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Hi, this is Jay P. Morgan. Today on The Slanted Lens we’re going to make a very fun comparison. We’re going to compare a G Master 50mm f/1.2 to a Zeiss Otus ML 50mm f/1.4. Beautiful lenses. An opportunity for us to look at which one of these would you choose if you were choosing a 50mm for the Sony mount. This Zeiss lens is brand new. It’s an ML lens which means it’s made for mirrorless. 
We haven’t seen a lens from Zeiss for almost 6 years. So this is an opportunity for us to compare that to a G Master lens. As I’ve looked at the images that Zeiss is beautiful and sharp, but so is a GM. So why would we compare a $2,500 manual focus lens to a $2,000 autofocus lens? 
Well because most people are going to be making that kind of a decision when they buy a 50mm for Sony. The new Otus prime comes in three mounts. It does come in Nikon Z-mount. We’ve also got it in RF mount and Sony E-mount. So you have those three options. So we’re going to take a look at this G Master from Sony compared to that Zeiss Otus Prime and just see how they compare with one another. 
It’ll be fun to see because Zeiss makes beautiful glass, sharp, just so wonderful to look at. But the G Masters are no slouch themselves. So let’s take a look at those two and see what we got. I’ve got Adriana here with me today. Hello. We’re going to look at these two lenses and see which one you would buy.
All right, when I heard that Zeiss had a new Otus mirrorless camera lens I was super excited. 50mm f/1.4 lens I thought, man I really want to see how that compares with my Sony 50mm. I have a Sony 50mm. I love the Zeiss look. What does that Zeiss look like? It’s just great contrast, beautiful sharpness across. You get great bokeh in the background. Your subject matter is so strong on a Zeiss lens. I love the contrast, the darkness and little bit of warmth with this lens, which I really enjoyed. I’ll talk a little bit more about that. Then I compared that to my Sony which I shoot on a lot. And which one of these would I choose? The Zeiss is $2,500. The Sony is $2,000. The Zeiss is manual focus. The Sony is autofocus. The Zeiss is f/1.4 to f/16. The Sony is f/1.2 to f/16. So there’s some real advantages to that Sony. But I think there’s some picture advantages with the Zeiss that really make it worthwhile.
So let’s talk about the build of these two lenses. First off, the new Otus 50mm Zeiss lens is a little lighter. Quite a bit lighter than the first version, the first generation, made for DSLR cameras. It’s 1.5 lbs, whereas the Sony is 1.7 lbs. So the new Zeiss lens is a little more compact. It’s a 67mm filter on the front. 72mm on the Sony. So it’s a smaller more compact mirrorless type lens. It’s made to be on a mirrorless camera. 
I’ve often felt like the 50mm f/1.2 you get from most of the major manufacturers are big heavy machines. So look at the difference in that. Both metal, so you have metal and weather sealing so that they’re made to be out in the elements. So you can go out and shoot and be comfortable with that. They both have a manual aperture ring. So you’re doing your manual aperture f/1.4 to f/16 and f/1.2 to f/16. One thing that’s very different about these two is the focus throw.Most autofocus lenses have a very short focus throw because they’ve got to get the focus quickly from one point to the other. From infinity to close focus. Whereas a good video lens is going to have a long focus pull. 
This Zeiss has a 260° focus pull. That’s a long ways. That’s almost the entire rotation. Which means if you’re doing this by hand it’s pretty hard to do that in a single turn, a single kind of move. Whereas in the Sony it’s a much easier move to make because it’s so much shorter. But it also moves very quick and it’s harder to hit the focus. So there’s some disadvantages and advantages to both of those thoughts there. You can de-click both of these. It’s very simple to de-click the Sony. Whereas the Zeiss you have to take the cap off. There’s a little screw inside so you can de-click the aperture if you want to use it for video purposes. But you can change both of these. Zeiss does not change back and forth very easily because you’ve got to use a screw, a little screwdriver to change it inside the back of the lens. So there’s a look at the basic build of these two lenses.
Now let’s get over and look at images. I want to see how the images compare on these two. So let’s get to that. So let’s look at the image quality between these two lenses. The Sony at f/1.4 gives us beautiful bokeh in the background. Things fall out of focus very nicely back there. But look at the Zeiss. The Zeiss gives us this kind of movement in the bokeh in the out of focus background. There’s just a movement that’s so beautiful to me. I get this sense of movement in it. I don’t see that in the Sony. 
I even, though the Sony goes to f/1.2 I shot it at f/1.4. So both these are shot at f/1.4. They’re the same distance from the camera. It is interesting how the Sony has a slightly broader view than the Zeiss does. The Zeiss is just a little closer, a little tighter field of view. So it’s the image that is a little closer on the Zeiss. There is something beautiful though about the contrast in this. Look at the contrast on the Zeiss. It’s the hair that gives you a beautiful dark look. We have great contrast when we come in and look at even just looking in tight on the image is beautiful contrast. Just, there’s a level of detail there that you don’t quite get with the Sony. Now in saying that the Sony is a beautiful lens. It really is a beautiful lens. I think the Zeiss though reminds me a little bit of a Canon FD lens. It has a little more, a little harder contrast and beautiful bokeh in the background. So I mean that’s an interesting thought. Really the Zeiss lens is probably one of the sharper lenses, one of the sharpest lenses that have ever been made. And if you stop down a little bit with this lens you’re going to really rival the kind of detail you get on two and a quarter.
So both these lenses have a decent close focusing distance 1.3’ for the Sony and 1.6’ for the Zeiss. That’s not a macro lens but at least it’s a decent close focus to allow you to get in close to your subject matter. You know, you don’t generally get a macro lens in a 50mm, fast 50mm. But they have reasonable close focusing distance. Here’s the two of them side by side.
So the Zeiss lens gives you a beautiful sharp image but for video the focus pull is 260˚ which means it’s a long pull from the back to the front. I can’t quite get it. Especially if I’m in tight on her face like this. I can’t get that throw without having to take my hands off from the focus and reset. So I can’t get it enough to be able to make that all the way around. So you almost need some kind of an assist on this, somebody who’s pulling focus for you. Otherwise it’s pretty hard to run this on your own. 
Whereas the Sony is in autofocus. It’s going to just, you can tap to be able to move it to the background then tap to her face and to adjust the time it takes to get front and back. So some real advantages there. This Otus is very much a precise kind of focus. We’re going to bring it right into where you want it and you have complete control of the timing of the move and the smoothness of it. So you have that advantage with the Zeiss. But the Sony is just a lot easier. It’s got a short, all autofocus lenses have very short focus throws because that autofocus needs to jump from infinity back up to close and it needs to be a short focus throw. 
So it’s like 120˚ which is less than half of what you get on the Zeiss. So you’d have to play with that if you’re going to do this, use this lens for video. And just see if you like that, if it works for what you do and see how it works. If you’re not doing long focus pulls it’ll work absolutely fine. But that is the disadvantage. So the Sony does have that autofocus. It’s very quick. It allows you to put it on gimbals and things. And that’s going to follow, you know, whatever you’re following. It’s just a lot easier to work with the Sony. This Otus is pretty difficult to work when it comes without autofocus. It just makes it so it really is not as valuable for video as it would be if it had autofocus. So for me, the Sony really wins when it comes to video. My eyes aren’t what they used to be and it’s just a lot easier to use that autofocus and easier on gimbals. The Sony is actually larger than the Zeiss and so I think that even though the Sony’s a little larger it’s a little easier to use because of the autofocus.
While we were photographing Abigail up at the wild flowers I wanted a little bit of light on her face. So I used a large Octo-box with the new FJ400 II. These are a great streamline battery and incredible interface. It works with the triggers. The high-speed sync worked really well up there. I was very happy with how the high-speed sync worked. I thought it was really, really flawless. So if you want to get some FJ400s just check out the link below. It’ll take you to the Westcott site. 
Or if you sign up for our newsletter you can get special discounts on products there. And you should check that out. But pick up some FJ400s because it’s a great platform to shoot with outside.
So if we look at something where we punch in there’s several I have here. Looking at the two of these comparing the two of them. There again is that there’s a lot of kinds of things in front of the lens I wanted to kind of play with a little bit. So if you look at this again we have that little heavier contrast, little darker blacks. We’re seeing this beautiful kind of movement in the bokeh and a little bit of warmth in the face. That’s why it does remind me a little bit of a Canon FD lens because you’ve got that darker contrast and got a little bit of warmth. You got this kind of circular motion in the bokeh. 
If we pull back and look a little further back with this lens comparatively speaking I don’t see it as much here now when we get back to this point. They look very similar to me. I still see the contrast in the Zeiss lens. But as far as the background goes we’re starting to look pretty much the same at f/1.4. The fall-off between these two are very similar. The Zeiss has been falling off a little quicker than the Sony but not when we get back this far. It is interesting because the Zeiss is made to be a lens that is corrected in the lens. It’s built to be sharp edge to edge. It’s built to give us just beautiful rendition. Whereas a lot of modern lenses, and I think the Sony falls in this category just a little bit, and that is that they do a lot of correction inside the software in the camera. So chromatic aberration, some of the other issues that you may face you’re going to see some kind of a, you know, you’re going to get that kind of correction in the lens in the camera. So, but in both of these is interesting because both these cameras, these lenses do talk to the camera even though there’s a manual focus for the Zeiss. The Zeiss still has the context, it’s still giving information to the camera. I can see what aperture I was shooting on, all that information is transferred.
But let’s go to something that just gives us some really, a little sharper detail here. This is the two side by side. I can just glance and I can feel it in her hair which one of these is the Zeiss. It’s just a little darker. There’s just a little, just a little heavier contrast, which I really like. I think it’s beautiful. When I look at the detail, there I am in the eye. There I am in the eye. It’s always hard with focus in this when you get something this close. We have great depth of field there. Well I’m not hitting the eye exactly. Well I’m kind of hitting the iris. I’m always concerned about hitting focus manually. I used focus peaking. That seemed to work pretty well. I was using the punch in feature. I just, I have a hard time with that because I can’t frame and shoot, frame and shoot. And if I’m shooting a person I want to hit to focus and then shoot. So I started using the peaking and that worked out pretty well. Great fall off in these images. You see how they fall from the background. Look at that warmth again. Look at the warmth you see in the Zeiss lens versus the Sony. 
Now if we get a little closer here. I’m just going to keep looking at these because I thought they were so fun to see. Immediately when you look at this I get a sense of which is which here. I see the falloff on each of them. That dark hair on the Zeiss. Little, not quite so deep on the Sony. 
The skin tone has just a little bit of the contrast that just makes your skin tone pop with the Zeiss. Whereas it looks beautiful on the Sony. There’s no doubt about that. There’s a beautiful skin tone. I think it just pops a little bit on the Zeiss. 
So I thought this was interesting. Because when I punch in just to see kind of the detail that we get, we’ve got these two lenses here side by side and there is clarity, there’s sharpness with the Sony. I see great detail, great contrast.When I look at the Zeiss it’s got just beautiful contrast and on several different levels. And we see just beautiful detail. It’s edge to edge sharp as I look at the edges here. It’s hard to tell on this. It’ll tell better on the brick one that we got, that I shot. But just gives us beautiful detail. 
Let’s look at that brick and see what we’ve got. So there’s the brick and what I found interesting about this, you can really see the difference in the kind of field of view. Because the Zeiss is a little bit tighter. These are both put on the same tripod, same distance. I’m always a little nervous about saying this is a technical test for pin cushioning and those kinds of things because you know I’m trying to get it squared up as much as possible. But I’m not going to get it exact. But I do see the Sony is spot-on corrected. There’s no doubt about it. It is just square and that may be done in camera in some ways. But it doesn’t matter, it’s there. Whereas the Zeiss got a little bit of pin cushioning in the bottom. It’s just, it’s just that bottom line is bending just a little bit. So there’s a tiny bit of that. Look at the color variation in the two compared to the Sony. Little more open, Zeiss a little warmer, just a little bit warmer. 
So this is a great look at just exactly the detail. If we punch in on this to see the level of detail that we get on the bricks, the mortar, there’s just more information on the Zeiss. Just, and it gives us a little bit more to see there. Boy though, the Sony’s pretty dang good. I mean it is, it’s pretty fascinating to look at how close these are to each other. So I almost see a little bit of vignette on the Sony. But it’s hard to tell if that’s just the situation we’re in. We’re getting a little bit of hot spot in the middle or not. It certainly seems a tiny bit more prevalent than on the Zeiss lens.
So these are, I just love looking at these examples comparing these two lenses. Here’s the Sony and the Zeiss in just a little closer. Again you see that field of view difference. But there’s just something about the subject matter in the Zeiss lens the she just pops off from the, off from that green. The contrast in her hair, the skin tone, I mean all of those things are just absolutely spectacular. The problem for me is it’s manual focus. I’m struggling sometimes to keep it in focus. But man when it’s hitting it is just spectacular. But you know, it’s interesting because I don’t even think about the Sony because it’s going to be 99% in focus. 99, I mean most of the time it’s going to be in focus. So with the Zeiss I’m working to make sure it’s in focus. I’m having to really pay attention when I’m shooting people. That becomes a little tough. So when it comes to sharpness between these two lenses I think the Zeiss is definitely sharper. It’s a sharp lens with great contrast and a little, it has a little bit of warmth. Whereas the Sony is a little more neutral. And it has great contrast and it’s sharp. But it’s just not on the same level as the Zeiss. I keep looking at this Zeiss thinking, you know, it reminds me, I shoot on a Canon FD 50mm f/1.4. And it just has a lot of the same qualities in my mind, which I love those qualities. But not as extreme. It’s not a vintage looking lens. But it has those kinds of qualities. So if I had to choose between as far as sharpness goes the Zeiss is definitely sharper.
So let’s look at the bokeh on these two lenses because it’s really important to understand the bokeh and how what it looks like and what you like. That’s part of the qualities of a lens. What makes the character of a lens is how does it render that bokeh in the background. So we’ve got the bokeh here. If I look at these two in comparison to each other immediately I see you’ve got great kind of open round circles on the Zeiss. There’s no soap bubbling. There’s no layers. There’s none of the oniony kind of things. It’s very clean bokeh. It does go to the football on the outside edges. Most lenses do that. When I look at the Sony I can’t say I’m unhappy with that Sony at all. It’s beautiful bokeh in the background. We just got this kind of clean bubbles.We’re not looking at any of the onion layers or soap bubbly thing at all. It’s just beautiful looking bokeh. There is a warmth to the Zeiss that I don’t see in the Sony. But we’ve been talking about that. That’s definitely there. If I had to choose one of these things, one of these based on bokeh, well this is f/1.4. The Sony can go to f/1.2. So the bokeh is going to probably be a little prettier. I mean we’re still, because her face is pretty flat to the camera in this situation, if you turn her a little bit at f/1.4 you’re never going to keep both of her eyes. But because she’s fairly flat to the camera it keeps both the eyes in focus. 
Just astounding focus and detail on the Zeiss lens. But beautiful bokeh on both these. I do like the way there’s just a little bit of a swirl feeling just a little bit to that Zeiss which I love. The Zeiss seems to have deeper layers of bokeh. It seems like I see not just the surface layer but I see kind of several layers of bokeh which I really do like. So now let’s take a look at a bokeh example where I shot the Sony at f/1.2 and the Zeiss at f/1.4. So if I look at the Sony you see beautiful bokeh back there and they start to look more similar. F/1.2 on the Sony feels like the f/1.4 on the Zeiss to me. And there’s an example of that as you look at both of those together. Just very interesting how that comparison starts to happen, how I think the Bokeh builds faster with that, with the Zeiss and is just a little more effective at f/1.4. I think it competes with the Sony at f/1.2 actually. But in the end I could be super happy with either one of these lenses when it comes to the bokeh.
So when it comes to flare and ghosting on these two lenses it’s pretty hard to do a real exact test because she’s moving around a little bit. I’m not seeing as much of the sun on one as the other. But we see the two of them side by side here. You know, the T-STAR coating gives you incredible control. It’s not going to flare. It’s probably one of the things about modern lenses that you just don’t get flare hardly any more at all. This, I’m right on the edge of the sun on the edge of her head here. It’s flaring a little bit. That T-STAR coating looks incredible. You know what, the Nano AR coating on the Sony lens looks incredible as well. The ghosting is good. 
We see, even though I’m getting this kind of flare around her, I see a little bit on the face with the Sony. It starts to flare. I see a little color rendition kind of shows itself in her nose. Whereas I’m not seeing that same kind of thing, I see a little bit of it there, little ghosting on the side of the Zeiss. But I’m seeing quite a bit more of it. But again it could be just that I’m seeing more of the sun in the Sony than the Zeiss. Both of these handle the flare and ghosting really well. They have great coating that gives you control. So I don’t see any kind of problem with either of these lenses.
Let’s just take a look at some of those beautiful images on that Sony lens.
Now let’s take a look at some of the beautiful images on that Zeiss lens.
So let’s wrap this up. Does the Zeiss lens deliver on that Zeiss look? Does it give you that micro contrast? Does it give you great bokeh? Does it give you beautiful sharpness? I think it gives you great contrast. I think it absolutely does. This 50mm Otus lens made for mirrorless cameras delivers that Zeiss look. It is manual focus which is kind of the downside. Whereas with the Sony you have that manual, you’ve got autofocus. It gives you beautiful imagery. It gives you great sharpness edge to edge. And it is bigger though. It’s much bigger, much heavier than you get with this new mirrorless version of the Otus series. So there’s a lot of exciting things with this. 
Where would I use this? Number one, I’m dying to have this lens to be able to shoot landscapes. It’s just going to give you sharpness and detail. I love to shoot landscapes with a 50mm lens and then stitch them together because it just gives me that flat view that I really like. And so for the stuff I’m going to be shooting in the national parks this summer I would love that 50mm lens to be able to shoot those and to be able to stitch those together. So I think it’s perfect for that. I think it’s a great portrait lens, even though it’s a little slow. Great studio lens for sure. 
Whereas when you look at the Sony you really get a great studio lens, a great video lens. That autofocus is really quick. It just gives you, it checks a lot of the boxes. I believe the Sony is a little better hybrid lens than the Zeiss is. But the Zeiss is going to give you unparalleled sharpness and a beautiful look. Like I say, I keep saying it’s like the FD Canon. FD lenses, I need to quit saying that because everyone’s going to go “No it’s not.” I think it is. If you think it is leave a comment. If you don’t think it is leave a comment. I want to hear what you think because I think it looks pretty fantastic. So there’s my sense of these two lenses. I think that price-wise you’re in a very similar category. You just have to look at what is your intended use and if you’re going to be doing things that are a lot video heavy I would probably go with the Sony. But if you’re going to do landscapes, especially landscapes and portraits, I would go with the Zeiss. They’re coming out with an 85mm f/1.4 later this year which will be a fabulous portrait lens. It’ll be incredible to see that and to see how that renders the face and the colors on an image. So I’m excited to see that, have the opportunity to test it. So there’s my sense of those two lenses. Which one would I buy? I want them both. That’s my problem. That’s always my problem. So keep those cameras rollin’ and keep on clickin’!
