The New Prime
I have been fascinated by the Zeiss Otus for a while. A hunk of a lens, big optics, aperture of 1.4, but bulky and only manual focus. Zeiss had a couple versions of this - 55mm and 85mm, as well as a couple of mounts, one for Canon and another for Niton.
None for either Sony or Fuji, unless you get yourself an adaptor.
By sheer size, it wouldn't be practical to attach it at the front of my Alpha 7. Too unwieldy.
Around Xmas, I heard about a Zeiss made lens for the Sony, called the Loxia. Manual focus, and not as big. The review was decent, but I don't think I would more out of the Loxia compared to my Summicron. I ditched the plan.
Three months back, I heard about the collaboration between Sony and Zeiss to make a wide aperture prime for the Alpha range. Soon after, the 35mm f1.4 Distagon was announced. I didn't hesitate and started doing some reading.
Reportedly great quality lens with full fast auto focus to boot.
I got my hands on one to test last week at one of the Sony Centre as my regular dealer was not able to secure a shipment before June. The deliveries prior had been taken. The resulting snaps were better than I expected. It didn't get long before I put in my order and during the weekend, I received a call that my lens was in.
It was bulky for sure but surprisingly well balanced on my Alpha 7 mk II. Not as nifty as having the Summilux attached but auto focus does have its merit.
Since the weather had not been kind, I have yet to really take the lens out for a good spin. I was looking at a busy week, so I could only test in next weekend.
Wider View
It was always nice to try new things in photography. On some of the blogs, I saw some nice shots using wide angle lens on street photography, something I was yet to try.
So, last week I decided to dust off my wide-angle Fujinon 10-23mm and took my X-Pro2 for a walk. I was pleasantly surprised with my captures.
I decided to snap in RAW mode as I felt that I might struggle to bring up the shadows using such a wide-angle lens in high-contrast environment. But the beauty carried through even in my indoors, high ISO captures. Maybe the stabilisation built into the lens helped.
It allowed my to capture the scene in perspective, giving a meaning to the composed image while giving me plenty of leeway for post-processing cropping, at the expense of loss of resolution. The 24 MP sensor coped well and the final images retained their contrast as well as their colour.
I tried the setup at three separate venues. First when I left the LRT at Central Market on the way to Urbanscapes House at Medan Tuanku. Secondly at the Urbanscapes House itself, pushing it to high ISO and testing the stabilisation. Lastly, I ventured on around Masjid India before catching the LRT back to NU Sentral where I parked.
Next step, the 42 MP Alpha 7R mk II full frame with the 18 mm Batis. My ultimate goal would be to pair a medium format body to a wide angle prime .... at least in my dreams ...