LensRentals 35 f/1.4 Lens Teardowns

[Mike Farley]

Last week LensRentals took the latest Canon 35 f/1.4 lens apart, which revealed an impressive build quality. The link to that report is in this forum post.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1933

It has now become apparent that this was the first in a series of such disassemblies of similarly specified lenses as the Sony 35 f/1.4 has now followed. What makes this one interesting is that although build quality is generally good, Sony does things differently to Canon and other manufacturers by using electromagnets to control the focussing. As Roger Cicala says, no one yet knows if this system is any better or worse than the conventional approach. And that probably includes Sony itself. Where the lens does fall down is the limited scope for making optical adjustments, which is an issue as there is a significant amount of copy to copy variation. If you get a poor one, then the only real option is to return it as it is unlikely that faults such as decentering can be corrected.

http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2015/12 ... s-teardown

Next up are Sigma's f/1.4 Art lens and the Zeiss Otus. Sigma has mad siginficant improvements recently in the optical performance of its lenses, so it will be intriguing to see if that extends to build quality as well. As for the Zeiss, it appears to built like a tank; we will soon find out if this is more than skin deep and the build quality justifies the eye watering price.