[Guest]

Is this zeiss or sony ? I.e, surly zeiss must be concern about their reputation ?

[soLong]

I thought they changed their name to SonyZeiss….

[stoppingdown]

@jenbenn Clearly Sony has got some problems with the SEL1670 and SEL2470, but my 1670 is not as bad as some reviews say. I understand that I upgrade from an inferior lens, while you're comparing with a high quality Canon lens. But before giving up, maybe you can try to evaluate by yourself.

 

I don't know about problems with colour rendition of the Fuji - I have friends that do landscape and are fine with it, as well as many reviews. But you could eventually consider to create your own profiles with ColorChecker Passport - X-Rite. To me the Lightroom rendering of the Sony files has got a strong reddish cast and I didn't like the green rendition. Creating a custom profile solved the problem for me.

[Scythels]

Regarding Sony / Sony-Zeiss / Zeiss-

 

Zeiss is partnered with Sony.  They exchange resources.  A zeiss-badged sony lens has had some level of Zeiss involvement in the design but most likely was not designed entirely by a Zeiss lens designer or lens design team.  Zeiss may be concerned about rep, but also maybe not - consumers are incredibly "easy" on camera optics in that typically most anything looks/performs just fine to them.  Zeiss has a greater goal of brand recognition than namesaving right now. 


Regarding astigmatism and the like - A typical but arbitrary number is that light from over 200 focal lengths away is effectively at infinity to a very good approximation.  The test chart is probably closer than 14m for the 70mm test, so it is within the failure range of this approximation.  As a lens is refocused, performance often changes significantly.  I do believe astigmatism and CAs are the chief problems in the images here, as the images do not reflect a high level of spherical aberration, oblique spherical, or coma.  This leaves only astigmatism and polychromatics to be the big problem. 


 

[davidmanze]

 To me it's simple, someone should be getting the sack for this fiasco,

 

 

 

 

    Canon/Nikon kit lenses are way better for almost 1/10th of the price!

[Scythels]

The entrance pupil on this one is 17.5mm, as compared to the 9.8mm entrance pupil on the typical 18-55.  It also focuses internally and features a better stabilizer.  All of the zoom motions must also happen in front of the aperture stop, placing further restrictions on the design, while having a wider zoom range (4.3x vs 3x).


The performance is poor and it is expensive, but this thing is much more complicated than the standard 18-55.

[davidmanze]

The entrance pupil on this one is 17.5mm, as compared to the 9.8mm entrance pupil on the typical 18-55.  It also focuses internally and features a better stabilizer.  All of the zoom motions must also happen in front of the aperture stop, placing further restrictions on the design, while having a wider zoom range (4.3x vs 3x).


The performance is poor and it is expensive, but this thing is much more complicated than the standard 18-55.

  As a lens buyer I would put the lens's complication in the hands of the lens designer and manufacturer, if they can't come up with the goods that's their problem, not mine or ours, they produce a poor lens, few people buy it, they lose out, end of story.

  We spend our money elsewhere, simple!

[thxbb12]

The entrance pupil on this one is 17.5mm, as compared to the 9.8mm entrance pupil on the typical 18-55.  It also focuses internally and features a better stabilizer.  All of the zoom motions must also happen in front of the aperture stop, placing further restrictions on the design, while having a wider zoom range (4.3x vs 3x).


The performance is poor and it is expensive, but this thing is much more complicated than the standard 18-55.

 

How do you explain a lens such as the Sigma 17-70 f/2.8-4.0 DC tested at the Zone here is much better in pretty much any respect:

• Almost same focal range
  
• Faster/brighter
  
• Half price (sells for $500)
  
• Much better optical performance at all focal lengths and apertures
  
• Features a speudo-macro mode (very useful) at 1:2.7
  
• Like the Sony, features OIS
  

So, what's left to the crappy Sony/Zeiss? 1mm at the wide-end? I highly doubt it's an excuse for its abysmal performance.

[Scythels]

The sigma 17-70 is less complex, as zooming may be done on both sides of the aperture stop (non-constant aperture), is larger, and has more spherical aberration.  It does have significantly worse build, at least externally, as well. 

 

To be clear, I do think the 16-70 is a poor lens, but I also think Imatest is overstating the weakness of its performance as well.

[thxbb12]

The sigma 17-70 is less complex, as zooming may be done on both sides of the aperture stop (non-constant aperture), is larger, and has more spherical aberration.  It does have significantly worse build, at least externally, as well. 

 

To be clear, I do think the 16-70 is a poor lens, but I also think Imatest is overstating the weakness of its performance as well.

 

Personally, I couldn't care less about the complexity of a lens. In fact, given two lenses, a simple and a complex one, featuring the same IQ, I'd take the simpler one any day.

 

Also: why is that that a f2.8-4.0 lens is easier to design than a constant f4 lens? It doesn't seem to make much sense to me given the 2.8-4.0 will be brighter at best and the same at worst.