Anyone buying a lens with F1.4 will also be interested in how much light really reaches the sensor, i.e. the transmission values of the lens. This differs from lens to lens and is not only determined by F1.4. Transmission should not be forgotten when comparing lenses with F1.4, for me especially the comparison with lenses from Sigma.
tplink
December 12, 2023 3:50 pm
Nice review! It will be much clearer if you state the camera/adaptor you used for test in every review. From another comments I know you are using Sony a7riii A, canon r5, and Nikon Z7 for the corresponding brands. But not all the readers can find it. It could be misleading as you marked A7r v for sample images.
Thanks! I lab tested it on the a7R IIIA, and the same is true of all our Sony lens reviews to ensure fully comparable numbers. I field tested it on the a7R V.
Gabor Negyesi
November 20, 2023 12:08 am
Dear Spencer,
Thank you for the detailed review. Do you plan to test other Sony lenses as well in the near future? For example the 12-24gm, 24-70gm ii, 70-200gm ii? There are less and less lens reviews available nowadays, and cross platform comparisons are practically non-existent. Your site is one of those few exceptions.
Absolutely – I’m planning to test all those lenses and more. It won’t happen overnight, but our Sony (and Canon) lens reviews will eventually encompass the company’s entire lens lineup. For now I’m reviewing one lens per week, but will be escalating the pace starting in January.
Dmitry
November 16, 2023 12:26 am
I look at the sharpness on the most interesting values of the aperture. Z 24 f/8 – 2443 f/11 – 2081 f/16 – 1593 24 GM f/8 – 2028 f/11 – 1799 f/16 – 1443 And if I use an open aperture, then the object is usually closer to the center or in the center and there is enough sharpness for everything, and the main problem is usually loss of sharpness due to insufficient depth of field.
We are talking about Sony FE 24mm f/1.4 GM and you are babbling about f8 and f16 ?????? Buy ANY CHEAP LENS and use it with those appertures and it will do just fine. Sometimes is just better to NOT COMMENT at all!
Great question, I’ll add that to the list of lenses to review!
Pekka Parviainen
November 15, 2023 12:34 pm
Hi,
enjoy all lens tests and own testing with emphasis on starry sky. It seems to be very poorly known that Sigma has a superlative in this respect: Art 28/1.4. After checking Art 24/1.4 it was most obvious that it is NO good in astro (coma coma…) and on the other hand 28/1.4 beats all wide angles I have ever tested. It is performs amazingly for night sky. Another superly amazing lens (in semi wide ange category) is Sigma’s Art 40/1.4 which is a major leap better than Art 35/1.4, which has a reasonable reputation in astro.
Those are great suggestions, thanks! I second your recommendation for the 40mm f/1.4 Art – one of the best lenses I’ve ever tested.
Rainer Plett
November 15, 2023 7:46 am
If you compare the Sony FE 24mm f/1.4 GM with the Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S at 24 mm focal length, the weaknesses of the Sony become apparent. The Nikon is significantly sharper in the corners from f/8 to f/16. The Nikon has visibly lower chromatic aberrations. In addition, the Nikon has slightly less vignetting from aperture 8, making it much more versatile for landscape photography or reportage and with better results.
For other people reading this comment, here are our two sharpness charts from both lenses for context. I agree with you regarding vignetting, but your sharpness conclusions are ignoring the areas where the Sony 24mm f/1.4 GM is ahead:
It’s not a Nikon vs Sony thing, it’s more of a zoom vs prime thing – the prime will usually win. That said, the Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S is one of the best, if not *the* best, zoom that we’ve ever tested at 24mm and the comparison above could go either way depending on your priorities.
Thanks for your advice, Spencer! I just look at the performance of lenses differently. The sharpness of a lens in the center of the image is of secondary importance to me, especially if the sharpness drops off sharply towards the corners. This is the case with the Sony FE 24mm f/1.4 GM. Especially at aperture 8, I want the best compromise between homogeneous resolution across the entire image field and depth of field. The Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S has the edge here. And at f/11, another Nikon lens, the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8, is even visibly sharper at 24 mm in the image corners. So the Sony FE 24mm f/1.4 GM can only be described as a special lens with high speed and extremely high sharpness in the center of the image and in the APSC image circle, but it is not a universally recommended lens.
Sure thing. I’m in the same boat as you for landscape photography. I prefer more uniform performance rather than maximum central sharpness. Although, at f/11 and f/16 that I tend to use for landscapes, most lenses perform very similarly.
Pieter Kers
November 15, 2023 3:27 am
How do these sony lenses work on a Nikon Body? In some ways the Sony lenses are ahead of Nikon…especially wide open. I am still waiting for a stellar 24mm . If it does not come soon i will have to try stuf from Sony. The 24mm Nikkor S 1.8 was only mechanically better than the ‘old’ 24mm 1.8 G lens- since then i only see more and more telelenses coming.
Not super well – at least the ones I’ve tested so far, which have been 50mm and wider. Maybe a telephoto would be different.
In my experience, adapting a lens from Sony to Nikon doesn’t harm central sharpness, but midframes and especially corners get a lot weaker. It’s not fully solved just by stopping down. For landscapes or any time when corner sharpness is important, I wouldn’t recommend it. Autofocus was surprisingly good on the Megadap adapter I used, but still not at the level of a native lens.
At this point, I can really only recommend it for a portrait lens where corner sharpness isn’t important.
Maybe the coverglass thickness of Sony differs from Nikon… anyway a real pity Sigma glass is not available for Z. Some of my best F-bajonet lenses are from Sigma… also Fuji-GF lenses on a Z body would be nice , but i guess the focus by wire is limiting this option, as is the electronic aperture. Anyway no adapter is made as far as i know.
Now that you mention this, I think it’d be great to see an article about using Sony lenses on a Nikon Z body with the Megadap. I myself use that adaptor, and it’s the main decisive factor why I switched back to Nikon. Love the ergonomics and ease of use of Nikon compared to Sony cameras, but the Sony lenses were such a joy to use compared to the Z lenses (because of the weight savings mostly and the 1.4 capabilities). I use the 24 1.4 GM on my Z6 and I hadn’t noticed the quality decline in the corners, but then again I don’t have professional means to test it. It’d be great to see an article from you guys reviewing that and warning of the caveats of using adaptors with proper data and sample images to back it up (obviously comments on Reddit didn’t mention this haha).
However, all glory to the megadap anyways! I’m the happiest kid in town being able to use the Sigma 85mm 1.4 DG DN and the 24mm GM on a Nikon body… a dream come true!
Feel free to share it! I’d be interested in an astro sample especially.
In my lab testing, I saw about a 20% loss in corner sharpness at every aperture (as measured in line widths per picture height at MTF 50) when the same lens was adapted to the Z system, compared to use on a native Sony camera. This will most likely vary by lens. So “acceptably well” is true, especially if the lens starts off strong, but that doesn’t mean it’s optimal.
Google Drive or Dropbox is probably the easiest. If you don’t want to do it on yours, I can email you and have you send it to me to upload to my Google Drive.
Yes, please, Spencer. You can use the email linked to this comment.
Abomb
November 14, 2023 2:36 pm
Jealous of the coma performance on this Sony lens in comparison to the Nikon Z 24mm. The latter is leagues above the last F mount version on coma, but it’s still there up to f2.8 on my Z copy. 24mm is my favorite focal length for milky way photos
I like the 24mm Milky Way perspective a lot, too – and just in general. It’s probably my favorite focal length.
The Nikon Z 24mm f/1.8 S has reasonably good coma performance, but it’s not perfect. If you don’t mind f/2.8 and the higher price, the Nikon Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S has essentially zero coma.
Just in case you’re getting the urge, I recommend against adapting this Sony lens to your Nikon system. Corner performance takes a significant hit when using adapters on wide-angle mirrorless lenses.
I do own the 14-24mm. Great lens overall! I’ll double check mine, but I believe while it has no coma at 14mm it has worse coma than my 24mm Z prime at 24mm. Corner sharpness is worse too at 24mm. I want to recall that’s what several other online reviews show as well. Otherwise I probably would have assumed I had a bad copy and would have sent it back. This is all somewhat nitpicky anyway since I shrunk stars in post processing.
Worth checking again, at least. I don’t remember if I tested coma at 24mm with that lens, or only at 14mm, where it was really incredible. Although 24mm is the Z 14-24mm’s weakest focal length, so you’re probably remembering right.
I own the 14-24 mm f/2.8 Nikkor Z lens, and yes, I can confirm that stellar aberrations are bad at 24 mm f/2.8. I use this lens at or close to 14 mm f/2.8 for Milky Way photography. The Sony 12-24 mm f/2.8 GM, which I also own, is much better, being usable across the entire focal length range, and is my go-to lens for versatility of use in Milky Way photography. It is more expensive, but worth it.
Seems Nikon focused on optimizing for other things (focus breathing, etc.) where Sonys design may have focused in others including coma. Not sure if these are direct tradeoffs or competing aspects of lens design but I’d rather have no coma myself if I could pick. Sonys lenses seem to perform very well and in a smaller/lighter package. At least at the wide end I’m not sure how much of an advantage we’re seeing with the wider Z mount, but maybe things will improve when we get new designs somewhere a long way down the road.
Sam
November 14, 2023 1:37 pm
I am curious on how this compares with the Nikkor Z 24 mm f/1.8 (though of course, it is a f/1.4) in terms of lens aberrations and sharpness. I don’t think Nikon plans to come up with a 24 mm f/1.4 or (since they seem to be releasing a lot of f/1.2 primes) a 24 mm f/1.2
Pete’s right, all of our reviews and MTF tests are comparable across brands.
In this case, the Sony 24mm f/1.4 is sharper at the wider apertures in both the center and the corners. As you stop down to f/4 and narrower, central performance is very comparable, while corner performance favors the Nikon by a modest margin.
Comparability of your MTF tests, this is what I wanted to know. I own Tamron 100-400 for Nikon F and am interested in Nikon Z 100-400. Are your tests of these two lenses comparable? You tested Tamron obviously on 18Mpx Canon 1D X and Nikon on 45Mpx Z7 (?). MTF numbers of Tamron are somewhat lower, but not much. I don’t know what to take from that.
I wonder if you’re thinking of a different website because we didn’t test the Tamron 100-400mm on a Canon 1DX, in fact we tested it in the lab on the Nikon Z7 and you can see the results here: photographylife.com/revie…f4-5-6-3/2
The Nikon Z lens is clearly sharper. Not that the Tamron is terrible. All Photography Life lens reviews have fully comparable MTF testing data, even across brands!
Thank You, I was not sure with 1D X, I put “(?)” in bad place behind Z7, sorry. But I still wonder whether you could mention somewhere in review, what camera was used for testing of lens’ optical features? Or do You think, it doesn’t matter? Testing on camera with 36 Mpx will result in lower numbers in sharpness test, than camera with 45 Mpx, doesn’t it?
Hi Michna, I apologize – I forgot that Dvir used that lens on the 1DX some in the field. I can assure you that in the lab, we tested it on the 45 MP Nikon Z7.
We don’t test on a 36MP camera any more. A small number of our old lens reviews were on a 36MP camera (you can tell, because they look totally different). 100% of the test charts with our modern graphic design are tested on 45 megapixel cameras, normalized across brands, and are fully comparable to each other.
Thank you for the informative test.
Anyone buying a lens with F1.4 will also be interested in how much light really reaches the sensor, i.e. the transmission values of the lens. This differs from lens to lens and is not only determined by F1.4. Transmission should not be forgotten when comparing lenses with F1.4, for me especially the comparison with lenses from Sigma.
Nice review! It will be much clearer if you state the camera/adaptor you used for test in every review. From another comments I know you are using Sony a7riii A, canon r5, and Nikon Z7 for the corresponding brands. But not all the readers can find it. It could be misleading as you marked A7r v for sample images.
Thanks! I lab tested it on the a7R IIIA, and the same is true of all our Sony lens reviews to ensure fully comparable numbers. I field tested it on the a7R V.
Dear Spencer,
Thank you for the detailed review. Do you plan to test other Sony lenses as well in the near future? For example the 12-24gm, 24-70gm ii, 70-200gm ii? There are less and less lens reviews available nowadays, and cross platform comparisons are practically non-existent. Your site is one of those few exceptions.
Gabor
Absolutely – I’m planning to test all those lenses and more. It won’t happen overnight, but our Sony (and Canon) lens reviews will eventually encompass the company’s entire lens lineup. For now I’m reviewing one lens per week, but will be escalating the pace starting in January.
I look at the sharpness on the most interesting values of the aperture.
Z 24
f/8 – 2443
f/11 – 2081
f/16 – 1593
24 GM
f/8 – 2028
f/11 – 1799
f/16 – 1443
And if I use an open aperture, then the object is usually closer to the center or in the center and there is enough sharpness for everything, and the main problem is usually loss of sharpness due to insufficient depth of field.
We are talking about Sony FE 24mm f/1.4 GM and you are babbling about f8 and f16 ?????? Buy ANY CHEAP LENS and use it with those appertures and it will do just fine. Sometimes is just better to NOT COMMENT at all!
In the beginning, I will remind you the numbers Z 24mm 1.8
f/8 – 2443
f/11 – 2081
f/16 – 1593
I was looking for cheap glasses.
Nikon Z 24-50mm f/4-6.3
f/8 – 1863 (lag) – 580
f/11 – 1788 (lag) – 293
f/16 – 1506 (lag) – 87
Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5G VR
f/8 – 1232 (lag) – 1211! Almost twice!
f/11 – 1333 (lag) – 748
f/16 – 1236 (lag) – 357
Nikon 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5D
f/8 – 1093 (lag) – 1350! More than twice!
f/11 – 1558 (lag) – 523
f/16 – 1558 (lag) – 35
Tamron SP 24-70mm f/2.8 VC
f/8 – 1772 (lag) – 671
f/11 – 1586 (lag) – 595
f/16 – 1571 (lag) – 22
Really sometimes it’s better to be silent)
People who don’t understand the topic should stay off the internet. Your comment is both ignorant and rude.
Thanks for the review. I wonder how the Zeiss Milvus 25mm f/1.4 would compare? It’s MF only but highly regarded.
Great question, I’ll add that to the list of lenses to review!
Hi,
enjoy all lens tests and own testing with emphasis on starry sky. It seems to be very poorly known that Sigma has a superlative in this respect: Art 28/1.4. After checking Art 24/1.4 it was most obvious that it is NO good in astro (coma coma…) and on the other hand 28/1.4 beats all wide angles I have ever tested. It is performs amazingly for night sky. Another superly amazing lens (in semi wide ange category) is Sigma’s Art 40/1.4 which is a major leap better than Art 35/1.4, which has a reasonable reputation in astro.
Pekka Parviainen
Those are great suggestions, thanks! I second your recommendation for the 40mm f/1.4 Art – one of the best lenses I’ve ever tested.
If you compare the Sony FE 24mm f/1.4 GM with the Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S at 24 mm focal length, the weaknesses of the Sony become apparent. The Nikon is significantly sharper in the corners from f/8 to f/16. The Nikon has visibly lower chromatic aberrations. In addition, the Nikon has slightly less vignetting from aperture 8, making it much more versatile for landscape photography or reportage and with better results.
For other people reading this comment, here are our two sharpness charts from both lenses for context. I agree with you regarding vignetting, but your sharpness conclusions are ignoring the areas where the Sony 24mm f/1.4 GM is ahead:
It’s not a Nikon vs Sony thing, it’s more of a zoom vs prime thing – the prime will usually win. That said, the Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S is one of the best, if not *the* best, zoom that we’ve ever tested at 24mm and the comparison above could go either way depending on your priorities.
Thanks for your advice, Spencer! I just look at the performance of lenses differently. The sharpness of a lens in the center of the image is of secondary importance to me, especially if the sharpness drops off sharply towards the corners. This is the case with the Sony FE 24mm f/1.4 GM. Especially at aperture 8, I want the best compromise between homogeneous resolution across the entire image field and depth of field. The Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S has the edge here. And at f/11, another Nikon lens, the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8, is even visibly sharper at 24 mm in the image corners. So the Sony FE 24mm f/1.4 GM can only be described as a special lens with high speed and extremely high sharpness in the center of the image and in the APSC image circle, but it is not a universally recommended lens.
Sure thing. I’m in the same boat as you for landscape photography. I prefer more uniform performance rather than maximum central sharpness. Although, at f/11 and f/16 that I tend to use for landscapes, most lenses perform very similarly.
How do these sony lenses work on a Nikon Body? In some ways the Sony lenses are ahead of Nikon…especially wide open. I am still waiting for a stellar 24mm . If it does not come soon i will have to try stuf from Sony. The 24mm Nikkor S 1.8 was only mechanically better than the ‘old’ 24mm 1.8 G lens- since then i only see more and more telelenses coming.
Not super well – at least the ones I’ve tested so far, which have been 50mm and wider. Maybe a telephoto would be different.
In my experience, adapting a lens from Sony to Nikon doesn’t harm central sharpness, but midframes and especially corners get a lot weaker. It’s not fully solved just by stopping down. For landscapes or any time when corner sharpness is important, I wouldn’t recommend it. Autofocus was surprisingly good on the Megadap adapter I used, but still not at the level of a native lens.
At this point, I can really only recommend it for a portrait lens where corner sharpness isn’t important.
Maybe the coverglass thickness of Sony differs from Nikon…
anyway a real pity Sigma glass is not available for Z. Some of my best F-bajonet lenses are from Sigma… also Fuji-GF lenses on a Z body would be nice , but i guess the focus by wire is limiting this option, as is the electronic aperture. Anyway no adapter is made as far as i know.
Hi Spencer, thanks for all this info.
Now that you mention this, I think it’d be great to see an article about using Sony lenses on a Nikon Z body with the Megadap. I myself use that adaptor, and it’s the main decisive factor why I switched back to Nikon. Love the ergonomics and ease of use of Nikon compared to Sony cameras, but the Sony lenses were such a joy to use compared to the Z lenses (because of the weight savings mostly and the 1.4 capabilities). I use the 24 1.4 GM on my Z6 and I hadn’t noticed the quality decline in the corners, but then again I don’t have professional means to test it. It’d be great to see an article from you guys reviewing that and warning of the caveats of using adaptors with proper data and sample images to back it up (obviously comments on Reddit didn’t mention this haha).
However, all glory to the megadap anyways! I’m the happiest kid in town being able to use the Sigma 85mm 1.4 DG DN and the 24mm GM on a Nikon body… a dream come true!
I tested the 14 mm f/1.8 GM on a Z6 with the megadap etz21 adapter, and it works acceptably well. Happy to share a raw file if of interest.
Feel free to share it! I’d be interested in an astro sample especially.
In my lab testing, I saw about a 20% loss in corner sharpness at every aperture (as measured in line widths per picture height at MTF 50) when the same lens was adapted to the Z system, compared to use on a native Sony camera. This will most likely vary by lens. So “acceptably well” is true, especially if the lens starts off strong, but that doesn’t mean it’s optimal.
Can you provide a link to someplace I can upload a raw file?
Google Drive or Dropbox is probably the easiest. If you don’t want to do it on yours, I can email you and have you send it to me to upload to my Google Drive.
Yes, please, Spencer. You can use the email linked to this comment.
Jealous of the coma performance on this Sony lens in comparison to the Nikon Z 24mm. The latter is leagues above the last F mount version on coma, but it’s still there up to f2.8 on my Z copy. 24mm is my favorite focal length for milky way photos
I like the 24mm Milky Way perspective a lot, too – and just in general. It’s probably my favorite focal length.
The Nikon Z 24mm f/1.8 S has reasonably good coma performance, but it’s not perfect. If you don’t mind f/2.8 and the higher price, the Nikon Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S has essentially zero coma.
Just in case you’re getting the urge, I recommend against adapting this Sony lens to your Nikon system. Corner performance takes a significant hit when using adapters on wide-angle mirrorless lenses.
I do own the 14-24mm. Great lens overall! I’ll double check mine, but I believe while it has no coma at 14mm it has worse coma than my 24mm Z prime at 24mm. Corner sharpness is worse too at 24mm. I want to recall that’s what several other online reviews show as well. Otherwise I probably would have assumed I had a bad copy and would have sent it back. This is all somewhat nitpicky anyway since I shrunk stars in post processing.
Worth checking again, at least. I don’t remember if I tested coma at 24mm with that lens, or only at 14mm, where it was really incredible. Although 24mm is the Z 14-24mm’s weakest focal length, so you’re probably remembering right.
I own the 14-24 mm f/2.8 Nikkor Z lens, and yes, I can confirm that stellar aberrations are bad at 24 mm f/2.8. I use this lens at or close to 14 mm f/2.8 for Milky Way photography. The Sony 12-24 mm f/2.8 GM, which I also own, is much better, being usable across the entire focal length range, and is my go-to lens for versatility of use in Milky Way photography. It is more expensive, but worth it.
Seems Nikon focused on optimizing for other things (focus breathing, etc.) where Sonys design may have focused in others including coma. Not sure if these are direct tradeoffs or competing aspects of lens design but I’d rather have no coma myself if I could pick. Sonys lenses seem to perform very well and in a smaller/lighter package. At least at the wide end I’m not sure how much of an advantage we’re seeing with the wider Z mount, but maybe things will improve when we get new designs somewhere a long way down the road.
I am curious on how this compares with the Nikkor Z 24 mm f/1.8 (though of course, it is a f/1.4) in terms of lens aberrations and sharpness. I don’t think Nikon plans to come up with a 24 mm f/1.4 or (since they seem to be releasing a lot of f/1.2 primes) a 24 mm f/1.2
Hi Sam, See:
Nikon Z 24mm f/1.8 S Review, Optical Features by Nasim Mansurov
photographylife.com/revie…m-f1-8-s/3
Pete’s right, all of our reviews and MTF tests are comparable across brands.
In this case, the Sony 24mm f/1.4 is sharper at the wider apertures in both the center and the corners. As you stop down to f/4 and narrower, central performance is very comparable, while corner performance favors the Nikon by a modest margin.
Comparability of your MTF tests, this is what I wanted to know. I own Tamron 100-400 for Nikon F and am interested in Nikon Z 100-400. Are your tests of these two lenses comparable? You tested Tamron obviously on 18Mpx Canon 1D X and Nikon on 45Mpx Z7 (?). MTF numbers of Tamron are somewhat lower, but not much. I don’t know what to take from that.
I wonder if you’re thinking of a different website because we didn’t test the Tamron 100-400mm on a Canon 1DX, in fact we tested it in the lab on the Nikon Z7 and you can see the results here: photographylife.com/revie…f4-5-6-3/2
Compare that to our tests of the Nikon Z 100-400mm: photographylife.com/revie…5-6-vr-s/2
The Nikon Z lens is clearly sharper. Not that the Tamron is terrible. All Photography Life lens reviews have fully comparable MTF testing data, even across brands!
Thank You, I was not sure with 1D X, I put “(?)” in bad place behind Z7, sorry. But I still wonder whether you could mention somewhere in review, what camera was used for testing of lens’ optical features? Or do You think, it doesn’t matter? Testing on camera with 36 Mpx will result in lower numbers in sharpness test, than camera with 45 Mpx, doesn’t it?
Hi Michna, I apologize – I forgot that Dvir used that lens on the 1DX some in the field. I can assure you that in the lab, we tested it on the 45 MP Nikon Z7.
We don’t test on a 36MP camera any more. A small number of our old lens reviews were on a 36MP camera (you can tell, because they look totally different). 100% of the test charts with our modern graphic design are tested on 45 megapixel cameras, normalized across brands, and are fully comparable to each other.
Tamron 100-400mm f/4.5-6.3 Di VC USD Review by Dvir Barkay:
photographylife.com/revie…m-f4-5-6-3
Cameras used for the purpose of illustrating the article:
• Canon EOS-1D X
• Canon EOS R
• Nikon D780
“Images Copyright Dvir Barkay and Spencer Cox.”