35mm Manual Focus Lens Options?

[Cojo]

Anyone have any good suggestions on a MF 35mm lens to use with the A7ii?

 

Don't want to spend too much money, so the more affordable options would be nice.

[iul]

On ebay, you may find good Minolta MD W.Rokkor 35mm f/2.8.

[Gilgenberg]

Or Olympus Zuiko OM 35mm F2.8,

better and more money?

with macro, Zeiss Flektogon 35mm F2.4

faster Lens, Voigtländer Nokton 35mm 1.4,

if 40mm is o.k. for you,
my favorite Lens M-Rokkor 40mmF2 (awesome Lens!) same as Leica Summicron C40

[levimax]

Canon FDn 35mm f2.8  Cheap with great performance

 

http://erphotoreview.com/wordpress/?p=4114

[Lefty]

Good suggestions above, but if you are a little adventuresome, there are interesting old lenses out there from Vivitar and other mfrs. They come from the '70s and '80s mostly, and the best Vivitar lens serial numbers start with 22 (Kiron), 37 (Tokina)and 28 (Komine). Vivitar made several 35mm lenses including f2.8 and f1.9 (I've got those and like them). Their Series 1 lenses from that era were the flagships, and drop dead gorgeous, but the others were very good too. They also made nice zooms, like f2.8-3.5 28mm-90mm. Around the same time Tamron made some of their Adaptall mount lenses in 35mm prime and f2.8-3.5 30-80mm. I like those short zooms, they're compact, sharp, fast, and cover a useful range on FF.

 

FWIW, Korea pushed hard to get into the lens business in the '70s. They competed on both quality and price with the Japanese manufacturers. Many of those lenses are surprisingly good and show up under a variety of brand names. They also tend to be cheap.

 

Kodachrome was very unforgiving, lenses had to be good to see the light of day. By the mid '70s coatings had gotten pretty good too. There are a lot of lenses from that period, optically very good, beautifully built, generally inexpensive, and many carefully cared for. With cheap E mount adapters you can play with several without hurting yourself. Combined with inexpensive E mount adapters, focus peaking, magnification and IBIS it's a whole new life for old glass. Enjoy.

[Cheatah]

35mm are all not critical and most of them are very good, even the "cheap" 35mm glasses!

[addicted2light]

Fast 35mm:

 

- Minolta M-Rokkor 40/2: not a 35mm literally, but close enough to play nicely the part of both a 35mm and a 50. Really sharp lens, with great bokeh (it is dubbed "the water lens" for the way it renders the out of focus areas). Expensive if you buy it "alone", you can usually find it in kit with a Minolta CL-E for the same price, from 350 to 500€. Just sell the camera body alone for 250 / 300 and keep the lens! Keep in mind that focuses not very near like any other rangefinder lens (but you can buy close focusing adapters for 35€ / 150€).

 

- Nikkor-O 35mm f/2: around 50 / 80 € (it is a non-Ai lens, so Nikon shooters usually avoid it). Pretty good already at f/2, sharp at closer apertures and focus pretty close. It can be used reversed as a 3:1 macro lens with good results (I've used it extensively to "scan" 35mm slides). At f/2 it suffers a bit from flare (but again: it is a lens from the 60s!)

 

- Olympus OM 35mm f/2: great colors, quite sharp (not that much wide-open, but good enough). Same price of the Nikon above, more or less

 

 

Normal 35mm:

 

- Canon FD: I haven't tried this one personally, but I've seen images and read many high praises for it.

 

- Contax Zeiss Distagon 35mm f/2.8: nice rendering, colors (it is a Zeiss, what did you expect?) and sharp. Its only fault are the extreme borders, that are not that sharp (just look at the mtf file supplied by the same Zeiss). 130 / 150€.

 

- Olympus 35mm f/2.8 shift: even if you don't shoot architecture it is really useful to change the point of view or to stitch flawlessly panoramic images. Really sharp lens, suffers a bit from flare (it is single-coated) and in some RARE occasions of CA in high-contrast transitional areas (tree branches against a bright sky and such). On the plus side, terrific colors and tonalities and smooooooth bokeh. Anywhere between 200 and 350€.

 

 

If I had to choose from the list above:

- if money were not a big constraint I'd go for the Olympus shift; it is the most versatile, and not bigger than a normal 35

- otherwise I'd go for the Olympus 35 f/2 or the Nikon

 

In any case don't sweat it: I don't think with any of these lenses you can go wrong anyway.

[Steve C]

I have a Canon 35 in 2.8 and for such an inexpensive lens or even in spite of it is very good value and performance. You'll pay the price of a couple of beers for a decent sample.

[addicted2light]

Anyone have any good suggestions on a MF 35mm lens to use with the A7ii?

 

Don't want to spend too much money, so the more affordable options would be nice.

 

Sorry, but I stupidly forgot one of my all time favorite! Probably just because I'm not using it that much now on Aps-c after I sold my Canon 5D mk II* (still waiting Sony to release the new cameras to go full frame again, for now I'm on a Nex 7).

 

The Minolta 35mm f/1.8 (manual focus) has been made in several iterations, but basically there are two different optical schemes in play: one for the models with a 55mm filter ring, one for the models with 49mm filter ring.

 

Both sports 8 lenses in 6 groups, but have a different optical signature.

 

While both sharp (sharper than the Zeiss 16-35 on the A7: you can check the reviews here

 

http://artaphot.ch/minolta-sr/objektiv-vergleiche/340-sony-a7-and-zm-2-8-35mm-mc-1-8-35mm-md-2-8-35mm-md-3-5-35-70mm

 

http://artaphot.ch/minolta-sr/objektiv-vergleiche/341-sony-a7-and-classical-rokkors

 

 

) the 55mm filter version has a bokeh absolutely and utterly fantastic, much resembling (at least to my eyes) the one of the Voigtlander 35/1.2.

 

They go for anything between 130 and 180 euro.

 

Now time for some though choices    

 

*I had it converted to Eos

[Eric]

Go check out the Samyang / rokinon options. They rate quite well on DXO mark and come with the Sony mount.

[devtank]

f2.8 will be sharper typically at f4, 5.6 and 8 than f2 or f1.4 lenses. 
Any pentax 28 or 35 will give you great results. Supreme color sharpness and little or no artifacts. Pentax bokeh is ok. 

You could get either for about $50..

Good place to start. 
A bit later look for a used Leica-R 35 or Contax lens and you will get some of the best glass available for about $350 or less.

[addicted2light]

A bit later look for a used Leica-R 35 or Contax lens and you will get some of the best glass available for about $350 or less.

 

Agree with everything, with one "but".

 

I'd avoid the Contax for the price if you can't find it under 150€ (the f/2.8 version, obviously not the 1.4 that'll costs 700€ but that's amazing). It is one of the few lenses in the Contax lineup (the others being the 25 and the 200/3.5 IMHO) that's not up to snuff. Is good, but not enough for the price and the borders are a bit too soft for my tastes even once you stop the aperture down. 

 

If you can only find it at 350€ and you really want a whiff of Zeiss glass at that point I'd go for either:

 

- the Contax 35-70/3.5

this one sells for pretty much the same price and yes, it is a zoom; but you can check on Contax Zeiss 35-70mm f3.4 v Zeiss 35mm f2.8 v Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 (close range) that is actually better than the prime, and you loose just half a stop (but you gain several focal lengths in the process as well)

 

- the Yashica ML 35/2.8; pretty much the same quality (and lack thereof at the borders) of the Contax, but at least you'll pay for it only between 50 and 80€