Just before I headed to Europe at the beginning of the summer, I bought the Sony 28mm f/2 wide angle lens. It's only $450, cheap for the Sony lenses that go with the A7-series full-frame mirrorless cameras. I also picked up a used Sony A7 II, so I had a camera to shoot in low light at high ISOs where my regular Olympus micro four-thirds kit doesn't deliver the image quality I want.

I was quite happy with the images coming from the Sony and since it's small, I considered it a nice addition to my Sony gear, which consists mostly of small lenses to accompany my main kits, the Olympus MFT setup and a Canon setup with mostly long lenses.

After my return, Carl Zeiss shipped over the two new Batis lenses, the 85mm f/1.8 and the 25mm f/2. My review of those will follow soon, but suffice it to say, it will be positive.

Today, I decided to try out the options I have with wide angle lenses for my Sony's. Part of me was just curious. Another part of me wanted to know if I should spend the money on the Batis over keeping the Sony 28mm. This was just a quickie test to compare sharpness.

I threw in some other lenses: the Canon 24-70 f/4 IS with a Metabones III adapter and a classic manual focus Olympus 24mm f/2.8 with an adapter.

Sad to say - for my wallet - is that the Batis blew all the other lenses away, at all the tested apertures from f/2 up to f/5.6. The other lenses catch up a bit and the center becomes hard to distinguish in terms of sharpness as the aperture closes down, but corner performance never equals the Batis at each given aperture. The Canon comes closest, followed by the Sony 28mm. Of course, the Canon's smallest aperture is already up to f/4.

As such, the other lenses are fine stopped down, but once you start comparing them to the Batis, you realize what could have been.

That said, I'm still not sure I'm willing to carry the Batis everywhere with me when the Sony is smaller and cheaper and delivers acceptable results when stopped down. I do know that I want that Batis, though.

So, a word of warning: don't compare your other lenses to the 25mm Batis. It might cost you...

By John van Rosendaal

Location, Bird Photography

Photographing Bald Eagles along the Hudson

This time last year, the lower Hudson River shores were filled with bald eagles escaping the frozen waters further north. In their wake, photographers and sightseers spent hours watching the graceful birds and shooting the occasional show of eagles fighting over fish.

I wrote much of this last year, at the end of eagle season, after I had been out to the river almost every morning for much of February and March. I figured it would be a guide for this season and I'd publish it around the time the eagles would visit the area.

Photographing Bald Eagles at the Conowingo Dam

Once you fall for bird photography, the Conowingo Dam in Maryland beckons. The hydroelectric dam on the Susquehanna River is known to attract dozens of bald eagles in the fall. In their wake, an equal number of photographers and long, fast teles show up for an annual ritual of fishing, photographing and freezing.

The eagles, opportunists that they are, come for the fast food delivered to them courtesy of the Exelon Power Corporation which operates the dam several times a day, in the process stunning the fish that make the trip through the generators and making them easy prey for the big birds.

Like few other places, this predictable ritual allows photographers multiple spray-and-pray runs at fishing eagles and thus increases the chance for the money shot. One hour at Conowingo can deliver more payback than many freezing hours along the Hudson in mid-winter, as I can attest based on personal experience.

Quick Comparison: Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2 vs Sony 28mm f/2 and...

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