We have been testing the Sony Zeiss Distagon T* FE 35MM F1.4 lens for the last day and have our first sample images that show off the excellent optical characteristics of the lens.
Our overall impression is that the lens is a spectacular tool for the pro photographer, with stunning resolution, great color fidelity and fast focus. This lens is going to end up being one of the must-have lenses for the Sony a7 shooter, and one of the defining lenses for this system.
Our first tests have been with the Sony a7R to take advantage of the36MP sensor resolution on the a7R, which can quickly reveal issues with lenses. The next tests (largely for focus speed and performance) will be on the Sony A7II.
The only negative characteristic we’ve noticed is that there’s a bit of pink and green fringing on the edges of high contrast areas at the widest apertures. That’s not to say the lens is defective, fringing at high contrast areas is common for wide-aperture lenses and the amount of finding exhibited by the Sony Distagon T* FE35MM F1.4 lens is much less pronounced than other similar lenses.
The images below are scaled-down JPEG files exported from Lightroom. We captured in RAW in order to get the most from the lens. While the first aperture tests we posted were at full resolution, we’ve scaled these down to make sure they load faster. We will be posting a gallery of images in Sony’s RAW file to download shortly.
We’ve verified that the smaller JPEGs look like the RAW files, but keep in mind some detail is lost in the resizing process eliminates some detail.
| Sony SEL35F14Z Distagon T FE 35mm f/1.4 ZA | Amazon U.S. | B&H U.S. |
| Sony 24-240mm f/3.5-6.3 OSS FE | Amazon U.S. | B&H U.S. |
| Sony 90mm Macro G OSS f/2.8 FE | Amazon U.S. | B&H U.S. |
| Sony 28mm f/2.0 FE | Amazon U.S. | B&H U.S. |