Howdy all. I'm thinking of swapping my OM 35mm shift lens for a Zeiss 35 ZF. Can anyone tell me if the ZF has a floating lens group for improved close up performance? How is the corner performance of the ZF? I hardly ever use the shift feature on my OM and would rather have close up performance instead.
Thanks,
Dan
The ZF35 does NOT have a floating element. Concordantly, its corner performance is sub-par.
If you want a floating element, you'll want to get the new Distagon 2/28 ZF. It has a floating element, and is a redesign of the old "Hollywood Distagon".
I've got the oly 35 shift and find that while decent for a PC lens it's not particularly noteworthy otherwise. I'd think there are quite a few lenses that you'd be happy with that cost considerably less than the ZF and would most likely be less than the resale price of the oly as well.
I have the CZJ Flektagon 35 f2.4 which focuses very close (like half life-sized!) and I find particularly good. It is noticably sharper than the oly shift lens I have and does not seem to suffer nearly as much from CA. Here's a gallery of samples from this lens :http://www.pbase.com/douglasjmorgan/fmcz35
I don't know about the close up performance but the later versions of the elmarit 35 were highly recommended to me before I bought the CZJ. My understanding is also that the distagon 35 is as good as the 28mm which I've been happy with.
hey. i just bought the CZJ Flektagon 34. I don't know a whole lot about older 35mm primes, but this lens is sharp and has awesome close-distance focusing abilities. go out and buy one. you won't regret it.
The later Leica 35/2.8 Elmarits are exceptional from infinity to very close focus, giving edge to edge sharpness on FF. The CZJ Flektagons are better for a crop camera than FF, as the corners (and edges) of the frame loose more resolution.
yeah, i shot that picture of a crop camera. of course, it's hard to see corner sharpness with that shot... i was more interested in seeing how the camera preformed at f2.4.
Thanks for the info guys. I'm leaning towards Leica. I have a 1ds3 on the way and I think I want the best all around 35mm I can get. Now I need to research the f/2 vs f/1.4 leica.
The OM shift is a pretty sharp lens. Here is a shot I took this morning with it. The first image is the uncropped image just resized. The second is a 100% crop with unsharp mask applied, settings were amount, 100, radius .3, and 0 for threshold.
Though of course you should do your own research, I did a fair bit of research regarding the Leica versions and even amongst the leicamaniacs there was a lot of difference of opinion on the three leica 35mm versions. The conclusion I came away with is that if wide-open performance is not the most important aspect than the later version elmarit's gave the best image quality vs weight and cost. I'd take a look at the CZ distagon 35mm as well which many seemed to prefer over any of the Leica's. I picked the CZJ partly on a lark and was pleasantly suprised at the image quality so much so that I stopped looking at other options.
shiwan wrote:
The ZF35 does NOT have a floating element. Concordantly, its corner performance is sub-par.
This is not really correct. You can have corner sharpness without a floating element. Floating elements are used as a way to improve performance at close focusing distances, making performance more consistent the entire focusing range. Overall however, it is neither necessary or sufficient for corner sharpness generally.
As an owner of the ZF 35mm f 2.0 and ex owner of the Canon 35mm f1.4 and the owner of a 44 inch epson printer where all errors are easy to see, I have only one word for Shiwan.
I have to second Bruce here: I own all the ZFs except the 85/1.4 and have used them on a variety of Nikon bodies. The 35/2 is spectactular and my choice for demanding stitching work.
Corners are very sharp, even at ƒ4, and razor at ƒ5.6, and it focusses down to less than 6" (from the front element as I hold it here). Is that close enough for what you need?
Have done (all the Leica-R lenses from 15–180, on 1Ds and 5D) but sold all that and went Nikon for two reasons: one, the ZF line (auto stopdown is worth the price of admission, IMHO) and the HOPE of FF. Seems to have paid off: I should have one of the first D3s in Australia, with any luck.
I have not used the ZFs on FF, but diglloyd uses his on a 1DIII (closer) and he raves about them. My reading of all the reviews and my use of the 25/2.8, 35/2, 50/2 and 100/2 suggests that all (except the 25) will be exceptional on FF. Let's wait and see; not long now.
