I changed over to the Sony a7Rii camera from my Sony RX1. I was looking for a bit more variety in my photography than the fixed lens 35mm RX1 and the a7Rii looked like a perfect upgrade. Definitely not cheap, but I feel I will be very happy with my new toy. To help soften the blow to my wallet I sold my RX1, my Canon 60D and a few Canon lenses and a mostly unused fancy Canon flash. So now I am down to just the a7Rii and some new fancy lenses, a Canon S100 and my iPhone. The RX1 was/is a great camera and I know I will miss it's compact body and beautiful Zeiss Sonnar 35mm/2 lens... but I am looking forward to my new journey with the a7Rii.
Lenses. Ah, yes. I wanted a zoom that can get me really close to the action (for kids sports, and videos of concerts), as well as a very fast wide angle (between 24-35mm) for taking shots while out at night or just walking around town. Here is what I looked at:
- Sony FE 24-240mm ($1,000) - Reviews are ok... very convenient with a 10x range!
- Canon EF 28-135mm ($300 - I already owned this) with a fotodiox adapter ($100)
- Zeiss Loxia 35/2 ($1,300) - beautiful manual focus lens, solid build and hoping to match the beauty of the RX1's Sonnar lens
- Sony FE 28/2 ($450) - very light and small, with all the auto-focus goodness of the a7Rii
- Voigtlander Nokton Classic 40/1.4 ($450) with a fotodiox adapter ($70)
Detail
(click through to see larger images)
Here are the crops of these images
I feel the winner is the Loxia, with the Voigtlander a close second, although the crop looks a bit 'flat'.
Color
However, the Voigtlander's color is a bit suspect, even with lens corrections. Here are a set of images taken at different apertures, compared to the Sony FE 28/2. I feel that this test swings it towards the Sony.
So, after this, I decided to return the Voigtlander, and I kept the Sony.UPDATE (March 2016):
I ended up liking the 55mm Sony Zeiss f1.8 (took me a while to get to love 55mm after shooting mainly 35mm for a while... but now I love that focal distance). But what I was still missing was a small lens for walking about and taking with me to dinners and events. Both the 55mm and the 28mm lenses are physically quite long and awkward in social scenes. So I ended up selling the 28mm and went back to a Voigtlander, but this time the 35mm f1/4. Happy so far!