U.C. wrote:
They absolutely can be compared. But the Zeiss 135/2 must be put at double f-numbers to get the same picture (and double iso for the same exposure settings).
Correct, and for most portrait work, the 135mm would be stopped down anyway. 135mm at f/2 gives a very shallow depth of field, to shallow for most people's taste.
wayne seltzer wrote:
Forgot to add that this 135/2 was done more for the movie shooters rather than the stills but it also gives portrait shooters a slightly longer alt which performs even better for that type shooting.
Why would it be more suitable for movie shooters? It does have clicks for the aperture stops, doesn't it? Also there is a dedicated cine version for almost 3 times the price:
Somehow its become a tradition. I see the worst of them in the youtube article are not in flickr and to not be in flickr is really saying something (grin)
I sort of like the way they do this. You can look at a Nikon brochure and wonder why your 18-55 kits lens looks like pea soup compared to what they give as a sample. I think there is an honesty in Zeiss and I kinda like it. A buyer really has to decide if they want it and they don't sugar coat it, thats pretty awesome.
Now if they would just convince me to buy this 135 ...
Jorgen Udvang wrote:
Why would it be more suitable for movie shooters? It does have clicks for the aperture stops, doesn't it? Also there is a dedicated cine version for almost 3 times the price:
wayne seltzer wrote:
I see cat's eyes bokeh ovals.
Bokeh is not as smooth as ZA.
LoCA/bokeh fringing looks well controlled though in the shot of the yellow bus. Taken at f/2 and there is only a trace of cyan fringing in the high contrast parts.
rico wrote:
Indicating mechanical vignetting as shown in the spec sheet.
I believe the proper term is optical vignetting. The cat's eyes are seen because of the image circle is too small to show full blur discs towards the corners -- i.e. because of the size of the optics, not because of mechanical obstruction. If the image circle was bigger there would be no cat's eyes, but if you'd put on a hood that was a little too long you would begin to see them and then it's called mechanical vignetting. http://toothwalker.org/optics/vignetting.html#optical
Definitely they are not best samples out there from the lens. But I can see that the lens is sharp, life-like bokeh (not as smooth as the ZA indeed), and the APO works in most situations (definitely better than the ZA). However, unless i'm mistaken this with something else, this particular picture shows extremely strong fringing:
I also think that the OOF highlight cutoff would be less (or even non-existent) on a Canon camera. I have seen quite a few cutoff with these D800 samples.
The new 135 seems very interesting. Compared to the Sony lens it's much better controlled over the image height, and a lot sharper at wide open. Note how close the sagittal and meridonal lines follow each other, indicating very low astigmatism and very low amounts of coma, even at F2.0. The placement of the ED elements would also suggest a very well controlled LoCA, something that is hinted at in the (admittedly) very lacking sample images... :-)
These MTF's are not from the same K-8 MTF machine, but at least they're very similarly configured. I don't have F4.0 measurements of the SAL135, so we're comparing F4.0 to F8.0 in the second measurement. These are just the 20lp/mm data, the chart gets rather unreadable when I overlay all three datasets
That's just the pink sunset light bleeding through the tree tops. If it would be CA the tree tops would be colored cyan/greenish. Magenta LoCA is always in front (on the side of the camera) of the focal plane, I believe.
hiepphotog wrote:
Are these measured or are they from the published MTF? Thank you.
Zeiss ZE/ZF/ZM MTF's are measured not theoretical (ZA's are theoretical, but published by Sony not Zeiss), so it's both measured and from the published MTF.
(not as smooth as the ZA indeed), and the APO works in most situations (definitely better than the ZA). However, unless i'm mistaken this with something else, this particular picture shows extremely strong fringing: