Review: Solinon 18mm 5.6 Asph

Introduction

18mm 5.6 solinon calvin hong kong asph review architecture 42mp 61mp sony a7riv a7rv sharpness contrast vignetting cookie pancake compact m10 leica m11 m10r rangefinder
Solinon 18mm 5.6 Asph on Leica M10

It doesn’t happen often that one of our readers reaches out and tells us he had his own lens made, but that is exactly what happened here. Not finding what he was looking for among the lenses already available, our reader Calvin from Hong Kong decided to had a lens made to his desires and have it manufactured in China. Of course I was interested to review it, so let’s have a look at this intriguing lens together!
Lens is being tested on 42mp Sony A7rII and 24mp Leica M10

Sample Images

18mm 5.6 solinon calvin hong kong asph review architecture 42mp 61mp sony a7riv a7rv sharpness contrast vignetting cookie pancake compact m10 leica m11 m10r rangefinder
Leica M10 | Solinon 18mm 5.6 Asph | f/5.6 | Ai Denoise
18mm 5.6 solinon calvin hong kong asph review architecture 42mp 61mp sony a7riv a7rv sharpness contrast vignetting cookie pancake compact m10 leica m11 m10r rangefinder
Leica M10 | Solinon 18mm 5.6 Asph | f/5.6 | Ai Denoise
18mm 5.6 solinon calvin hong kong asph review architecture 42mp 61mp sony a7riv a7rv sharpness contrast vignetting cookie pancake compact m10 leica m11 m10r rangefinder
Leica M10 | Solinon 18mm 5.6 Asph | f/8.0
18mm 5.6 solinon calvin hong kong asph review architecture 42mp 61mp sony a7riv a7rv sharpness contrast vignetting cookie pancake compact m10 leica m11 m10r rangefinder
Leica M10 | Solinon 18mm 5.6 Asph | f/5.6
18mm 5.6 solinon calvin hong kong asph review architecture 42mp 61mp sony a7riv a7rv sharpness contrast vignetting cookie pancake compact m10 leica m11 m10r rangefinder
Leica M10 | Solinon 18mm 5.6 Asph | f/5.6
18mm 5.6 solinon calvin hong kong asph review architecture 42mp 61mp sony a7riv a7rv sharpness contrast vignetting cookie pancake compact m10 leica m11 m10r rangefinder
Leica M10 | Solinon 18mm 5.6 Asph | f/5.6

Continue reading Review: Solinon 18mm 5.6 Asph

Guide to the best Portrait Lenses – Sony A7/A9/A1 series

We summarize our experience with all the native E-mount and a few legacy lenses in the 85-200mm bracket for the Sony A7/A9/A1 series to give you a compact and independent resource for choosing the best portrait lens for your needs.

We also have a general guide to FE-lenses, 9-18mm ultra wide angle lenses, guide to 20-28mm wide angle lenses, 35mm lenses, 50mm lenses and macro lenses.

Unlike most other review sites we have no association with any lens manufacturer apart from occasionally loaning a lens for a review. No fancy trips and 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 we have left any question unanswered please leave a comment or contact us on social media and we will do our best to answer it.

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

Last update: March 2025, several lenses added, cleaned up

Continue reading Guide to the best Portrait Lenses – Sony A7/A9/A1 series

Review: TTArtisan AF 35mm f/1.8 ED II (APS-C)

Introduction

It has been about a year since TTArtisan introduced the AF 35mm f/1.8, and now it’s time to release version 2 of that lens. I liked the first version when I reviewed it and enjoyed taking pictures with it. They have tried to improve the lens since last year and therefore we can see a couple of changes, but have they succeeded?

camera-icon2I tested this lens on a 21.5 Mp Nikon Zfc.
You can see this review as a YouTube video here!
Sample images in high resolution here.

Sample Images

Nikon Zfc | TTArtisan AF 35mm F/1.8 ED II | f/1.8
Nikon Zfc | TTArtisan AF 35mm F/1.8 ED II | f/1.8
Nikon Zfc | TTArtisan AF 35mm F/1.8 ED II | f/2.8
Nikon Zfc | TTArtisan AF 35mm F/1.8 ED II | f/8

Continue reading Review: TTArtisan AF 35mm f/1.8 ED II (APS-C)

Review: Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM MK II – A worthy Update?

Introduction

sony fe 85mm 1.4 gm mk ii 2 mark bokeh master sony 42mp 61mp a7rii a7riv a7riii a1 a9iii a7rv review resolution sharpness contrast bokeh vignetting coma astrophotography z6 z7 z8 z9
Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM II on Sony A7rIi

The Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM is my favorite portrait lens out of the almost 300 lenses I have used so far. Being one of the first GM lenses, it features a comparably slow autofocus and some of the recent competitors offer higher contrast and resolution at f/1.4, so Sony decided to update this lens. Does it still have the bokeh qualities of the first generation 85mm 1.4 while making it smaller and sharper? Let’s find out in this review.

Sample Images

sony fe 85mm 1.4 gm mk ii 2 mark bokeh master sony 42mp 61mp a7rii a7riv a7riii a1 a9iii a7rv review resolution sharpness contrast bokeh vignetting coma astrophotography z6 z7 z8 z9
Nikon Zf | Megadap ETZ21Pro | Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM II | f/1.4 | Ai Denoise
sony fe 85mm 1.4 gm mk ii 2 mark bokeh master sony 42mp 61mp a7rii a7riv a7riii a1 a9iii a7rv review resolution sharpness contrast bokeh vignetting coma astrophotography z6 z7 z8 z9
Nikon Zf | Megadap ETZ21Pro | Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM II | f/1.4 | Ai Denoise
sony fe 85mm 1.4 gm mk ii 2 mark bokeh master sony 42mp 61mp a7rii a7riv a7riii a1 a9iii a7rv review resolution sharpness contrast bokeh vignetting coma astrophotography z6 z7 z8 z9
Sony A7III | Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM II | f/1.4
sony fe 85mm 1.4 gm mk ii 2 mark bokeh master sony 42mp 61mp a7rii a7riv a7riii a1 a9iii a7rv review resolution sharpness contrast bokeh vignetting coma astrophotography z6 z7 z8 z9
Nikon Zf | Megadap ETZ21Pro | Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM II | f/1.4
sony fe 85mm 1.4 gm mk ii 2 mark bokeh master sony 42mp 61mp a7rii a7riv a7riii a1 a9iii a7rv review resolution sharpness contrast bokeh vignetting coma astrophotography z6 z7 z8 z9
Nikon Zf | Megadap ETZ21Pro | Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM II | f/1.4
sony fe 85mm 1.4 gm mk ii 2 mark bokeh master sony 42mp 61mp a7rii a7riv a7riii a1 a9iii a7rv review resolution sharpness contrast bokeh vignetting coma astrophotography z6 z7 z8 z9
Nikon Zf | Megadap ETZ21Pro | Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM II | f/1.4 | Ai Denoise

Continue reading Review: Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM MK II – A worthy Update?

Guide to wide-angle lenses for Sony A7/A9/A1 series

Sony A7rII | Zeiss Loxia 21mm 2.8 | f/8.0

We summarize our experience with all the native E-mount and a few manual legacy lenses in the 20-28mm bracket to give you a compact and independent resource for choosing the right wide-angle lens for your Sony A7/A9/A1 camera. In this summary we also included some adapted lenses we think are worth mentioning. We didn’t include any zoom lenses, you can find those in our general guide to FE lenses as well as the guide to 9-18mm ultra wide angle lenses.

You may also want to check out our guides to 35mm lenses, 50mm lenses and 85-200mm portrait lenses.

Some of these lenses are manual focus only (MF) whereas others feature auto focus (AF). There is also a noticeable amount of lenses listed here that do not feature electronic contacts to communicate with the camera (no Exif).

We have no association with any 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 on the 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 or contact us on social media and we will do our best to answer it.

Last update: March 2025, Voigtländer 28mm 1.5E Nokton, Viltrox 28mm 4.5 AF added

Continue reading Guide to wide-angle lenses for Sony A7/A9/A1 series

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