New Sony Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 24mm f/1.8 E-mount lens

The new Sony Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 24mm f/1.8 E-mount lens has just arrived on the shores of Malaysia and I managed to loan a unit from our favorite Sony Alpha Pro-shop, Studio Zaloon for a quick test run with it.  Price at SRP RM3799 this beast is definitely going burn a big hole in your pocket! Nearly twice the price of a NEX-C3 with 18-55mm E-mount lens.


Paring this with NEX-5N, the size and feel of this small beast is just quite right in the hands.  This len comes directly from Japan is solid metal built and matte metallic black finish.  It comes with a high quality plastic hood and lens pouch.  The front part of the lens has grove to hold the lens hood and the back element rather deep inside the lens.  The silent motor focusing on the lens is quick and good for movies recording.  Surprising the black beauty has no OSS or Optical Steady Shot, built into the lens. Why?  I also don’t have the answer.  As with most E-mount lens, this one uses 49mm filters also.


Some product shot taken with NEX-5N and SAL35F18 with ambient light.







Lets look at the pictures, all taken with NEX-5N on tripod, spot focus at ISO 100, 0 EV, AWB, JPEG Fine and Aperture priority and just resize in Lightroom.

f/1.8 | 1/500s | ISO 100 | 0 EV | AWB



Centre
(Full resolution picture link here)


Corner
(Full resolution picture link here)

f/2.8 | 1/200s | ISO 100 | 0 EV | AWB



Centre
(Full resolution picture link here)


Corner
(Full resolution picture link here)


f/5.6 | 1/50s | ISO 100 | 0 EV | AWB



Centre
(Full resolution picture link here)


Corner
(Full resolution picture link here)

At open wide f/1.8, the center sharpness look kind a bit soft with some smudges and purple fringing at the corner frame on high contrast area if view at pixel peep.  Stop down to f/2.8, the centre sharpness improved but there is slightly notable purple fringing but at f/5.6 this disappear completely.  Well at f/1.8 the lens is still holds a lot of details judging from this picture i.e. not all are lost (no pixel peeping ok!).






A quick measure the minimum focusing distance is around 6.5” inch.  At f/1.8 is DOF of shallow giving me nice smooth blur from the centre to the side. 


Bokeh at f/1.8 is smooth but sometimes exhibits ring around the highlights.






Has some kind of weird barrel distortion, which looks more like pincushion, but appear vertically.





Thanks to Uncle Chin from Studio Zaloon to allow me borrow the lens for a day for my limited opinion on it.  Although this new Sony Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 24mm f1/8 is pricey with no OSS but it is small, light, pocket-able with great build quality.  It does produced superb image quality both resolution and contrast as expected from a Zeiss optics.