Sony has come out with a new 'E' 18-135mm F/3.5-5.6 OSS APS-C $599 lens, the first one since 2013 if you don't count the 18-110 OSS F/4 video lens. Additionally, if you've been pining for a silver A6300, your wait is over. I'm not sure if Sony has set aside any development resources for more APS-C cameras and lenses, your guess is as good as mine.
The new Sony 'E' 18-135mm lens looks like it may perform quite good judging by the Sony MTF graph, and least in resolution and contrast. The optical configuration is 16 elements in 12 groups, with one aspheric and two 'ED' and elements. It has a linear focusing motor, and optical stabilization. I'll be reviewing the lens in the coming months.
Howdy folks, the first real post of of 2018 is ready, and I hope you'll enjoy it, even if you can't afford it. I'm working on the comparison between this lens and the smaller 24-70mm F/4 version; that should be ready in a few days.
The Sony FE 24-70mm F/2.8 GM is a superb lens, the best zoom lens Sony has ever put out, and I've reviewed almost all Sony lenses going back to the Konica Minolta days before Sony bought them. Impressive qualities include low light fall-off at all focal lengths, flare and ghosting are minimal, especially at wide apertures, color fringing is well controlled overall; build quality is excellent, although it is a large and heavy lens, but that's typical of other manufacturers similar lenses. If you are looking for a smaller lens with the same focal range, check out the...
Just a quick post to broadcast my thoughts on the two websites for 2017, including most popular posts, viewers, and direction.
First off, thanks to all the visitors for checking out my 'new' site photojottings. It's been around since 2012 in an abbreviated way, but I've been pretty serious about it in 2017, and spent a ton of money transferring all the old material from kurtmunger.com to here. My intention is to keep the old site up for a couple more years, then give it a proper burial, hopefully before web.com pulls the plug on the old trellix sitebuilder and the whole site gets trashed instantly, that's my fear and reason for transferring the old stuff here.
Kurtmunger.com. I haven't updated my old site with anything meaningful in almost three years, (3/14 last lens review); however, the site still gets nearly 109,000 visits per month, and almost 200k page views. Top five posts include the dirty lens article, two 'E' mount charts, lens price guide, and the Kodak Brownie review, all of them done about 5-10 years ago. I'm in the process of updating all the old reviews that have been transferred to photojottings, so always check here for the most current info.
Photojottings. I didn't post very many new reviews in 2017, but I did get rolling in September by adding two posts a week on average, and have kept that up, however, I'd like to pick that up a bit to three posts a week soon. My goal is to do about two full reviews a month, probably a combination of new FE lenses, film cameras and some gear related articles, along with updates and site changes and/or additions. The top five posts include: Fuji GWS690III review, a film camera, and ironically the most popular page on the site, then 'all lens reviews' page. Third is the Rokinon 12mm F/2 review, fourth is the Sony 28-70mm F/3.5-5.6 review, and the fifth most popular post is the Sony Zeiss quick comparison. Rounding out the top ten include the Kodak Funsaver disposable camera review, the Sony 55/1.8 and Sigma 30/1.4 review, the complete lens guide page and Sony 24-70/4 review.
I use a lot of film each year, in 2017 I shot almost 40 rolls of film, and went through a 25 sheet box of Ilford 8x10 film...
Here are more comparison crops for you to check out, this time it's between the Sony 24-70mm F/2.8 GM, and the Sony Zeiss 35mm F/2.8; which is a good little lens (reviewed here), but is it as sharp as a zoom lens? If you aren't interested in reading the whole post, I'll save you some time; the zoom is sharper for the most part all the way around! Read more...
Merry Christmas from Photojottings! I’ll be spending time here in Tucson, AZ with family.
Over the holidays, I’ll be getting some more comps ready, the next one will be between the Sony 24-70/2.8 GM, and the Sony Zeiss 35/2.8, then a couple of others before the new year.
or, for our Western audience, Hi Honey, I’ll be home for Christmas…just not this Christmas.
Today’s Kodachrome slide entry was taken in war torn Korea around Christmas of 1952. The subject is a Korean Radio Tech making a call on a Voice Terminal Bay at a Chonan (later spelled Cheonon) repeater station; I actually don’t know what he’s saying here, …
I thought I’d compare these two lenses just for kicks. Of course the Sony 24-70mm F/2.8 GM is a zoom, and a very good one at that, however, I wasn’t expecting miracles from it, especially since the 55mm F/1.8 is a great prime lens (reviewed here). So do you wonder how they might compare directly in a landscape …
Here are some test image sets from the Sony FE 24-70mm F/2.8 GM. There are five full size images at each marked focal length; 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 70mm; from F/2.8 to F/11. The test scene is similar to what you see in the image above, at each focal length. Sony A7R used for review.
I'll make some crops from the centers, mid-sections, and corners and put them side by side as I've done in the past, but that will be included in the review.
So far, sharpness and contrast seem first rate, but there's more to a good lens than resolution, so we'll check the other features and qualities in the full review.
For right now, click the F/number links below for the full size image, and see what you think. All sets were taken using the same shutter speed for each aperture setting and each focal length. Images are Jpegs with no adjustments made, in-camera or otherwise...
