I just got the hang of a cz35 f2 zf.2. I thought I got a very bad copy until discovering the hard stop at f2 infinity is just a very small fraction of a turn past infinity. That almost imperceptible amount of adjustment makes a huge difference.
Now that my live of Zeiss is reignited, I''m finding my heart set on the 135mm apo f2 zf.2. But is that mostly redundant to my cz100 f2 mp? Is the right move to upgrade from the 100, or just keep both and retain the macro feature of the 100?
By all accounts the 135 apo is a superlative lens.
It is, but it is a straight-edged razor compared to a favourite classic hunting knife, really not the same thing at all. Do you prefer superlative optical performance, or very good optical performance combined with lots of character?
wfrank wrote:
I find some disturbing sky posterization in #2, wonder if my screen has gone baloney again. Great images though.
I see it too in #2 and #4.
carstenw wrote:
It is, but it is a straight-edged razor compared to a favourite classic hunting knife, really not the same thing at all. Do you prefer superlative optical performance, or very good optical performance combined with lots of character?
I am hoping for superlative performance and character.
When I made the transition to Sony from Canon, I gave up my two Contax lenses, a copy of the S-Planar and the Distagon 35/1.4, since neither were going to be simple to convert to Alpha. I don’t miss the 35 (I much prefer my fast Leica 35s). Losing this one stung a bit more as time went on, so I’m happy to have it back.
Congrats Brad! You need to try its cousin the S 100 planar with bellows. Sharp with T/S goodness!
I still enjoy shooting with your old c/y 35/1.4 but have been shooting a lot more with the RX1.
Thanks, Wayne! I am getting the itch to get a bellows set again. I had the Leica R and it's 100 but was traveling so much I didn't have the time or patience to figure out what I was doing with it. I'll look into the Contax set.
I'm glad the 35 is still getting some love. I wouldn't leave it alone with the RX1, though. It might get jealous and "accidentally" fall on the camera.
OTUS 55 mm freshly tested !
As expected and unsurprisingly it's on par with my 2 Zeiss stars of my lineup : the 25/2 and the 135/2.
I wasn't totally satisfied with the output of the 50MP which wasn't on the same level of the 2 mentioned above, also in some demanding or not so great light conditions : not quite satisfied.
Not a great gap with the 50MP though considering I shot often around f5.6 but the MP lacked the extra clarity and the " wow ", OTUS delivers SOTC valid stuff, no tweaks needed.
An another personal OTUS plus : it took me easily half the time to take pictures compared to the other Zeiss I have because of the sharpness at f1.4 with added light input of f1.4 aperture, I often didn't need the focus confirm on my 6D, my bare eyes were enough most of the time
One thing that will never change though : on difficult subjects / bad light conditions even a magic lens can't do anything stellar whereas on magic light an underpar crap kit zoom will deliver a WYSIWYG shot !
I went out today with the a7 and SP 60 to get a shot of the spring blooms on a neighbor’s tree. Just hand-held. No plans to get very close.
Then I found this little guy hiding in one of the blooms. Handheld in a strong breeze made it challenging, but I got these two and two more usable out of sixteen.
And a few randoms, all tripod mounted. I am having a good time with this lens.
