review: Sony Zeiss Sonnar T* 135mm f/1.8 ZA lens
One of the pieces of photo gear that I have lusted after ever since the first time I saw it, is the Sony Zeiss 135mm f/1.8 ZA lens (B&H / Amazon). That combination of the Zeiss name tag and the sweet f/1.8 aperture on the telephoto lens, predicted this would be a lens to experience. However, since I mostly shoot Nikon (and also have a small Canon system), and this is a Sony mount, it remained an unrequited love.
Then I had a photographer in Germany, Thomas, asked about doing an personal workshop on flash photography with me – but he shoots with the Sony A99 and Sony A7R 11. Instead of just vaguely waving my hands around while explaining things, I thought it would be best for me to have some Sony gear in my hands during this workshop. So I rented and acquired the necessary pieces to shoot alongside Thomas. This was an interesting experience with new gear – the theory about flash photography made sense, and it all fell into place with a certain logical consistency – but the buttons and controls of the camera were new.
Anyway, I thought this would be a great opportunity to rent the Sony Zeiss Sonnar T* 135mm f/1.8 ZA lens, and see if the lens stood up to expectations. I shot some available light portraits and off-camera flash portraits of our model, Claudia. (Model Mayhem portfolio).
The photo above is an available light portrait of Claudia.
- camera settings: 1/500 @ f/2 @ 200 ISO
- Sony A99 camera
- Sony Zeiss 135mm f/1.8 ZA lens (B&H / Amazon)
First experience: Sony Zeiss Sonnar T* 135mm f/1.8
So how did this lens hold up to my expectations? Well, I want this lens now, more than ever before. No, not want … need!
The lens feels solid. A hefty chunk of glass and metal. The focus ring is so smooth. You just know this lens has been engineered to an exact degree.
The lens hood is deep, and matted on the inside. Even the lens hood felt solidly made!
The photos here will explain just how amazingly smooth the bokeh of this lens is – no jittery edges. Nothing that intrudes from the background elements. Just smooth smoothness. I love it!
The sharpness of this lens – I can’t think of a lens that has given me sharper results than this. As sharp, yes. But not sharper. This really is the apex for optical quality that I have experienced. You could count the eye-lashes in each photo.
With the built-in stabilization of the Sony camera bodies, camera shake isn’t much of a problem, and the images were consistently tack sharp. A few times I did focus on the wrong eye (instead of the eye closest to the camera), but that is mostly operator error or poor light.
I have to emphases again this lens’ stellar optical quality. At 2.5 lbs, you know you have a solidly made lens. The filter diameter is the usual 77mm, and with the non-rotating front element, a polarizer filter would be easy to use.
I had this A-mount lens on the older Sony A99 camera. To use it with the new A7 series, you need the Sony LA-EA4 A-Mount to E-Mount FF Lens Adapter (affiliate). This adapter allows Alpha mount lenses to be mounted to the new E-mount full-frame cameras, and still allow continuous Phase Detection auto focus.
- camera settings: 1/1000 @ f/1.8 @ 100 ISO … available light
- Sony A99 camera
- Sony Zeiss 135mm f/1.8 ZA lens (B&H / Amazon)
- camera settings: 1/2000 @ f/1.8 @ 100 ISO … off-camera flash in TTL mode
- Sony A99 camera
- Sony Zeiss 135mm f/1.8 ZA lens (B&H / Amazon)
- Phottix Mitros+ wireless flash for Sony (B&H / Amazon)
- Sony HVL-F60M Flash (affiliate)
- Description of the softbox setup: gear updated for flash photography workshops
- camera settings: 1/1000 @ f/1.8 @ 200 ISO
- Sony A99 camera
- Sony Zeiss 135mm f/1.8 ZA lens (B&H / Amazon)
- Phottix Mitros+ wireless flash for Sony (B&H / Amazon)
- Sony HVL-F60M Flash (affiliate)
- Description of the softbox setup: gear updated for flash photography workshops
With this dual flash softbox, we had one flash (a Nikon SB-900) in manual mode. The second flash was the Sony HVL-F60M Flash (affiliate), which we controlled as a TTL flash or manual flash with the Phottix Mitros+ wireless flash for Sony (B&H / Amazon)
- camera settings: 1/200 @ f/1.8 @ 400 ISO … available light only
- Sony A99 camera
- Sony Zeiss 135mm f/1.8 ZA lens (B&H / Amazon)
In an archway under the Manhattan bridge, we found some natural-light Chiaroscuro – that interplay between light and shade, when we look at the foreground subject, and how the light falls in the background.
The light on Claudia was from sunlight reflecting off a glass window. These two pull-back photos from my iPhone will explain it well.
- camera settings: 1/500 @ f/2 @ 200 ISO … available light, augmented with gold reflector
- Sony A99 camera
- Sony Zeiss 135mm f/1.8 ZA lens (B&H / Amazon)
With the late afternoon sun on the banks of the East River, the background just blew out completely in the distance because of the shallow depth-of-field. To bring a little more detail back in the background, and to get more light on Claudia’s face, we used a small gold reflector.
Purchase the Sony Zeiss 135mm f/1.8 ZA
Sony Zeiss 135mm f/1.8 ZA lens: B&H / Amazon
Sony LA-EA4 A-Mount to E-Mount FF Lens Adapter: B&H / Amazon
Related articles
- Reviews of Sony photo gear
- Tips on working with models
- Effective on-location portraits (model: Anelisa)
- More articles about off camera flash photography
Great review of the Zeiss 135mm. It’s interesting to note the difference in feel and weight of that lens, compared to the Nikon 70-200 f2.8 that is my favorite portrait lens. I can believe that it would be easy to want the 135mm! Rich and smooth quality. Nice to see how you used the different lighting techniques for this session — natural light, reflector, and speedlights in a softbox — all with the same lens. And each combination resulted in beautiful photos with slightly different looks. Nicely done.
this is a lens I would love to have for my Nikon bodies, will it ever happen???
Totally speechless. ;)
Amazing images as always Neil. Love that NvN look. Awesome model. Killer bokeh for sure. Hope you convert to Sony mirrorless soon.
Neil great photos, I’ve always thought the Sony Zeiss 135mm f/1.8 ZA is a good lens, but had nothing to compare it with as I only shoot Sony. Getting off topic I would like to get your opinion of the following.
1) Phottix Odin wireless trigger kit for Sony, as I’m thinking about getting it.
2) How was it using the electronic view finder of the A99?
Thanks
Quin
Quin .. we had problems with Thomas’ older version of the Phottix Odin. Even manual flash at times would change exposure. But the one I had, which I had newly purchased, worked pretty fluently.
So I am somewhere inbetween giving a big thumbs-up, and a shoulder shrug. I’m not sure. I don’t have enough evidence either way. But, as I said, my copy of the kit worked pretty well. And it is easy to use and set up.
The Sony A99 is a very likable camera overall. I didn’t have an issue with the electronic viewfinder. I could get used to working with an EVF. (My walk-about camera, the Fuji XE-2 has one.) I expect the Sony A7Rii will be even faster and better.
What did frustrate me was the slow waking-up time of the A99. The AF isn’t up to par either with the current top cameras, but wasn’t too bad. I lost a few frames, but nothing major.
Great review Neil, Did the Phottix provide High Speed Sync?
Oh yes, the Phottix easily did HSS – check the camera settings for the various photos.
Wow – great results….almost as good as my Nikon 200mm F2 VR2, but 4 pounds lighter and a lot smaller.
I miss that lens! I had the Nikon 200mm f/2 VR ver 1, but sold it to get a Nikon 200-400mm f/4 VR. In turn, I sold that to get Canon gear to shoot video. (Don’t hate me for that.) In this way, that Nikon 200mm f/2 VR is probably my gimbal now, with continuous sidegrades to acquire other gear. But someday, I will have the Nikon 200mm f/2 VR II again.
It’s ok, Canon was better with video until the D810 came out :). I have a review of the 200F2 VR2 on my website if you want to check it out. Another lens I recently picked up and am testing is the Nikon 135mm F2.8 AI (manual focus) lens after stumbling across a video on YouTube. I got it for $230 shipped from Japan, and the sharpness, contrast, color rendition and bokeh is amazing…..this lens wide open at F2.8 is sharper than almost every lens I own, except the 200F2. You might want to check it out if you haven’t already – certainly can’t beat the price if you find one in great condition with no fungus (it’s a 35 year old lens).
How do you shoot with faster speed than flash sync speed? e.g your third shot was shot at camera settings: 1/2000 @ f/1.8 @ 100 ISO … off-camera flash in TTL mode. I thought one can not go beyond flash sync speed. Please advise. Thanks
The Phottix wireless trigger kit for Sony that we used here, allows for high-speed flash sync. So it was just a matter of taking the shutter speed as high as needed for the necessary aperture.
To learn more about using high-speed flash sync.
I like your reviews and the whole tangents blog. What camera, lenses, would you recommend a person should get who wants to get back into wedding photography. After many years being a film guy, I need a little advice. I can’t spend a lot of money but was thinking along the line of the A6000. But alas what do I know, I’ll just be glad to hear your comments. Thanks on a great website.
Hi Neil,
Do you have a suggestion on how to use A7R with Odin?
There is no adapter but perhaps it could be used with a cable so we can achieve TTL AND HSS
There is an adapter to allow flash equipment having the older Sony/Minolta flash shoe (such as the Odin flash controller) to work with the new Sony flash shoe on the A7R. I don’t recall the model number of the Sony adapter, but there also is a third party adapter. I have both. The Sony adapter is not 100% reliable when used with a heavy flash because the locking system on the adapter is friction based, and has a tendency to slip when there is a heavy flash attached (the electric contacts for TTL flash are at the front of the shoe mount, so any slippage in the shoe will cause a loss of electric contact – a horrible design in my view). I don’t have enough experience yet with the third party adapter. However, I have not had any “slippage” issues when using the adapter with my Phottix Stratos II radio controller (I don’t yet have the Odin). Thus, you should be able to mount a Phottix Odin on the A7R using this adapter and retain full TTL and HSS control. I would note that Phottix is making its Mitros+ flash with the new Sony shoe (though it is in short supply and hard to find), so I would not be surprised to see Phottix at some point in the near future bring out the Odin flash controller with the new Sony shoe.
There are these two adapters that Sony offers to combine different hotshots between their cameras and flashes:
Sony ADPAMA Shoe Adapter
This adapter allows you to use standard hotshoe flashes on Sony cameras which have their proprietary hotshoe.
Sony ADPMAA Shoe Adaptor for Mi Shoe
This adapter allows you to use Sony Auto-Lock hotshoe flashes on Sony cameras with the Multi-Interface hotshoe.
Neil,
Shooting at 135 you have lovely bokeh but have to stand back further. With a 85 you can be closer and lovely bokeh. Without going to brand specs what does it offer that 85 doesn’t? Always curious about this.
Thanks
The bokeh will vary between lenses. The design is different, so the bokeh will most likely be different.
Shallow DoF and bokeh aren’t interchangeable descriptions. They are slightly related, but not the same thing.
So what does 135mm offer you that 85mm doesn’t?
For the same subject size in the frame, you’d get more compression.
What does 85mm offer you that 50mm doesn’t? What does 50mm offer you that 35mm doesn’t? See the train of thought here?
135mm is a focal length where the lens isn’t that big (compared to say, a 200mm lens), but offers you a tight compression already.
Finally someone is explaining why I have misfires with my Sony a99, Odin trigger, mitros+, etc. It has been so frustrating! I kept thinking I was doing something wrong. I like to use an on camera and off camera flashes during receptions. The adapter will become loose. My flash has fallen off my camera due to this.
Your comment of how you need this lens, Is the same thing I said after I shot with this lens. Optics is unmatched.