Carl Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 Sonnar E ZA T* Lens Review

Carl Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 Sonnar T* Performance

In keeping with the premium build, this lens offers premium performance too. At maximum aperture sharpness is already excellent in the centre of the frame, although towards the edges of the frame clarity is only fairly good. Stopping down to f/4 improves sharpness towards the edges of the frame to good levels and outstanding clarity is achieved in the centre of the frame. Very good levels of sharpness are achieved towards the edges of the frame with the aperture stopped down to between f/5.6 and f/11.

Resolution at 24mm

How to read our charts The blue column represents readings from the centre of the picture frame at the various apertures and the green is from the edges. Averaging them out gives the red weighted column. The scale on the left side is an indication of actual image resolution. The taller the column, the better the lens performance. Simple. For this review, the lens was tested on a Sony NEX-5R using Imatest.

Levels of chromatic aberrations are are a little on the high side towards the edges of the frame, just exceeding three quarters of a pixel width. Although this amount of fringing my be acceptable for many, care may need to be taken when placing high contrast edges close to the edges of the frame.

Chromatic aberration at 24mm

How to read our charts Chromatic aberration is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software. Apochromatic lenses have special lens elements (aspheric, extra-low dispersion etc) to minimize the problem, hence they usually cost more. For this review, the lens was tested on a Sony NEX-5R using Imatest.

Falloff of illumination towards the corners of the frame is well controlled, especially for a lens with such a fast maximum aperture. At f/1.8 the corners are 2.08 stops darker than the image centre and visually uniform illumination is achieved with the lens stopped down to f/4 or beyond.

Imatest picked up 1.05% pincushion distortion during testing, which is an incredibly mild amount and shouldn't prove problematic in normal picture taking. If absolutely straight lines are paramount, the distortion pattern is uniform across the frame, which should make applying corrections in image editing software reasonably straightforward.

Contrast holds up very well when shooting into the light and there are very few instances of flare, even in very harsh lighting conditions.

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