why it is the camera that makes yours (and no one elses) pictures purple? I think you should look after the issue within the last four points.

I do have purple fringing with some legacy lenses. or with lenses that have a heavy distortion (e.g. 28/2) and i push the contrast/saturation over the edge. or on high iso. but certainly not that high with the 55/1.8 under normal conditions (something like this).

 

look at this. it's a handheld shot using an on-top-flash of two synthetic fabrics with the 55/1.8 and the A7RII. the layer beneath the butterly-fabric is purple, so you will see purple edges where the flash is not hit it. all looks very natural to me. there are a lot of heavy contrast inside this picture. the upper left corner is slightly unsharp (I shot it on the kitchen table at midnight on a chair) look at flickr to see it in full res.

_DSC2549 by seflick, auf Flickr

[dcolak]

You can ignore the problem but it is there, with these lenses so far:

 

Strong glow and fringing:

 

Helios 44m1-4-6-7

Helios 77m-4

Chinon 135mm

 

Strong glow:

 

Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 50mm 1.4

 

Loss of contrast:

 

Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 85mm 1.8

 

Here is an example of strong purple fringing. Check the shoulders and arms of my son, they are almost half purple! We are not talking about a few pixels here. It happens when you shoot those lenses wide open:

 

It does not happen with any other Sony camera.
 

Fringing with FE55 1.8 is also strong. There is a thick border of green around hands whenever there is a strong contrast background.

Check this image, I had hard time taming chromatic aberrations and fringing (FE 55 1.8 @ 1.8)

There IS something wrong with A7RII sensor and many lenses.

[seb]

For the 1st: As I said, I have also some(!) issues with legacy lenses. If it is in front of the focus range it's getting a green glow and a purple if the object is behind the focus range (or the other way around). But never that much as you have. And I can only speak for the leicas and contax lenses I have. Maybe a cheap adaptor?

 

The 2nd pic looks like the highlights HDR slider was pushed to 100. Are these pictures out of camera JPGs or RAWs? May you share the JPG out of RAW from the 2nd one? I did also see in the EXIF that you had set sharpness +2 in your camera, maybe it has something to do with that?

[dcolak]

For the 1st: As I said, I have also some(!) issues with legacy lenses. If it is in front of the focus range it's getting a green glow and a purple if the object is behind the focus range (or the other way around). But never that much as you have. And I can only speak for the leicas and contax lenses I have. Maybe a cheap adaptor?

 

The 2nd pic looks like the highlights HDR slider was pushed to 100. Are these pictures out of camera JPGs or RAWs? May you share the JPG out of RAW from the 2nd one? I did also see in the EXIF that you had set sharpness +2 in your camera, maybe it has something to do with that?

 

I tried several adapters, it's always the same. A7RII plays really bad with legacy lenses!

 

No, highlights were not touched. I'm using Capture 1 pro and always just RAW. I did nothing to highlights, I left them as they were.

 

Sharpness was +2 in camera because it makes it easier to focus manually in EVF, it is NOT applied to the image, as I am using RAW.

 

There is a big problem with A7RII and I am doubting more and more in all those "reviews" that are on the Internet.

 

How in the world could they miss something like this?!

 

I tried several cameras and several lenses.

[addicted2light]

I tried several adapters, it's always the same. A7RII plays really bad with legacy lenses!

 

No, highlights were not touched. I'm using Capture 1 pro and always just RAW. I did nothing to highlights, I left them as they were.

 

Sharpness was +2 in camera because it makes it easier to focus manually in EVF, it is NOT applied to the image, as I am using RAW.

 

There is a big problem with A7RII and I am doubting more and more in all those "reviews" that are on the Internet.

 

How in the world could they miss something like this?!

 

I tried several cameras and several lenses.

 

I can't comment directly (I have an A7r mk I, not II), but these images can be cleaned pretty easily using Photoshop.

 

All you have to do is:

 

- open the image in PS, making whatever adjustment you would normally do in CameraRaw

- duplicate the background layer (the one with the image you just opened)

- for the duplicate layer, the one on top, choose "Color" as the blending mode

- now on this layer apply Filter > Blur (amount to taste, till the purple fringe disappears)

- normally this will not mess with the rest of your image too much or at all; if it does you will just have to add a layer mask to the top layer (the blurred one) (Layer > Layer mask > Hide all) and paint in the mask just the areas with the purple halo.

 

And btw, you can as well save this entire process in an action, so it will run with just one click.

 

This is like I managed to save most of the times the files that my 5D mk II used to generate when coupled with the 24/1.4 L mk I (way way worse fringing than this, even if of the longitudinal kind, i.e. "color bokeh").

 

Hope this helps.

[seb]

If it is out of a RAW with C1 and no processing... Can you see this in the EVF (whith the magnifier) or on the JPG (if you shoot RAW+HPG) too? If this is the case go to a store and try another body. I've shot several 1000 pics with the A7RII until now and about 1/3 with legacy lenses. I didn't see anything like your two examples on a well exposed RAW. Maybe your lens ring is decentered on the camera.

[dcolak]

I can't comment directly (I have an A7r mk I, not II), but these images can be cleaned pretty easily using Photoshop.

 

All you have to do is:

 

- open the image in PS, making whatever adjustment you would normally do in CameraRaw

- duplicate the background layer (the one with the image you just opened)

- for the duplicate layer, the one on top, choose "Color" as the blending mode

- now on this layer apply Filter > Blur (amount to taste, till the purple fringe disappears)

- normally this will not mess with the rest of your image too much or at all; if it does you will just have to add a layer mask to the top layer (the blurred one) (Layer > Layer mask > Hide all) and paint in the mask just the areas with the purple halo.

 

And btw, you can as well save this entire process in an action, so it will run with just one click.

 

This is like I managed to save most of the times the files that my 5D mk II used to generate when coupled with the 24/1.4 L mk I (way way worse fringing than this, even if of the longitudinal kind, i.e. "color bokeh").

 

Hope this helps.

 

Thank you but it doesn't help, camera itself should not destroy the image quality. No other Sony camera does that.

 

Specially a 3200 USD camera with a 1000 USD lens.