The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

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Jorge Torralba
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p.1 #1 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

I have heard some people say that the new 25 f2 from Zeiss is only good for close up work. I respectfully disagree. I snapped this shot today just to see how well it does on far away subjects.

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Jan 11, 2012 at 02:18 AM

pdmphoto
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p.1 #2 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

Nice shot of Pioneer Place. It look like the *corners* of the frame are a little lacking? What is the aperture?

Jan 11, 2012 at 02:31 AM

jffielde
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p.1 #3 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

Looks good. I would like to see the corners as well.

Jan 11, 2012 at 03:13 AM

JimBuchanan
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p.1 #4 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

I certainly agree that it performs well on far off objects over most of the frame, but who said it doesn't? Since when has a non-macro lens been optimized for other than infinity?

Jan 11, 2012 at 03:58 AM

freaklikeme
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p.1 #5 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

Every example I see from this lens makes me think it's a slightly wider 28/2.

Jan 11, 2012 at 06:11 AM

Thorsten
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p.1 #6 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

The corners look a bit dull for f/5.6, so this confirms what other reviewers have said. Otherwise looks like a great lens.

Jan 11, 2012 at 06:22 AM

wayne seltzer
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p.1 #7 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

I like my 21 much better than this lens. Thanks for confirming the dullness.

Jan 11, 2012 at 06:47 AM

Uzay
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p.1 #8 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

i don't see any zeiss look, thank you for your efforts
my target is 35mm

Jan 11, 2012 at 07:03 AM

AhamB
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p.1 #9 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

Haters gonna hate...

Jan 11, 2012 at 07:08 AM

zhangyue
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p.1 #10 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

Sorry, why people hate this lens? There are not enough pictures make it deserve BAD reputation yet. Why so negative here?

This focal length is not my priority but does it make it a bad lens? The op's pic is in cloudy day without any extra effort in editing to bring out the contrast and color, he want to show the sharpness of the lens, which I think it did showing it is good. Which corner we are talking about?

F5.6 with 25mm may not enough to keep everything sharp, especially with 12M picture, I think the photo will be benefit more with f8 or so before diffraction kick in.

Plus, I never think modern day Zeiss has any obvious advantage in sharpness compare new Nikon and Canon offer. Say a 35mmf1.4, comparing Canikon offerm it is not sharper. But people still love it. Why this lens get treated totally different??

Jan 11, 2012 at 07:31 AM

SKumar25
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p.1 #11 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

+1... how can we judge the corners from such a small picture?

The 50 MP struggles a tad in the the extreme corners, doesn't make it any less brilliant as a package. I feel this is similar, nice allrounder with few weaknesses.

Lloyd has been raving on and on about it, doubt he'd put his reputation on the line for a dud.

Jan 11, 2012 at 09:39 AM

Rodluvan
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p.1 #12 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

Wow, you've already gotten your hands on a copy!?

did you go through a normal dealer or do you have inside contacts?

This is on my want-list, so much so I've put the 2/100 on the market.

I have no worries that it wont perform fantastically.
A tilt shift would be nice though.

Jan 11, 2012 at 10:06 AM

Rodluvan
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p.1 #13 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

Jan 11, 2012 at 10:02 AM

Rodluvan
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p.1 #14 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

Jan 11, 2012 at 10:06 AM

Rodluvan
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p.1 #15 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

Jan 11, 2012 at 10:02 AM

Rodluvan
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p.1 #16 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

Jan 11, 2012 at 10:03 AM

Rodluvan
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p.1 #17 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

Sorry, bout that. The server got hiccup.

Jan 11, 2012 at 10:30 AM

Jorge Torralba
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p.1 #18 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

I don't see the dullness being referred to. The only flaw I see is the tilting edges but this is a 25mm.

The first crop is of the bottom right corner and it looks sharp and full of detail. Look at the tree limbs in the far distance and the window trimmings. You must have a bad monitor. Look at the well defined brick work on the white building all of which is at the bottom right corner crop.

As far as the 2nd crop of the left side with the green lift, that was in the foreground and I woud expect that to be softer. But if you look inside the windows to the fer left edge you can see the individual slats of the blinds.

Again, you must have a bad monitor or I must have super human eyes.

Here are the extreme corners. You can even see the individual legs of the pigeon that is walking.

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Jan 11, 2012 at 01:56 PM

Tariq Gibran
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p.1 #19 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

Jorge Torralba wrote:
I don't see the dullness being referred to. The only flaw I see is the tilting edges but this is a 25mm.

The first crop is of the bottom right corner and it looks sharp and full of detail. Look at the tree limbs in the far distance and the window trimmings. You must have a bad monitor. Look at the well defined brick work on the white building all of which is at the bottom right corner crop.

As far as the 2nd crop of the left side with the green lift, that was in the foreground and I woud expect that to be softer. But if you look inside the windows to the fer left edge you can see the individual slats of the blinds.

Again, you must have a bad monitor or I must have super human eyes.

Here are the extreme corners. You can even see the individual legs of the pigeon that is walking.

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Looks pretty average given how close those subjects are to the camera, to me at least. The criticism of the lens was for the corners at further distances such as might be seen in a landscape vista. The weakness is shown in multiple tests thus far. Does not make it a "bad" lens at all, just means it's use might not be ideal for all subject matter.

Jan 11, 2012 at 02:24 PM

SKumar25
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p.1 #20 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

Looks pretty good. Sorry Tariq, probably a dumb question, how do you get corners with detail at infinity for landscape vistas? what would you shoot?

Jan 11, 2012 at 02:34 PM

Tariq Gibran
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p.1 #21 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

SKumar25 wrote:
Looks pretty good. Sorry Tariq, probably a dumb question, how do you get corners with detail at infinity for landscape vistas? what would you shoot?

The Zeiss 35/2 seems to do a damn good job. It has the major advantage of higher magnification of course compared to a 25 but distant shots like the one below taken with the Zeiss 25/2 seem to show distinctly blurry corners whereas the 25/2.8 does not, at least from every test/ example I have seen thus far.

This is with the Zeiss 35/2 on my A900. The subject in the extreme rt top corner is pretty far away.

Testing for detail, F8 I believe:

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100% crops:
Extreme top rt corner. Note surfer on board near edge.

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Near top center

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Jan 11, 2012 at 02:46 PM

alundeb
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p.1 #22 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

Jorge Torralba wrote:
Here are the extreme corners. You can even see the individual legs of the pigeon that is walking.

This image is copyrighted by the owner

The tree trunk in the lower left corner looks rather soft to me, compared to the other tree trunk. Especially considered this was on the low pixel density 12 MP D3s.

I can barely see the legs of the pigeon, the contrast is rather low there.

Not bashing the lens, I like it. But it is funny how we can judge the quality of the extreme corners so differently even when looking at the same sample.

Jan 11, 2012 at 03:02 PM

Tariq Gibran
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p.1 #23 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

Oh, I did not realize this example of the 25/2 was just on a 12MP camera. That tree trunk does looks rather blurry and lacking in any real detail. Anyway, I would really love to see the 25/2 perform exceptionally in the corners at distance on a 20+MP FF camera, I just have not seen even one example showing that yet.

Jan 11, 2012 at 03:11 PM

Gunzorro
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p.1 #24 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

zhangyue wrote:
Sorry, why people hate this lens? There are not enough pictures make it deserve BAD reputation yet. Why so negative here?

This focal length is not my priority but does it make it a bad lens? The op's pic is in cloudy day without any extra effort in editing to bring out the contrast and color, he want to show the sharpness of the lens, which I think it did showing it is good. Which corner we are talking about?

F5.6 with 25mm may not enough to keep everything sharp, especially with 12M picture, I think the photo will be benefit more with f8 or so before diffraction kick in.

Plus, I never think modern day Zeiss has any obvious advantage in sharpness compare new Nikon and Canon offer. Say a 35mmf1.4, comparing Canikon offerm it is not sharper. But people still love it. Why this lens get treated totally different??

Hate? I don't see any hate in the thread up to yours and AhamB's remarks about haters.

Why? Well for starters, the lens has the 21/2.8 to live up to -- one of the legendary modern Zeiss wide angle lens designs.

Second, the 25 is being heavily hyped and hoped for, probably too much based on the edge performance we are seeing in test shots. That sets up a conflict between people's wants and reality -- hard for the lens to match up to some of those expectations and desires.

Third, it's an expensive lens, having to prove itself superior optically to other models like the 24/1.4L II that have more features. Potential buyers are naturally going to scrutinize its pluses and minused very carefully.

Personally, I think the color looks "Zeissy" and I'm not surprised by the vignetting, field curvature or SA. So far, I haven't seen any samples that show amazing contrast.

Will the value ultimately match the price? That remains to be seen.

Jorge -- The complaint about the corners (relates to edges too) has to do with the lower res associated with vignetting and SA -- quite evident as dark corners in your first example. Your enlarged samples of the corners have been lightened quite a bit from the original, so it's not quite a fair assessment except for sharpness, which has accurately been remarked on as less than sharp on the tree and pigeon.

Still, the lens is putting out a good effort at quality. Will it be enough to convince buyers to add to their 21/2.8 and 35/2 (or 1.4), or will it even live up to those standards, or to buy instead of either of those lenses? That's simply the challenge the 25/2 faces.

Jan 11, 2012 at 03:38 PM

FlyPenFly
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p.1 #25 · The new 25mm f2 Distagon ZF

I think the 21/2.8 was designed for landscape use with unusually sharp corners.

I think the 25/2 is more optimized for great bokeh and medium to short distance use.

For landscape, its probably still a fine lens but perhaps not performing up to the standard at which it costs.

Jan 11, 2012 at 03:58 PM


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