Sony A7r with Carl Zeiss 21mm f2.8 Biogon Review Test Samples - Color Fringing and Vignetting but OK for Street Photography

Sony A7r with Carl Zeiss 21mm f2.8 Biogon

Before buying the Sony A7r, like many people I have read reviews and looked at samples online to see how it would perform with M-Mount rangefinder lenses. From what I gathered it seems that any lens wider than 35mm will start to have problems with color fringing (strange color casts at the edge of the frame), vignetting and corner smearing and the wider the lens get the worse the problems become.

Sony A7r with Carl Zeiss 21mm f2.8 Biogon

So up until now I have not bothered to try any of the wider M-Mount lenses, especailly something like the 21mm f2.8 Carl Zeiss Biogon, since it is so wide I assumed that it would just perform very poorly. Being in Hong Kong for the past week however, has really made me want to try this lens. I took three lenses with me on the trip, the Leica 50mm f2 Summicron, 75mm f1.4 Summilux and the Carl Zeiss. With its crowded streets and skyscrapers all packed so close together the 50mm and 75mm were just not wide enough to capture many of the scenes that I wanted, so after a few days I just thought "might as well try it for myself and see how bad it really is".

Sony A7r with Carl Zeiss 21mm f2.8 Biogon sample image straight out of the camera

How was it? Well all of the color fringing and vignetting problems are there, as you will probably see for yourself in the sample images, but thankfully this lens does not seem to be suffering from any corner smearing at all and all pictures are sharp throughout the frame (great performance in this respect). 

The picture above is straight out of the camera without any post processing whatsoever and you can clearly see the magenta color cast and vignetting. At first I was debating whether I should leave all photos in this post unprocessed so you can see the performance of lens in its pure form but in the end I just could not resist.

Sony A7r with Carl Zeiss 21mm f2.8 Biogon at f8

I did not do any advanced post-processing though, just mainly colors, contrasts and some sharpness so these should be the same kind of results you will also get if you use this lens. The picture above shows one thing I love about this lens, it is able to resolve great details and offer amazing sharpness throughout the depth of the photo all the way from near to far. At just f8 pretty much everything will be nice and sharp. Great for street photography during the day when you can just set it to f8 focus to infinity and just fire away without having to worry about focusing anymore. Another thing the picture above shows is the great dynamic range of the Sony A7r, being able to capture detail of both the area in the shade and in the bright light outside.

Sony A7r with Carl Zeiss 21mm f2.8 Biogon at f8

Sony A7r with Carl Zeiss 21mm f2.8 Biogon at f8

Sony A7r with Carl Zeiss 21mm f2.8 Biogon at f8

The extent to which the color fringing and vignetting occurs seem quite unpredictable, in some photos they are quite severe but in others they are barely noticeable at all.

Sony A7r with Carl Zeiss 21mm f2.8 Biogon

I think the vignetting actually adds to this photo rather than detracts from it.

Sony A7r with Carl Zeiss 21mm f2.8 Biogon at f8

Sony A7r with Carl Zeiss 21mm f2.8 Biogon - walking by

Sony A7r with Carl Zeiss 21mm f2.8 Biogon at f8

Sony A7r with Carl Zeiss 21mm f2.8 Biogon at f8

Sony A7r with Carl Zeiss 21mm f2.8 Biogon at f5.6

Sony A7r with Carl Zeiss 21mm f2.8 Biogon at f8

There are actually quite a lot of constructions going on in Hong Kong right now, probably the result of the construction boom from China spilling over.

Sony A7r with Carl Zeiss 21mm f2.8 Biogon at f5.6

Sony A7r with Carl Zeiss 21mm f2.8 Biogon at f8

This picture shows both the good and the bad about this lens on the Sony A7r. The color fringing and vignetting is clear to see. What is also visible is how subjects at all distances are very sharp. From the people sitting on the bus in the foreground, the bridge in the middle distance and the buildings in the background.

Conclusion

So what's the verdict with this lens on this camera. Surprisingly for me I found it very usable with the Sony A7r...for certain situations. For street photography for example this lens actually produced some great results and was very fun to use. On many shots the color fringing and vignetting actually enhanced the photo rather than detracts from it and for those that it is a problem you could always convert it to black and white to get rid of the color casts and pretend you are using a Leica Monochrom. For types of photography where you need the entire frame to be more or less perfect, like for landscape or architecture photography for example this lens will probably not be a good choice.

Personally if I am going out for a walk in the city or somewhere that I do not know what kind of subjects I will find this will be the lens I would take if I want a wide angle. It is small, light and can produce great results. If I know I am going to be doing some landscapes or taking photos of architectures however, I will definitely be taking my A-Mount 16-35mm f2.8 Carl Zeiss lens even though it is massive and heavy and not so fun to carry around.