Talk:List of Sony E-mount lenses

Missing lenses

The newer lenses are missing: the new Sony FE 50mm 1.8 and the (far too expensive) GM lenses (three). Also some new full frame autofocus lenses with E-mount from a third party manufacturer (Samyang???) are still missing. They are the first FF AF E-mount lenses from a third party manufacturer. An update is sorely needed. Yospangsada (talk) 09:17, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

This list is *only* for Sony E-mount lenses. Lenses manufactured by other companies do not belong into here. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 19:22, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Where do you suggest to list them? Make articles 'Sigma lenses for Sony E-mount', 'Samyang lenses for Sony E-mount'.... etc etc.? Alliumnsk (talk) 08:27, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

For example in List of third-party E-mount lenses. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 09:57, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

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Separate by E/FE

@Matthiaspaul:

I think this page would be much more helpful if it was separated by E (APS-C) and FE (Full Frame). Once this is done, it could be further improved by taking off the Canon EF lens mount page with the Zoom/Prime table which is colour coded red/green based on the specifications of each lens. DiamondIIIXX (talk) 10:49, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

@Trishmapow2: @Ched: @RobbieIanMorrison: @Neal grosskopf: @Caeciliusinhorto: @Camerawalker: @JPB1234: Tagging a few editors to see if we agree on the change (to split into two tables of E/FE). Also, what is the point of the VX code and Lens ID columns? I much prefer the style of the Canon EF lens mount page. DiamondIIIXX (talk) 23:55, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree that having separate tables for APS‑C and full frame E‑mount lenses would be a substantial improvement. Thanks for asking! RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 00:01, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Definitely agree. VX code/ID are not useful (and almost impossible to find for newer lenses). The 'focal length' column also seems unnecessary to me. Trishmapow2 (talk) 00:16, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

agree - fine with me. — Ched (talk) 01:15, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Not sure how you do the table without the focal length though - seems to me that is the most important bit of info. What am I missing? — Ched (talk) 01:48, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Sorry that was not worded well. I mean the name and the focal length can be merged like in the Canon EF list. Since we're splitting E & FE those prefixes can be omitted and each lens will start with the focal length with the suffix designations aftewards (e.g. 85mm F1.4 GM instead of Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM), so sorting should still work. Trishmapow2 (talk) 02:05, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Ahhhh. OK - gotcha. No problems for me. — Ched (talk) 04:44, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

I'd be happy to split E- and FE- lenses, and I don't have any attachment to the VX code or lens ID columns, but I would keep the separate column for focal length. Even if we were to remove the "Sony FE" or "Sony E" from the beginning of each lens's name, there is still other valuable information in the name which comes before the focal length. For example, compare the Sony FE 35mm F1.4 GM and the Sony Zeiss Distagon T* FE 35mm F1.4 ZA. Sure, you can still distinguish between the two based on the suffix (GM vs. ZA) if you removed all of the information before the focal length, but "Zeiss Distagon T*" does give additional information which is potentially useful. (I'd also consider adding a separate column for aperture, which might also conceivably be useful to sort on...) Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 19:49, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

@Caeciliusinhorto: The Canon page doesn't have this problem because they don't partner with anyone to build their lenses. We could just add a note saying "Brand is Sony unless otherwise noted". Also, I think it's probably the best idea to copy the Canon table as much as possible, as it's existing and looks very professional. I propose we change the table from "Name/Model/VX Code/Lens ID/Type/Format/Focal Length-Range/Filter/Weight/Release date/Comments" to "Focal length/Aperture/Introduction/OSS/G or G Master Lens (Colour code this with No/G/G Master)/Filter size" For example, we would have "35mm F1.4 GM" and "Sony Zeiss Distagon T* 35mm F1.4 ZA" DiamondIIIXX (talk) 07:15, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Or we could even just forget about including the name and include it as a column, and put things like "Distagon t*" in a notes column. Then we could truly have the focal length with the link to the Article. DiamondIIIXX (talk) 11:09, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Sorry to disturb but I fundamentally disagree with most of the proposed changes to the table, which has been very carefully and deliberately set up this way and was stable for 8 years without any complaints.

The situation for Sony is more complicated than for some other camera brands such as Canon because Sony's Alpha system consists of two mounts, A-mount and E-mount, and over the years four companies were/are involved with the design, development and production of the (offical, that is, non-third-party) lenses, Minolta, Konica Minolta, Sony and Zeiss with specific naming conventions. Therefore, it is important to list the names of the lenses in full, and also to not mix the names with the focal lenses.

I am against splitting the table of E-mount lenses because there is only one E-mount, and full-frame lenses can be mounted on APS-C format cameras and vice versa. Splitting the table based on the image circle would reduce its utility value. The table is sortable, so people only interested in a particular format can easily sort the table according to their preferences.

I am also against removing the VX codes and lens IDs. Actually, in some sense the lens ID can be considered the most important property, because profiles describing the optical properties of the lenses are associated with them, and for best image processing it is important to know the lens ID. The lens IDs and VX codes not only identify a particular lens, they also allow to gain interesting insights into Sony's developments.

What I think I could support (although I don't personally like it), is color-coding the "Type" and "Format" columns.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 19:07, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

So I can't say I'm heavily invested either way, but I don't quite agree with your arguments. Firstly, I'm not sure why you brought up the A-mount and (Konica) Minolta. This article concerns the E-mount which only has one other company (Zeiss) involved in a small minority (8) of the lenses. The 'Zeiss' column suggestion might not have been the neatest solution, but it seemed adequate to me.

Secondly, you make a good point about Sony being unique with its singular mount, but I feel splitting into E/FE still reduces the visual clutter. Outside of some niche use cases, someone with an FE camera wouldn't be interested in an E lens. As for E cameras and FE lenses, it certainly isn't too difficult to scroll to the next table, and it's nice to have a distinction (e.g. it often happens that someone will buy an FE lens for future-proofing).

Lastly, you mention the lens ID/VX code providing 'insight' into development but I'm not sure how relevant these numbers are for anyone who isn't developing an EXIF tool or some photo editing software (99.9%+ of people). I guess part of the problem is no explanation at all is given in the article about the significance. Searching for "VX code" online results in only copies of this page and a single German forum post. If you could perhaps explain more in depth about these IDs that would be great.

--Trishmapow2 (talk) 08:44, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

@Matthiaspaul: Current problems with this page

1) VX Code is very obscure - there are no official resources from Sony that I can find where this column can be verified. For all I know it could be made up - Searching for " "VX Code" Sony " on Google returns nothing but copies of this Wikipedia page in various languages. The codes are becoming increasingly unverifiable.

2) The Model column adds unnecessary clutter to the table. It essentially duplicates the name of each lens. This makes the page difficult to navigate, especially on mobile. If you really care so much that the exact model number of each lens is recorded encyclopediatically, consider adding it to their respective infoboxes on their own page.

3)Lens ID has a similar problem to VX Code - The references for this are an obscure German site used for reasons which I do not know, and another site listing apparently all the Sony EXIF tags. This is probably not enough to be considered trustworthy; a Sony source would be needed. Like the VX Code- Just have it on each lens's infobox - with multiple sources.

4) Focal Length/Range is a duplicate of the lens name. See 2). Why would a lens be called a 35mm but have a 40mm focal length. This column makes no sense.

5) Weight - again, is this really necessary. Just have it in the lens's infobox.

6) Release date should be in whole years only - why is there a mixture of DDDD and DDDD-MM formats? What do the bracketed DDDD-MM dates mean?

7) Notes - Do we really need a note saying a particular lens is black or silver? Come on.

8) The table includes things that aren't an E-mount lens, when this page is specifically for E-mount lenses. For example: "black, for SEL-16F28 and SEL-20F28, not an E-mount lens". Do I really need to say anything?

9) An adapter isn't a lens.

10) In terms of the layout of the page, splitting into four tables (APS-C zoom, APS-C prime, 35mm zoom, 35mm prime) would improve the usability exceptionally. The gigantic table is hard to use and the vertical screen distance from the column names to the bottom is too great to be useful for perusing. DiamondIIIXX (talk) 10:02, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

@Matthiaspaul: Please discuss these changes here on the talk page. DiamondIIIXX (talk) 04:45, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

(Sorry, started an answer, but unfortunately got occupied by other obligations. Also have to spool out some other pending stuff before I can come back to this in a couple of days. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 00:02, 1 February 2021 (UTC))

@Matthiaspaul: It has been 18 days and still no reply. I have finished rearranging the page with the split tables with custom formatting, removing the non-lenses from the tables (by assigning them to an accessories table) and re-adding the weights of each lens, as a compromise. I have decided that the lens code is important, I will be re-adding that to the tables soon.

(unsigned) 2021-02-18T12:57:19‎ DiamondIIIXX

While it is unfortunate that I cannot focus on this due to other pending stuff which I have to finish before putting even more on the stack, 18 days are nothing compared to the many years the table was mostly stable without complaints. By removing the full name of the lenses as well as the codes, and by splitting the table into separate tables you are making the table completely useless. The whole point of the table is to have this combined into one table (perhaps except for the front converters, which were added mostly for completeness) and allow users to sort it in the order they prefer. This table is a central landing page for all lenses for which we do yet have separate articles, and by the removal of the anchors you have invalidated all the incoming redirects. It was carefully set up to be correct, comprehensive and consistent across the whole Alpha system since 1985, and it is painful to see all this trashed. Also, the visible appearance of the table is now inconsistent with the other lists in the Minolta/Konica Minolta/Sony "universe", whereas the appearance of the Canon table you seem to prefer is of zero importance here at all. While I do not own the article, I do not agree at all with most of your changes.

If you have such a different idea of how the table should look like, why don't you create another one according to your preferences instead of destroying this one? Yet another alternative would be to create other lists pulling individual entries from this master table (as is done with some other similar lists)? This would not change the appearance, but by this you could have separate lists while still only having to maintain the info in one master table (this one).

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 01:27, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

I would say the fact that the table has existed for "many years" is a clue to why it's not working any more. The table was simply too big to browse efficiently. Wikipedia provides no assurances to the sortability of a table - I would argue it's more important for users to be able to find information by simplifying all the lenses into APS-C/35mm and zoom/prime. As someone who owns a full frame Sony, the fact that the giant table had every lens - including APS-C - was useless because I had to sort by format and then scroll down about two pages - mentally parsing out all the other lenses. Also, the column names were then out of view - very annoying. The way it exists now, with the four different tables - means it's very easy to sort by format and zoom/prime, depending on the will of the user. I separated out the converters and teleconverters because they are not a lens - they do not have a focal length themself. Being lumped in with the lenses with a focal length makes no sense and it disrupts the clean sorting of Wikipedia's tables, which you seem to care so much about.

I don't have the faintest idea of what you mean when you say it's a landing page for lenses - by definition, it's a collection - a list of lenses. I'm not sure any "redirects" are important or needed, or why this is important?

I haven't removed any information - except for the lens name (which is linked to), VX code (which is increasingly unverifiable) and some notes (many of which didn't have sources or were extremely redundant, as described earlier in the relevant discussion). The removal of the lens name - which improves readability of the table by reducing repeated "Sony" names (redundant, we're on the Sony E-mount lens page), was compensated by re-introducing the model for each lens or accessory. My original thinking that it wasn't needed was incorrect, as it hurt the ability to differentiate between lenses with the same focal length.

The fact that this page no longer looks like the other lists in the Minolta/Konica Minolta/Sony "universe" is irrelevant. Perhaps that opens the door to improve the formatting of those pages? I'm not familiar with them, but I posit that it wouldn't require as much work as on this list, due to the unique nature of the E-mount whereby both APS-C and 35mm sensors are compatible. The Canon table gives us a reference point to what looks good and acceptable, in terms of listing lenses. It is perfectly relevant.

I pinged many people about the changes, you're the only person who has disagreed with the changes - when everyone else agrees the changes will be a substantial improvement.

This is the Sony E-mount lenses list we are talking about. This main page should be easily read, compared to the mess that existed before it. If you want to keep such a large database of lens data personally, feel free to make one, no one's stopping you, but the Wikipedia page should be reasonably accessible to everyone. I could see the previous gigantic table being inaccessible to people using screen readers - a large table could take ages to scroll through, compared to having the page separated by sections with separate tables, which are inherently sorted by format and more user-friendly.

DiamondIIIXX (talk) 07:25, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

A very substantial improvement, my appreciation to those who worked on the new tables RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 08:46, 7 March 2021 (UTC)