Phillip Reeve

You can easily spend a fortune on lenses for your Sony a7 series camera but you don’t have to. On our blog we review many lenses, from cheap soviet era one to the newest an most expensive Zeiss glass. For this list we have selected 34 lenses all cost less than $499 and give you great image quality on your Alpha. If you have any questions please ask

We just published a Guide to Canon FD lenses on Sony a7 series cameras. It covers the most interesting lenses and should be a good starting point to evaluate these usually very affordable lenses.

One issue with Sony lenses is that there is a lot of copy-to-copy variation so you 28-70 might have been quite a bit worse than mine.

you are welcome

Check back in two weeks or so when we publish the guide to super-wide-angle lenses which will include the Rokinon 2.8/14

Hey folks, our little team has just finished a guide to all the available native E-mount wide-angles and also a few interesting manual lenses. . If you have any questions or suggestions please let us know . Phillip

Best I have used so far: FD 4/300 L. I was als impressed by the 4/80-200 L. nFD 2.8/35 is also pretty good. Best of them all is the 1.8/200 but that's super rare and expensive.

I would differentiate between lenses from the East and those from Japan though. I have had much less decentering issues with old Minoltas than with modern Sonys.

I just finished a review of the Minolta MC 1.4/50. The difference between 50mm isn't that big but I think the Minolta is one of the more attractive options because of it's sharpness, build quality and price.

Hey folks, today I want to introduce an interesting manual alternative to the FE 2/28. The Voigtlander 2/28 with Leica M-mount. New it is a little more expensive than the Sony and it is heavier as well. But the Voigtlander is much better built and it offers all the pleasures you would expect of a M-mount lens. Very precise focusing, great feel and a rather small size. Optically it is a very strong performer, I think it is a little sharper than the Sony at f/2 and it is much better corrected for distortion. The only downside is that the filter stak of the a7 series induces some field curvature. There are a few other nice aspects about it, more about them in the Voigtlander 2/28 Review Charles Bridge by Bastian.K, on Flickr Hoodoo by Bastian.K, on Flickr Black Bird by Bastian.K, on Flickr

The C/Y 2.8/28 doesn't feature floating elements so adapter thickness doesn't matter. Only the extreme corners fall of, 99% of the image is very sharp at f/8. Just check the review, there are many full resolution images in it. Phillip

I just finished my review of this great lens. I can only recommend it to anyone who like good manual lenses. I also own the FE 2/28 which is a more versatile lens but for shooting landscapes I prefer the Zeiss. Please check out the Zeiss Distagon 2.8/28 Review for more information. Phillip

Hey folks, a first small batch of Loxia 2.8/21 lenses has been shipped in Europe and my blog partner is one of the lucky guys to receive one. We all know that it is a very sharp lens from the earlier tests but those didn't cover aspects like distortion, vignetting or coma. So please check out our Zeiss Loxia 2.8/21 Rolling Review Phillip

I can point you toward the review I did of the Canon nFD 2.8/20. I think the SSC version has the same optics. Technically the nFD 2.8/35 is a better lens but of course both lenses cover totally different focal lengths.