A two week trip to the Australian outback finally came to fruition, the question was do I put up with the Metabones adapter and my Canon L Series 17-40mm on my Sony A7R, or take the plunge and buy a Zeiss? I chose the later.
When I first bought the Sony A7R and received a Metabones adapter for free which allowed me to retain some of my Canon glass, I was elated. But over time the extra weight and length that the combination of Canon glass and Metabones adapter add to the very light Sony A7R body, made the ‘system’ rather nose heavy.
To make matters worse, focus speed was not great, and on occasion there was a tendency to hunt a little, particularly in poor light. Combined with the weight issue, I decided the trip was worth the expense of the Zeiss lens.
From a handling point of view, while still a little nose heavy (518 grams) but it definitely felt better balanced, better than I had imagined in fact. But the best improvement was in focusing speed, this thing is very fast and in my time with it so far it has not hunted once. So all of my issues with the previous system have been addressed, so far so good.
On the two week trip out back i shot over 1150 images, and while I had two other lenses with me, they hardly saw any use. On such a trip I could have taken just the 16-35mm Zeiss and never regretted that decision. The focal range really is perfect for such a trip.
On a few occasions such as early evening as we tried to get some decent sunset images, I tried out the manual focus. The focus ring is extremely smooth, and the Sony A7R detects the movement of the focus ring and enlarges the rear display image to provide excellent focusing ability. The zoom ring, like the focus ring is smooth and certainly had a real work out on the trip.
Unfortunately I also tested out the lens’ durability…on one of the few occasions when I switched to another lens, I sat the Zeiss next to my camera bag, on the ground which was in fact the metal grille floor of the viewing podium at The Olgas. My travel companion walked over to where I was shooting and did not see the Zeiss on the ground and kicked it across the metal grille.
Using great restraint I picked up the lens to find three shiny bits of metal where once was black, as the kick managed to gouge three chunks of metal from the barrel. This was half way through the trip so a damaged lens was simply not an option, but thankfully the lens did not miss a beat, and has continued to perform flawlessly. Tough little lens!
Ultimately a lens will live or die by the results it provides, particularly one this expensive, so does it justify it’s price? In a word, absolutely! I sat in awe as I viewed the images on my iMac Retina display, with images that were incredibly sharp at all focal lengths. Image also show very little vignetting, extremely low chromatic aberration, and very rich colour.
The later point was made even more pronounced when I viewed images from the Sony 28-70mm G Series lens I used very briefly at one point during the trip. By comparison the colours looked very washed out and far less impressive when compared to the Zeiss.
In summing up the Zeiss 16-35mm, I can only compare it to the lens I have had in the past and that includes a Nikon 16-35mm and the Canon 17-40mm L Series. Without a doubt the Zeiss is superior in every way to both of those excellent lenses, the Nikon came close to the Zeiss in terms of colour and sharpness, but when I consider build quality, sharpness, the rich colours and flawless, fast focusing the Zeiss is simply in a class above the other two. Very highly recommended.
