FE 28mm F2

[Aldowski]

Bought the lens few days ago; ordered it as new. It's far from being newest generation of Sony lenses, but, I saw that, this lens can help to make some good IQ; even there are some minuses described at reviewer's sites. It may not be considered awfully bad to have wired manual focus instead of physical one, or missing optical stabilization in the lens to be most important, this lens had both "minuses", emphasized at some sites and, at the same time, it's marks went down drastically.

I went outside to the winter forest and lake environment, a bit of snow, lots of clouds and about -4C ~ 25F of coldness, which may not provide the best known conditions for perfect photographing day.

Anyway, I made some ~200 photos, later arranged some time to take a look the FE 28mm F2 results. I did not use GND, ND, CPL filters at all this time.

Colors are mostly grey, as that day was as well, cannot be colorful. Flares not existing as there was no strong sunlight.

Finally, the sharpness and bokeh. Have to say that sharpness is very good. I made many (almost all) of those photos with F4 or 5.6, with ISO64 or ISO100. Seems that sharpness is documented as best at that aperture, I must admit, it's very good. Bokeh, good as well. Do not have lots of those images of the type which may emphasize the bokeh itself, but on those few, it is working well. It's not a "bokeh monster", still it's good.

28mm? Some discussions were (even) created to show that 28mm is not wide enough and not standard enough as well. And? Must say that some limitations by numbers are everything but helpful. When something is working nice, it's working nice. Put the "best lens" in bad environment using bad settings, it will not be good at all.

Sony itself made 2 "add ons" lenses for Wide(r) angles, Ultra Wide Conversion Lens, created especially for this 28mm, which are adding the angle, and the usability.

Also, internal software lens distorsion fix (there are also some other fixes too), when turned on, works good.

Not saying that the lens is "the best" or "spectacular". Will use it in different conditions to see the "response". 

[Aldowski]

Not sure if anyone made field comparison test for the Sony 28mm F2 to Sony 28-70mm kit lens; anyway, I spent some time outside making 100's of photos using those 2 lenses.

Simply to say, the prime one is much, much better, seeing results at 100% (and more) view of photos being taken with same F (I used F8), ISO (200) and shutter speed (1/125+). Prime one does not have OSS, both have very silent AF, color rendering is looking good at both, but, even at F8, sharpness at the zoom one cannot be considered as perfect (for some reason, at few photos it's not bad at all, but others are not good examples).

Yes, postprocessing may be applied, but the basic, from-the-camera photos are many times "asking" for more or less retouching.

Having the manual Minolta Rokkor 28mm 2.8, have to say that even being vintage, it provides really good result photos, from-the-camera, easily comparable with both Sony ones (color rendition, sharpness, bokeh).

Anyone has some others, 28mm lenses compared?

 

[glowinthedark]

maybe you wanna have a look at this test I just completed

https://sway.office.com/3J1GbyDNPU3opCET?ref=Link

 

I have similar images for the 28-70 kit lens, the 24-70/2.8 GM and the Tamron 28-200/2.8-5.6 (not made public so far). Maybe I will compile another comparison for these lenses at relevant focal lengths (so, only the wide end...) if there is some demand from a bunch of people. Let me know...

[thebeardedgroundsman]

Don't be over concerned about some of the criticisms of a lens - where they are subjective.

You say some people think 28mm is not wide enough or standard enough, but if it's the right focal length for what you want to achieve it might be perfect!

OSS on a wide angle lens? Is it really important, particularly if you have IBIS - I don't think so (IMHO)it might be nice, but hardly rates as highly as if it was not on a long telephoto lens.

I've not really noticed a difference between mechanical and wired manual focus as such - although some of my lenses do feel nicer to use - but that could be build quality, or ergonomics.

So, if the lens works for you - don't worry what others think!

Reviews can help you make a choice, but then it's down to you to learn how to use the lens to get the image you want.

[XKAES]

1 hour ago, thebeardedgroundsman said:

So, if the lens works for you - don't worry what others think!

Reviews can help you make a choice, but then it's down to you to learn how to use the lens to get the image you want.

All I can add to this wisdom is "Take reviews with a grain of salt".

 

[Pieter]

7 hours ago, thebeardedgroundsman said:

I've not really noticed a difference between mechanical and wired manual focus as such

My experience is quite the contrary! Especially in the early days of focus-by-wire (the 28mm F/2 included), manufacturers thought they could help photographers by making the focus speed dependent on the speed (not the distance!) that you turn the focus ring. If you turned it fast, focus would go from close to infinity in just a 90 degrees twist whereas if you turned it really slowly, focus from close to infinity could take over 360 degrees of rotation. While this may all sound very nice and clever (allows for either very fast or very precise focussing), the response of these lenses turned out to be very unpredictable. For good reason Sony is now advertising 'linear focus response' with their newest lenses: they behave almost like a true manual lens, except for the lacking hard stops and focus distance scale.

[thebeardedgroundsman]

Pieter, I read your reply with interest.

I will now play with my various lenses a see what happens - always good to know the idiosyncrasies of your equipment.

[Adrichardson]

I had a love-hate relationship with it. I shoot raw and the distortion is tricky to correct in DXO, to the point where it felt like I was recomposing the image. I also found DXO did weird things with skin tones at longer distances (think landscape not street). It's the only lens I've seen behave like that in DXO.

On the plus side, it's actually closer to see to 26mm without correction, but it needs careful framing.

If you're on the lookouts an alternative, I was pleasantly surprised by the 28-60mm's performance at 28mm.

 

[Pieter]

4 hours ago, Adrichardson said:

I had a love-hate relationship with it. I shoot raw and the distortion is tricky to correct in DXO, to the point where it felt like I was recomposing the image.

If you enable distortion compensation in-camera, you'll be composing with a corrected field of view while shooting (the viewfinder presents a corrected image even though you're shooting RAW). The RAW file won't have the distortion compensation baked in, but after correction in DXO the resulting image should look pretty identical to how you initially composed it.

[Adrichardson]

2 hours ago, Pieter said:

If you enable distortion compensation in-camera, you'll be composing with a corrected field of view while shooting (the viewfinder presents a corrected image even though you're shooting RAW). The RAW file won't have the distortion compensation baked in, but after correction in DXO the resulting image should look pretty identical to how you initially composed it.

That's the problem - the dxo profiles depend on your distance to object, which it can't pull from the exif data. So you've got to apply the profile, then work out your approximate distance to object.

It's easier to manage in Lightroom, but that means sacrificing the advantages of dxo.

[Aldowski]

The Sony 28/2 vs. Samyang 24/1.8 test looks really good, lots of details there.

I did not do that "type" of test (yet); but have to say, the Sony 28mm F2 is providing (for the good price) descent results.

Again, the Minolta 28mm F2.8 provides great photos as well, it's a bit slower, still it's good.

For me, the 28mm is really good focal length (but, without excluding any other one).

And, I removed the "border" between lens "categories": "vintage" vs. "modern"- results are most important.

 

[Aldowski]

And; must ask here, anyone using the Capture One Express (Sony)? I installed it and used for some time.

I used the RawTherapee as well (looks full of options), and, at other side, using some other freewares which are having possibilities to process Photoshop 8bf files (plugins). During the previous years, many (3rd party) programs are capable to use Sony profiles, unfortunately, not updated all the time for newest Sony lenses (even, at some of those, user may create the lens distortion profile).