Category Archives: Guides

Guides, Sony Alpha 7

Guide to best Sony E-Mount 35mm Lenses for a7III/a7II/a7rIV/a7RIII

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review sharpness 42mp high resolution sample test vergleich comparison bokeh handling build quality a7riii autofocus af close macro

35mm is a very popular focal length with a wide range of applications ranging from landscape over astrophotography to environmental portraiture and many consider it the best choice when only using one prime lens. We decided to summarize our experience with all the native E-mount and a few legacy 35mm lenses for the Sony A7 series to give you a compact and independent resource for choosing the best 35mm lens for your needs.

Unlike most other review sites we have no association with any lens manufacturer apart from occasionally loaning a lens for a review. We prefer independence over fancy trips and nice meals.

Before any short introduction we tell you how long we have used a lens and if we have borrowed it from a manufacturer. But in most cases we have bought the lenses new from retail stores or on the used market. If you want to support our independent reviews please consider using one of the affiliate links. It doesn’t cost you anything and helps us a lot.

If we have left any question unanswered please leave a comment and we will do our best to answer it.

Last update: November 2021

Continue reading Guide to best Sony E-Mount 35mm Lenses for a7III/a7II/a7rIV/a7RIII →

Guides, lenses, Sony a7rIII

Sony FE lenses: The honest Guide for the A7/A7II/A7III A7rII/A7rIII/A7rIV A7c A9

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Choose the right lens for your Sony Alpha with the help of our independent knowledge gained by writing many in-depth reviews.

We are a team of five photographers who all use the FE system and this blog is focused on lens reviews. So we have an in-depth knowledge of these lenses not only because we use them all the time but also because we have reviewed many of them in detail. We are also independent from any lens manufacturer and when you check our reviews you will see that we do not hesitate to name any shortcomings of a lens. To easily compare specs check out our Sony FE-list.
We will also talk about lens aberrations, if you don’t know too much about these terms maybe have a look at our article Lens aberrations explained first.

In this article we mainly list lenses which have electronic contacts to communicate aperture and focal length to the camera. There are also quite a few lenses which have an E-mount but no electronic contacts. Most of these are SLR-lenses with a modified mount and  we decided against covering these because we think that most of them are not very attractive lenses. We do however cover some of the attractive ones that have been specifically designed for E-mount.
Last update: December 2021

It is always possible that some new or exotic lens is missing, we work hard on filling these gaps.

If you purchase the lens or anything else through one of the affiliate-links in this article we get a small compensation with no additional cost to you. 

All native full frame lenses for the Sony FE mount

Prime lenses

9-15mm

Laowa 5.6/9 FF-RL (manual focus, no electronic contacts)

laowa 9mm 5.6 ultra wide w-dreamer uwa hyper wide heliar 10mm distortion zero-d
Sony A7III | Laowa 9mm 5.6 | f/5.6
Strengths Weaknesses
  • unrivalled focal length
  • sharpness and contrast
  • minimum focus distance
  • size/weight
  • no Exif data
  • vignetting/color cast

Recommendation: the world’s widest rectilinear lens and a better performer than either Voigtlander 10mm 5.6 E or Laowa 10-18mm 4.5-5.6.

Length: 74mm | Diameter: 63mm | Weight: 373g | Filter Thread: – | Price (July 2020): $799
Review | Sample images | manufacturer’s homepage | B&H | ebay.com | ebay.de (affiliate links)

Continue reading Sony FE lenses: The honest Guide for the A7/A7II/A7III A7rII/A7rIII/A7rIV A7c A9 →

Comparison, Guides, lenses

Guide to Ultra Wideangle lenses for the Sony A7 Series

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super wide angle ultra uwa swa

We summarize our experience with all the native E-mount and a few (manual) legacy lenses in the 9-20mm bracket to give you a compact and independent resource for choosing the right super- to ultra-wide-angle lens for your Sony A7 cameras. In this summary we also included some adapted lenses we think are worth mentioning.

We also have a general guide to FE lenses, guide to 21-35mm lenses as well as a guide to 35mm lenses, 50mm lenses and portrait lenses.

We have no association with any lens manufacturer apart from occasionally loaning a lens for a review. Before any short introduction we tell you how long we have used a lens and if we have borrowed it from a manufacturer. But in most cases we have bought the lenses new from retail stores or on on the used market. 

If we have left any question unanswered please leave a comment and we will do our best to answer it.

Last update: December 2021

If you purchase the lens through one of thee affiliate-links in this article we get a small compensation with no additional cost to you. 

Laowa 5.6/9 FF-RL

Status: Sample loaned by the manufacturer reviewed by Bastian who replaced his Voigtlander 10mm 5.6 with this lens

  • super compact and the widest rectilinear lens available
  • contrast and resolution are surprisingly good from wide open
  • flare resistance slightly worse than the wide Voigtlander primes, very nice sunstars thanks to 5 straight aperture blades
  • complex distortion and high vignetting (profile for LR available)
  • Widest rectilinear lens available in a very compact package and with surprisingly good image quality

373g + adapter | $799 | full Review | aperture series | sample images

buy from manufacturer’s homepage | B&H | ebay.com | ebay.de (affiliate links)

laowa 9mm 5.6 ultra wide w-dreamer uwa hyper wide heliar 10mm distortion zero-d
Leica M10 | Laowa 9mm 5.6 | f/5.6

Continue reading Guide to Ultra Wideangle lenses for the Sony A7 Series →

Astrophotography, Guides, lenses

Best Astro-Photography Lenses for the Sony A7 series

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Introduction

Sony A7s | Batis 18mm 2.8 | f/2.8 | ISO6400 | 20s

Landscape astrophotography is something I have been doing for several years. Luckily over the past few years many lenses have been released that make this task easier than ever. So today we are going to have a look at all the available lenses for your Sony so you can choose the one that works best for your needs.
Last update: December 2021

What is landscape astrophotography?

Sony A7s | Nikon AF-S 20mm 1.8G | f/1.8 | 3 shot panorama |

In landscape astrophotography you will usually try to have a combination of the starry sky (with Milky Way or Northern Lights) as well as some foreground (e.g. landscape) in your frame so we are mostly looking at ultra wide to normal lenses (for stitching) here.

Continue reading Best Astro-Photography Lenses for the Sony A7 series →

Guides, lenses, photography

Lens aberrations explained – Part 1

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Introduction

jupiter-3 zenith sonnar sony a7s bokeh

In many of our lens reviews we talk about certain kinds of aberrations, so this article shall give you an overview of typical lens aberrations, tell you in what lenses to encounter them and how to cope with them.
We may publish another article in the future that will go further into detail, not only naming the aberrations, but talking about what causes them.

Continue reading Lens aberrations explained – Part 1 →