There are plenty of great lenses available for fullframe E-mount cameras in the 20mm range, but it is said among those this Sony FE 20mm 1.8G is an outstanding, well-balanced highlight. A review was long overdue, so here we go.
If you followed my Analogue Adventures over the past year you probably noticed I have been shooting quite a bit of 35mm film lately. Doing that, I discovered things I like as well as things I don’t like. Either way, I decided to continue with these Analogue Adventures as I think there is still a lot to be learned for me, but I also decided to get a second analogue camera with M-mount for doing that.
Continue reading Analogue Adventures – Part 18: Choosing a secondary Camera
Photokina in 2016 was the first time I saw the Laowa 15mm 2.0 Zero-D for Sony E-mount, I bought it as soon as it was available and have used it since. Already at that time there was talk about the lens being released for M-mount but it never happened and admittedly I kinda forgot about it.
But what happened at CP+ 2023? We see an M-mount version of the Laowa 15mm 2.0 Zero-D. And for M-mount it might be even more spectacular, pushing the boundaries of the system quite a bit. So let’s see what has changed compared to the Sony version!
Lens is being reviewed on Sony A7rII and Leica M10
Konica Hexanon AR 40mm f1.8 is a pancake standard lens, it was shipped as kit lens with Konica SLR cameras during a couple of years in mid and late ’70s. While it is not an actual wide angle lens it is still wider than a normal 50mm lens, which, in my opinion, can be helpful for street photography as it allows to include more of the environment from the same camera to subject distance. It also does so without introducing the perspective distortion of a 35mm wide angle lens with equivalent speed/aperture.
Sometimes it’s hard to explain it but in many situations the 40mm focal length feels just right (i.e. to my taste). When it was introduced some photography magazines considered it the sharpest lens ever produced (for its time that is), there is no hard proofs on that though. You can find it very cheap at about 20-30$. Let’s see if it still is justified to buy this lens today.
The earlier Samyang lenses didn’t really impress me: dinky casing, lack of controls and severe issues with sample variation. This Samyang FE 24mm 1.8 AF was the first of a new generation of Samyang AF lenses though: customizable switch, focus hold button, rubber gasket and vastly improved materials. Did they finally hit the mark? Let’s find out in this review!
