These are bound to be absolutely amazing. Even the 45mm Super Rotator with the old glass was an incredibly versatile lens. With Zeiss glass they will be perfected.
Lotusm50 wrote:
I'm not sure I totally agree with their market analysis in the pdf (at the very least, there is more than one medium format player left).
Going through it made me remember one thing, however, and this was probably the genesis of these particular lenses. I remembered that about 2 or 3 years ago, Hartblei was offering to convert your 80mm Hassleblad lens into a Super Rotator. This was interesting, but I imagine that few people thought that sending their Hassy lenses to the Ukraine was a secure proposition. So now, instead of converting the lenses, they have now formally partnered with Zeiss to get Zeiss lenses directly and build them into their Super Rotator lens barrels directly. Assembly in the Ukraine will certianly keep costs down, but I wonder if Zeiss will be implementing their quality control in the factory there. Quality levels at Arsenal/Hartblei are not great, and far below those of say, Cosina whose production of some Zeiss lenses have been rejected at rates of 70% by Zeiss. It will be interesting to see what combination of price and quality will be present in these lenses. Are these Hatblei lenses that use Zeiss lens elements, or are these actual Zeiss lenses that just use the Hartblei Super Rotator mechanism? From the pictures, they look like the former....Show more →
on zeiss-site we can read that only 21mm zm is made in asia. all the rest made in germany.
rpinciuc wrote:
Stefan, thank you for the info and sample images, these lenses look to have a lot of potential, I just hope I can afford one (or two, or all three).
Are there any future plans for a wider version, something between 18mm and 28mm?
Thanks again,
-Rob
a 25/3.5 apo-pc-distagon-prototype already exists. for c/y only. too complicated and expensive. picture can be seen on an italian site. use google.
I emailed Hartblei and they said this product will be sold by Zeiss. If Stephen is returning from Kiev with lenses, it seems Hartblei is the manufacturer. I'm sure the lenses will be built to a high standard, or Zeiss wouldn't get involved.
That Contax 25 PC looks sick. And expensive. However, it's not a Superrotator, and likely doesn't implement some features of this new Hartblei series, like a longer backplane distance to help with microlens angles. It also may not take advantage of any Zeiss technology developments in the past 20 years.
The 40mm will probably be excellent for my purposes, but a 28/25/21 would be welcome too!
An interesting product to be sure but a used set of Hassleblad lenses ( or your own in my case) and a Mirex or Zoerk shift adapter will likely be cheaper and have more shift (15mm with the Mirex and 20mm with the Zoerk).
But tilt is incredibly useful. Shift can usually be worked around with a wider lens or photoshop. I often use tilt handheld, which I didn't expect to do before having movements with a small format.
dcmiller wrote:
But not both at the same time, as far as I can tell.
The Mirex webasite says nothing about not being able to use tilt is you use shift. The site says (loosely translated) "... extremely large adjustment possibilities could be created. This brings to small format mirror reflex cameras image design possibilities comparable to the large format photography." It seems to me that for this statement to be true, you really would need shift and tilt ot operate at the same time. But I am aware that marketing statements will usually try to stretch their use of fact.
To anybody who wants to see the final lenses now, i just have uploaded a fast product shot to make clear what we are talking about. These lenses are a complete new sort of built, we used german aluminium, the surface anodizing is done by Zeiss itself, the whole mechanism is a redesign, the 40 mm is an inside focusing lens. This is serious photographers equipment to earn money with for years and years. And..... as a first hint: expect prices that corellate with the Hasselblad list. we have added additional features keeping the price still very competitive compared to what you get (I mean we built some highend stuff here-no goofing around toy).
Greetings from Munich
Stefan Steib www.hartblei.de
I guess I don't get it. Most of the photos posted on the web site don't appear to do any more than what you could get with a lensbaby. I can see a need for the selected focus area in the last product shot if the advertising people were going to droop text both the the left and right sides. And the shot with the girl and flowers was nice but what is the point of having two people, standing next to each other, one sharply in focus the other so far out that you want to close one eye and only look at the girl on the left. Unless the whole point of the series was to show how narrow you can select a plane of focus and in any direction, which is easily done in Photoshop. But then I got up at 0420 this morning so I could be still asleep.
John
