Twisted

Tangled │ NEX-7 + Carl Zeiss Biogon T* 35mm F2.0 ZM │ 35mm F5.6 1/80s ISO100The weather was pretty good today and I stopped in a park to take photos of some spring flowers that had caught my attention. Now I wouldn't normally admit to taking kitschy photos of little flowers and I certainly won't post them here. Neither the flowers nor the photos of them were all that remarkable anyway. But what is remarkable is the fact that there are flowers in what's still January! For those of you not familiar with this part of the world, that's pretty unusual. You can see that the tree growing above the flowers had no illusions as to what time of the year it was.

Entangled │ NEX-7 + Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* E24mm F1.8 ZA │ 24mm F4.0 1/100s ISO100

Comments

[Cxspark]

Hi Björn,
funny that the picture from the Biogon seems to show a wider vie than with the 24.
Since you can compare both lenses, can you please tell me which do you prefer (and why :-) )?

[Björn Utpott]

See, if you leave out the context the Biogon will seem wider and you don't need both lenses ;-)
It's a tough question you ask. I like both lenses a lot because they complement each other well. The Sonnar is wider and more encompassing; the Biogon narrower and more intimate. A major difference is each lens' minimum focus distance: The 24mm lens' close focus is almost in macro territory, focusing as close as 15cm from the sensor. That's very useful and makes the lens very versatile. With the 35mm lens you need to be at least 70cm away from your subject.

Due to the different focal lengths, I haven't compared how sharp the lenses are. Looking at a lot of photos, I would say that the 24mm lens is overall better wide open at F1.8. Corner sharpness drops off very gradually and is hardly noticeable. The 35mm lens struggles a bit more in the corners. Stopping the lenses down, the 35mm lens pulls ahead slightly in terms of its ability to render fine detail. The 24mm is very good but the 35mm can show amazing amounts of detail.

With the Biogon you also have to deal with a magenta cast that is sometimes visible, especially at F2.0 and F2.8. You'll need to correct those images using CornerFix.

Both lenses render images with a lot of character and good contrast and colors with he Biogon being a little warmer. If I could only have one, I would base my choice on which focal length I shot at most. In my case that would be the 24mm lens. If I have both with me, I tend to use them about evenly. But when I leave the house with only one lens, it's usually the 24mm. For me that's a more versatile focal length if I'm not sure what I'm going to encounter.