My Sony A7II and 55 1.8 Experience by Simi Tometi

June 23, 2015 Featured, follow ups, Guest Post, Sony, User Reports 22

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My Sony A7II and 55 1.8 Experience

by Simi Tometi

Hello Steve, Brandon, and fellow site readers. My name is Simi Tometi, and I am a biochemistry student from Dallas, Texas. School usually keeps me busy(and broke) for the most part but whenever I do have some spare time I indulge in photography.

I recently sold my RX1(with the external EVF), to fund the purchase of a refurbished Sony A7II with a FE 55mm f/1.8 lens. Due to the simple fact that I’ve only shot with the 55mm a handful of times, I must admit don’t I feel qualified enough to provide a full comprehensive review. With that being said my initial thoughts regarding this lens are primarily positive.

 

From a purely aesthetic standpoint, Sony ZA lenses are by far my favorite with their remarkable matte black finish, metal focus rings, and conspicuous zen blue Zeiss badges. As expected the 55mm continues the holistic tradition with its gorgeous utilitarian build, whilst being only a few millimeters longer than the Canon 50mm f/1.8 II.

 

In regards to image quality there isn’t much I can say that hasn’t already been said by countless more reputable sources. This lens is just flat out outstanding. DxOMark(the industry leader in comprehensive image quality evaluation) has it rated as the sharpest lens in current production, besting both the OTUS 55mm($4000) & 85mm($4500).

As for focus speed and accuracy, I generally shoot this lens wide open yet it always hits its mark, but admittedly it isn’t the fastest.

My sole grievance with this lens has to be its price. Though it yields industry-leading performance, I often find myself asking if it was worth its initial price tag of $1000. This is likely due to the fact that it’s my least utilized lens. Having said that I don’t mean to deter anyone from purchasing this phenomenal piece of glass, it’s just that for my style of shooting I sometimes feel as that my money would have been better spent on the FE 35mm f/2.8 or FE 16-35mm f/4. Anyway, thank you for reading this and I hope you enjoy the photos✌.

*All photos were shot in RAW and proceeded using Adobe Lightroom 5 with VSCO Film

*All photos were shot in RAW and processed using Adobe Lightroom 5 with VSCO Film 06*

Tumblr: http://justsimiphoto.tumblr.com/

Instagram: https://instagram.com/justsimi/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simi.tometi

My Sony RX1 review: http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2015/01/23/6-months-with-the-sony-rx1-by-simi-tometi/

 

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22 Comments

  1. “Well, it’s better than $4500 Otuses but I’m not so sure its worth $1000″…. uhhh ok.

  2. That VSCO filter makes your full-frame shots look like smartphone snaps (aside from DOF, of course).

  3. VSCO ain’t a good thing to use when demo’ing a camera and lens quality.
    Maybe for ‘photography as art’ purposes but not IQ.

  4. Some great shots here love the one of the graffiti artist but that said I’m not a great fan of the 55 1.8 for myself had one find it to clinical looking not much of a vibe even wide open

  6. Nice setup enjoy the 50 I use to use 2 50s with colour film in one body & bw in the other canon 1.4 fd got some great shots. I now have a 35L & 85L but do miss the fitty go with it great waist up portrait option

    • If I hadn’t seen the comment toward the end I would have assumed these had been processed with some kind of filter plug-in, or there was something terribly wrong with the camera!

      I completely agree it makes the files look very flat and lacking in contrast (“bite”). They are nice photos, but personally I think the post processing doesn’t really add much to them. I actually don’t see the point of using a very expensive camera or a very high resolution lens, and then apply filters that make the results look like something taken with a phone-camera.

      I appreciate not everyone likes the “look” of digital, which is why some people prefer to use film. However, from a cultural/anthropological standpoint, I’m not sure I understand the need to give photos imperfections so they look like pictures taken decades ago. It’s as if we can’t accept “atmosphere” or emotion in pictures without lots of technical “faults”.

      This could be an entirely different debate unrelated to your photos. I think the photos are pretty good, and the post-processing is nowhere near the worst I have seen, it’s just these examples made me think about it today.

  8. Even if I was wealthy I wouldn’t pay $1,000 bucks for a 55 mm lens. That’s just insane

  9. I have both the 55mm and the 2.8 35mm. The later is my favorite. It is a wonderful mate to the A7r body in terms of size and balance, and produces amazing images both in sharpness and in color saturation and presence. Since the 2.8 is half the price of the 55mm, it represents a much better value and, in my opinion, a much better every day general purpose lens. But it is nice to have both!

  12. Nice pics, thanks! The 1.8/55mm might be close to Otus’ sharpness but never ever is it a better lens. Test an Otus and you will immediately see obvious differences: the 1.8/55mm is sterile ant the Otus captures reality as it is.

  14. Nice review and photos! But a factoid check: The Sony is 70.5mm long; the Canon 40.6mm. That’s not a “few millimeters” longer. It’s actually quite a bit longer, 1.74 times.

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