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Archive 2013 · Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar vs Canon EF 135mm f/2L

  
 
deepbluejh
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p.4 #1 · p.4 #1 · Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar vs Canon EF 135mm f/2L


The 135L is probably the second best lens optically I've ever owned (behind the 300/2.8 IS) and I've owned a LOT of them. I honestly can't think of a single time I've found it lacking. Yes, the Zeiss is slightly better in the test lab, and built better, but I suspect that the benefit in the real world would be marginal. Also, the lack of AF cannot be ignored.


Apr 27, 2013 at 05:13 PM
chez
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p.4 #2 · p.4 #2 · Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar vs Canon EF 135mm f/2L


alexdi wrote:
Where do you see degradation in those samples? If it's invisible, then it doesn't matter. We're not photographing test charts. The 'higher standards' bit is a particularly irritating canard. At some point, you're just quibbling for the sake of quibbling.


When you make large prints 30x40 and larger...you do see image manipulation artifacts in the final prints. Like I said, if photoshopping in quality is OK for your work, I see no issues. Just for me, I find it affects my final prints so I try to stay away from it.



Apr 27, 2013 at 05:16 PM
alexdi
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p.4 #3 · p.4 #3 · Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar vs Canon EF 135mm f/2L


I do make prints that large. My dining room is full of them, and I might agree if you were talking about correcting fisheye distortion or making wild perspective changes. CA, though? The correction might as well be flawless. I'd think no longer about ticking that box than adjusting the white balance.


Apr 27, 2013 at 05:26 PM
Mescalamba
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p.4 #4 · p.4 #4 · Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar vs Canon EF 135mm f/2L


Despite general idea "I can PhotoShop that" its never free lunch. Just cause you dont see it "harm" photo, doesnt mean it couldnt be better without that "correction".

Thats about what best lens are.

That and you simply have less boxes to tick. More perfect you get photos out of camera or RAW converter, easier your work is. And in certain cases working slower and using manual focus helps that.

Manual focus isnt that hard but you need to build your system around that and use every possible MF improvement you can. Or even buy camera that makes things like that easy (today easiest MF is with A99 I think). In real world it really doesnt matter much if you use Nikon or Canon or Sony to get photo, what matters is if your gear helps you to do that or not.

If you dont like MF, just move along.. or get Sony. You can get Zeiss lens and AF in same time. 135/1.8 is maybe even better than this, at least from aesthetically pleasing qualities (cause Im pretty positive from technical point of view its not better than Canon 135/2, but then neither Canon or Sony need to be better as they are mainly portrait lens).



Apr 27, 2013 at 05:29 PM
alexdi
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p.4 #5 · p.4 #5 · Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar vs Canon EF 135mm f/2L


Mescalamba wrote:
Despite general idea "I can PhotoShop that" its never free lunch. Just cause you dont see it "harm" photo, doesnt mean it couldnt be better without that "correction".


What difference? It's a photograph. All that matters is what you can see. If your argument is, "oh, I don't like it because I'd feel it was worse, even if I couldn't tell," it's clear that photography isn't your priority.



Apr 27, 2013 at 05:39 PM
chez
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p.4 #6 · p.4 #6 · Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar vs Canon EF 135mm f/2L


alexdi wrote:
What difference? It's a photograph. All that matters is what you can see. If your argument is, "oh, I don't like it because I'd feel it was worse, even if I couldn't tell," it's clear that photography isn't your priority.


But what if you can tell? I use to shoot my wide angle landscapes with a combination of the 17-40 and a Zuiko 21mm and then I upgraded my wide angle to the Zeiss 21mm and I saw an immediate improvement in my photos. There was no photoshopping I could do to make my 17-40 or Zuiko 21mm look as good as the Zeiss photos.



Apr 27, 2013 at 06:00 PM
alexdi
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p.4 #7 · p.4 #7 · Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar vs Canon EF 135mm f/2L


We're talking about CA correction, not switching to another lens. You can't tell.


Apr 27, 2013 at 06:25 PM
chez
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p.4 #8 · p.4 #8 · Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar vs Canon EF 135mm f/2L


alexdi wrote:
We're talking about CA correction, not switching to another lens. You can't tell.


I am saying I could see I provements in my prints by using a better lens and no post processing the images shot with the inferior lens would make them as good as images shot with the better lens. Everything being equal, I'd rather shoot with a better lens and save mucking around trying to correct deficiencies using PS created by the inferior lens.



Apr 27, 2013 at 06:41 PM
alexdi
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p.4 #9 · p.4 #9 · Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar vs Canon EF 135mm f/2L


You have to distinguish between aberrations. Yeah, you can't magically add sharpness. But mild distortion and vignetting, and even severe CA, can be corrected with no apparent degradation. And it's not like there's effort involved; you can set them all to apply automatically.

And we're not talking about your 21mm. You seem set on redefining the parameters of the debate. The 135/2 is a very sharp lens where the primary pitfall, outside of flare, is CA. And that's easy to fix, and no, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.



Apr 27, 2013 at 07:40 PM
Mescalamba
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p.4 #10 · p.4 #10 · Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar vs Canon EF 135mm f/2L


Except every CA correction causes edges to loose crispness. Not mentioning fringe correction which does nice grey outlines mostly (or another contrast lost at best).

Thats why ppl buy Leica lens. And thats part of "magic" - perfect CA correction. You can shop it, but it doesnt look same. Zeiss to certain degree is similar to Leica in this. And since Leica doesnt make R anymore, its pretty much only option.

Vignetting correction is something I dont ever bother with. Distortion isnt good thing, cause with even slightest "fix" you need to have most of photo (usually all) recalculated and pretty much re-rendered. Its not always apparent, but you might loose some sharpness.

Certain lens are better simply because they are better. You cant shop Canon to look like Zeiss. Its simply not there. You may with careful post-processing improve its look and "fix" some problems, but thats all. It wont be same level. And you can do same with Zeiss. Which really doesnt make that gap smaller, rather opposite.

If it wasnt that case, Leica could stop making their highly CA corrected lens, cause anyone could PP their lens to look like Leica one. But curiously enough, even when we have much better CA correcting softer, its not happening. One might wonder why..



Apr 27, 2013 at 09:16 PM
alexdi
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p.4 #11 · p.4 #11 · Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar vs Canon EF 135mm f/2L


I'm not going to argue about this any more, you didn't read the link. Do whatever you want.


Apr 27, 2013 at 10:10 PM
Lasse Eriksson
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p.4 #12 · p.4 #12 · Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar vs Canon EF 135mm f/2L


alexdi wrote:
You have to distinguish between aberrations. Yeah, you can't magically add sharpness. But mild distortion and vignetting, and even severe CA, can be corrected with no apparent degradation. And it's not like there's effort involved; you can set them all to apply automatically.

And we're not talking about your 21mm. You seem set on redefining the parameters of the debate. The 135/2 is a very sharp lens where the primary pitfall, outside of flare, is CA. And that's easy to fix, and no, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.


Yes the 135L is a nice lens. But if you don't need AF the Zeiss is even better. Have you seen comparison and test shots with both lenses. Or looked at the wide open performance. On diglloyd's website there is a lot of pics and tests.
Yes you can correct distortion, vignetting and CA. But it is obviously better if you don't have to do it in PP. And it also looks better. And not all people have the software to do it.



Apr 27, 2013 at 11:50 PM
BostonGreg
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p.4 #13 · p.4 #13 · Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar vs Canon EF 135mm f/2L


As soon as I heard about this lens, I knew it was going to be insane. I'm super excited to get my copy and have some fun with it, I'm expecting image quality on par with my 200 f2L IS.


Apr 27, 2013 at 11:58 PM
Sven Jeppesen
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p.4 #14 · p.4 #14 · Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar vs Canon EF 135mm f/2L


BostonGreg wrote:
As soon as I heard about this lens, I knew it was going to be insane. I'm super excited to get my copy and have some fun with it, I'm expecting image quality on par with my 200 f2L IS.


Congrats, I'm sure you will like it



Apr 28, 2013 at 01:30 AM
Sven Jeppesen
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p.4 #15 · p.4 #15 · Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar vs Canon EF 135mm f/2L


alexdi wrote:
You have to distinguish between aberrations. Yeah, you can't magically add sharpness. But mild distortion and vignetting, and even severe CA, can be corrected with no apparent degradation. And it's not like there's effort involved; you can set them all to apply automatically.

And we're not talking about your 21mm. You seem set on redefining the parameters of the debate. The 135/2 is a very sharp lens where the primary pitfall, outside of flare, is CA. And that's easy to fix, and no, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.


No way you can correct distortion, vignetting and severe CA in PS or LR with no degradation of IQ.
And in a large print it will not look the same as a lens that is perfect from the start.



Apr 28, 2013 at 01:32 AM
alexdi
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p.4 #16 · p.4 #16 · Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar vs Canon EF 135mm f/2L


Lasse Eriksson wrote:
But it is obviously better if you don't have to do it in PP.


No, it isn't obvious at all. Every lens is a compromise. You can't have everything. It may well be that optimizing one parameter spoils another. Better to optimize the ones you can't easily fix in software (e.g., sharpness) than the ones you can. They already do this with integrated-lens and mirrorless bodies.

Sven Jeppesen wrote:
No way you can correct distortion, vignetting and severe CA in PS or LR with no degradation of IQ.


No. The argument is that the degradation won't be visible. (Except with CA; that's such a small adjustment at any severity level that it might as well be no degradation.) And I'm right, though you'll notice I qualified vignetting and distortion with 'mild'. Past about 5% distortion and 1 stop of vignetting, the differences begin to become apparent. Roger's shown it appears sooner in test charts, but you won't see the loss in your prints.

See above for my comments on a 'perfect' lens. I won't argue the Zeiss isn't a better lens. I'm not even talking about the Zeiss, the specific question was what problems you easily correct with Canon's version.



Apr 28, 2013 at 01:55 AM
Sven Jeppesen
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p.4 #17 · p.4 #17 · Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar vs Canon EF 135mm f/2L


alexdi wrote:
Lasse Eriksson wrote:
But it is obviously better if you don't have to do it in PP.


No, it isn't obvious at all. Every lens is a compromise. You can't have everything. It may well be that optimizing one parameter spoils another. Better to optimize the ones you can't easily fix in software (e.g., sharpness) than the ones you can. They already do this with integrated-lens and mirrorless bodies.



Of course it's better if you don't have to correct the lens in PP.
That was the statement. Not that you then have to correct other things.......................




Apr 28, 2013 at 02:48 AM
R3medy
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p.4 #18 · p.4 #18 · Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar vs Canon EF 135mm f/2L


alexdi wrote:
I'll nail it every time the Canon L.

Heh that's a funny thing to say about Canon. They've only recently learned how to make a working AF in camera and even still it misses a focus more often then the competition and even more often in low light when You would want to make a use of f/2. Add to this possibility of lens AF misfire and I really struggle to see how You would nail it every time. My neighbor was (probably still is, but I moved out to new location so can't tell) using Canon's marvelous 200mm f/2 L IS (really wonderful lens!!) with 1D Mk IV and since last year 5D MkIII and despite the fact 200L is way superior in terms of AF than 135L and despite having top notch cams still rate of keepers is not 100% not even remotely close. And it happens that the missed shot is a completely blurry blob of melted butter and jelly (as if "focus" was set tenths of meters ahead or behind subject), AF is not flawless regardless the camera maker. Then again, I really can't see how You would get that shot every time no matter which cam or AF lens do You use.



Apr 28, 2013 at 03:16 AM
splathrop
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p.4 #19 · p.4 #19 · Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar vs Canon EF 135mm f/2L


Some comments here about CA, and why it doesn't matter because you can fix it in Photoshop. The CA artifacts you see are made of light that didn't go where it's supposed to go. That means that your image not only shows the addition of the CA artifacts, but also the subtraction from adjacent areas of your image of the light that made the artifacts. If you pay attention I think you will notice that many images which show notable CA are also lacking in fine contrast. Think about it. Don't large apertures, CA, and reduced contrast all go together? Photoshop may hide the worst artifacts, but it is never going to replace the details erased by lowered contrast.


Apr 28, 2013 at 08:06 AM
GoGo
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p.4 #20 · p.4 #20 · Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar vs Canon EF 135mm f/2L


Can't wait to see some real world images samples from the new zeiss lens.


Apr 28, 2013 at 09:54 AM
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