Best way to keep lens threads alive is with smoking images, plenty of which we see above! I would love to contribute but David at Leitax is a very busy man these days...
I think this is my next lens. If I can decide if it's a better pick than the Minolta APO F2.8 200mm G HS.
The Minolta gives me fast AF and steady shot in my A850 as well as almost 2 stops... The Contax/Zeiss gives me more contrast and sharpness and 100mm more...
Out of curiousity, if I chip the lens, what FL should I be chipping it for if i want steady shot?
Some photos of my recently acquired Vario-Sonnar 100-300.
This lens delivers really nice looking high resolution pictures.
Even with my Canon 550D.
It is a very well corrected lens, there are nearly no chromatic aberrations.
FlyPenFly wrote:
Out of curiousity, if I chip the lens, what FL should I be chipping it for if i want steady shot?
I think 100mm. At least I've read before that when SS overcompensates due to a too long FL, you'll get unsharp results. Of course you could program the chip at 200mm and just disable SS when you use the lens near 100mm.
Last week I received my converted (no reversible mount possible) one of these for Alpha mount, from Leitax. Did a series of careful comparisons with a Minolta 200mm f2.8 APO HS and Sony's 70-300mm mid-level zoom - it revealed a few things.
(using cord-anchored CF tripod, MLU, dwell of 8 seconds, no SSS, no filter, cable release, no wind, neutral settings in RAW, no RC sharpening, focus bracketing)
The VS is so close to the APO Minolta that the only resolution difference is smaller than focus error, at the best aperture for each of f5.6...the Minolta may just shade the VS at short range.
The other characteristics of real importance to me all run in favour of the VS: beautiful defined bokeh, as good 3D as I could wish for, colour tonality which lends itself to 3D, clarity, and midtone separation in another league from the Minolta's rather flat output and too smooth bokeh. I shoot landscapes and travel I should add. I see no trace of lateral CA in fine twigs against a bright (250/255) sky near long edges. Same 'accurate yet beautiful' greens seen in photoe's images above.
The Sony zoom was outclassed, despite nice colour and contrast.
And this at 200mm which is the downslope on the VS MTF chart (optimum is 100-150mm, a wise choice by Zeiss IMO). At 100mm it is simply excellent, showing a noticeable lift in performance over longer FLs.
What's not to like? Focus is expectedly fussy, given the ability to focus past infinity and no LV...and it makes a real difference in my focus bracket shots to get it exactly right.
I rate it as 'better' than the Contax 35-70/3.4, really more of the same but at longer FLs. It impresses me as much as the 21mm Distagon. I have yet to see poor image from it, so consistency is another feature. It also sits nicely on a full frame body despite lacking a full focal range collar option. I'll do a few jpgs when I get to it.
I could get to like the comparo business, it's very informative in a way you can never see otherwise.
Philip, thanks for the comparison. Is the Sony zoom you compared it to the 70-300mm G? How much of a fall off in performance is there with the VS from 200-300mm? Lastly, if you don't mind my asking, what did David charge for the mount conversion. Thanks.
So finally I have my camera back and tried out the 100-300 today Delft Nieuwe Kerk by Johann D, on Flickr
I took out a power line running across the lower third. It should've been tricky because it was out of focus, but Photoshops content aware heal is really amazing!
Here's some of my shots with it - from the other thread:
Contax Vario-Sonnar 100-300mm All wide open:
Hand Held, 300mm, 100% Crop
Hand Held, 300mm, after sunset, 100% crop
HH, WO, 300, 100% - got a little camera shake in this one. ( ;"- /
WO, About 250mm
100% Crop of above
Pretty much SOOC... Only BFR-Scaling on the next three here (actually for the above heli and the blossom too) - it doesn't need any contrast boosting or anything like that - and as you can see it's already so sharp that even just BFR-Scaling adds halos in some places:
100mm WO:
100mm WO
300mm WO
100% Crop of above
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Here's some Aperture (DOF / Bokeh) animations at 100mm. The first one is the full image scaled and the second one is a 100% crop. It's got some pallet dithering noise because I used photoshop to create these - probably the worst app for GIF optimization and Gif-amin editing! But anyway, that shouldn't matter too much, you can see the what this lens (the C/Y Zeiss Vario-Sonnar 100-300mm f/4.5) looks like in full color in the above posts.
These are without any editing except BFSG-Scaling on the scaled one, and all sliders set to 0 in ACR.- (not default, but zeroed).
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Here's some more of the C/Y 100-300 but at 200mm WO this time:
Almost a 100% crop from above. But rotated for composition - which I guess you can tell I suck at.
It would have been 100% but I wanted it the same width after framing so the scale value for that came to like 92.x%
Hehe..
And another of basically the same kinda thing 200mm, WO, - although the crop version is actually from a different image taken just after or right before:
Bifurcator, what do you think of the colors from this lens? You have used so many different types of lenses, with different characteristics, I have wondered what you think of this lens's palette?
Hi Inglis, are you using the 100-300 + Mutar on a full frame camera? I heard it might interfere with the mirror on 5D... Definitely interested in more samples of this combo either way!
jotdeh wrote:
Hi Inglis, are you using the 100-300 + Mutar on a full frame camera? I heard it might interfere with the mirror on 5D... Definitely interested in more samples of this combo either way!
Why not just use a teleconverter with EF mount? C/Y adapters are not quick to remove from lenses.
