I hope I'm not beating a dead horse I haven't had any luck finding any user reports about this. I notice that it is in stock at B&H (not sure how long it's been out there for) and was hoping someone here is a bit of a gear junky like myself and ordered one already. I'd love to hear thoughts on the lens (build quality, optics, whatever impressions you have) if you've had the chance to handle one. On a related note, are the optics basically the same as the ZF mount? Any insight would be appreciated by this heathen user of autofocus lenses
yeah, the ZE 50 1.4 was out since November 14. I've been using the CY 50 1.4 for a while on an XTi and recently on a 5D, I really like it and don't mind the manual focus so I actually ordered the ZE finally.
It came to my home yesterday but of course I was at work and it is signature required and my post office closes at 5:30 and I get home by 6:00 so I couldn't enjoy it yet... I should be able to grab it tonight.
will do some shooting tonight probably at Downtown Disney and will try to post something up by this weekend. very informal stuff, I'm not a lense tester, I just like how the Zeiss looks with its micro contrast, and manual focus is so fun =)
I have recently picked up the 85mm and 50mm ZE lenses.
Build quality is first rate (up to the standard of the old Contax manual focus lenses) and the operation of the lenses is smooth and sure. I also have the Canon 50 F1.4 and the original 85L. Physically the Zeiss lenses feel sturdier than the Canon equivalents - I think this is a problem with ALL autofocus lenses, the need for fast autofocus requires a certain 'lightness' in the movement of the internal elements and even the expensive L's don't feel rock solid in the same way a good manual focus lens does.
Optically the Zeiss produce images that are very similar - slightly 'soft' wide open at F1.4 and then sharpening up very rapidly as you stop down. I don't find the softness wide open to be objectionable, in fact when shooting a few shots of my wife she liked the slight 'smoothing' it gave to her skin tones. I would say that the Zeiss and Canon 50's are pretty much neck and neck with regards image quality, the Canon 85L is sharper than the Zeiss 85 wide open but I didn't buy the Zeiss because I thought it would be optically better - if I need sharp then I'll use the L, if I need Zeiss then out will come the Zeiss.
I seem to have been quite lucky with the Zeiss lenses (no optical problems so far and the focus confirmation works well) which makes a change because I have had terrible trouble with my Canon lenses - I had a 50mm lens that was unusable due to spherical aberration wide open, my 85mm L came with a tiny scratch on the back element, my 24L has very uneven sharpness (much softer in one corner than the other).
I'm not one of these people who tests out three copies of the same lens in the shop to cherry pick the best version (what happens to the duds that have been opened and used, straight back on the shelves I imagine) so Canons very uneven quality control is disappointing for such expensive L lenses.
Check out diglloyds blog. Technically it seems that the af assist sees a depth of field of f5.6 so the green dot will light over a distance range according to that. If you are shooting below that f-stop then the assist could light but your actual point of focus will be elsewhere.
However that doesn't mean that you don't have other problems - although if your focus is consistently out instead of just randomly out then maybe you could calibrate the lenses (as you have a camera with the af micro-adjust feature).
I really don't see the point of using MF lenses, if you want to rely on the AF points. In this case, you better use AF lenses, they're much more convenient.
Yeah, you don't use the Zeiss for convenience that's for sure. I have a EE-S screen for my 5D which helps in manual focus. When I REALLY want to get it RIGHT on, I always rely on the Angle Finder and use the 2x magnifier on it. You can REALLY tell when it is in focus or not. Specially when you use the 85/1.4 which has a really shallow DOF.
Weird, my ZE 1.4 has pretty good focus confirm, of course there is still a little "play" after you get the focus confirm but I think I'm just used to micro adjusting the shots myself, having a rangefinder system I have patience =)
I have both CZ ZE 50 and 85, on my 40D, and focus assist is bang on, inluding wide open. However, it does not "work" 100% of the time, meaning that I turn the focus ring past the in-focus point without getting a focus confirm. Based on my preliminary experience, I would say that it works 65+% of the time.
As described in another thread, optical results are good enough that I bought both lenses. In particular, crops from the the CZ 85 made the Canon 85 f:1.8 look OOF when both were wide open.
As reported by others, they feel very dense, heavy but compact, with a solid mechanical feel, and a look that screams "quality" and "engineering" rather than "marketing" or "design".
I have yet to compare the CZs (I have had them but 2 days) to my beloved 35L and 135L, but, if you do not want to take the plunge for 50L and 85L, and if you are willling to live with autofocus confirm rather than full AF, they are a wonderful way to do upgrade from non-L Canons.
