Hi it's me and today we have a lens i've Been meaning to test out for years Literally it is the sony e 24 millimeter F 1.8 za it's a little sony zeiss lens That came out all the way back in 2011. Over 10 years ago now it accumulated a Great reputation for itself very quickly Although that was a long time ago now is It still any good in 2022 well it had Better be at a cost of 800 us dollars And over 800 pounds in the uk it's Incredibly expensive for an aps-c camera Lens that's right it is for crop sensor Cameras only so it gives the full-frame Equivalent of a 36 millimeter field of View really useful the good news is that Being such an old lens you'll be able to Find a good second hand model over on Ebay probably for less than 500 pounds Let's look at its build quality first This particular copy of the lens has Seen slightly better days but still its Beautiful construction is immediately Apparent it is small metallic tightly Assembled and it looks the business too The only disappointment is that the lens Is not weather sealed the only control Point on the lens is the metallic manual Focus ring which turns very smoothly and Responsively the lens exhibits only a Very small amount of focused breathing The lens's auto focus motor is silent And accurate but not all that fast Well personally i'd always prefer
Accuracy over speed the lens comes with A decent quality hood which is quite Deep considering its focal length its Filter thread size is a very small 49 Millimeters its weight is only 225 grams Or half a pound and it does not have Image stabilization overall it is a dead Simple lens with gorgeous build quality And it looks fantastic on your camera Too Now onto image quality i'll be testing It on a 24 megapixel camera my little Sony a5100 in in-camera corrections are Turned on at f 1.8 we see good contrast And excellent sharpness although we also See a little color fringing there's a Noticeable purple outlining here let's Look in the corners sharpness and Contrast are reduced there as you can See but for a 10 year old lens an Impressive amount of detail is still Being captured stop down to f 2.8 and Image quality in the corners becomes Excellent and back in the middle any of That color fringing is long gone And that's about as sharp as the lens Gets actually it stays this sharp across The image frame down to f11 stop down to F16 though and the image softens due to The effect of diffraction overall though It's a great performance for such an old Lens no wonder it's always had such a Great reputation it would have had one Of sony's older 12 or 16 megapixel
Sensors for breakfast Okay well let's turn off those in-camera Corrections and see about the lenses Distortion and vignetting the lens Projects some moderate pin cushion Distortion here and at f 1.8 some pretty Strong vignetting at f 2.8 and f4 those Corners brighten up nicely but still you Should turn on those in-camera Corrections The lens has a nice little bonus feature It can focus all the way down to 16 Centimeters bringing you very very close To your subject at f 1.8 close-up image Sharpness is a little lower and we see Some color fringing on contrasting edges But contrast remains nice and high at f 2.8 we see improvement and at f4 we see Excellent picture quality Now let's see how well the lens works Against bright light it is just an Average performance here bright lights Cause little flaring but quite a lot of Broad glaring across the whole image Frame reducing your contrast and while We're working in the dark let's look at Coma levels over in the corners at f 1.8 We see some notable smearing stop down To f 2.8 and it goes away and for those Interested let's zoom out and take a Look at the sunstar situation they begin To emerge quite clearly at about f 8. at F 11 and particularly f 16 those sun Stars become very nice and strong
Now let's take a look at this lenses Bokeh this lenses autofocus backgrounds Are just on the smooth side of average Here we're not being treated to any Spectacular smoothness but they sure Look nice enough to me And finally related tobacco comes Longitudinal chromatic aberration older Sony lenses tended to really struggle Here and we do see some clear blue and Magenta color fringing at f 1.8 on bokeh Highlights stop down to f 2.8 or f 4 for Gradual improvements and at f 5.6 it's Finally gone Overall well as much as i was late to The party and testing this lens out very Late i was actually really impressed With its performance even all these Years later it has aged really well and Takes gorgeous sharp pictures while Looking really cool at the same time and I had no real reservations about its Image quality i'm not quite sure if i'd Ever pay eight hundred dollars for an Aps-c prime lens with an f 1.8 aperture Myself but putting aside its price the Lens still has to come highly Recommended Well color me pink and call me shirley i Tested a zeiss lens and i really liked It something else i like doing is Putting out exclusive content on my Patreon page take a look at the link in The description below supporters of this
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