Lars Johnsson wrote:
And what about reading your own links. At least one of those two will not ship to my continent.

One of them ships worldwide, the other includes Asia in the "ships to:" field.

AhamB wrote:
Lars Johnsson wrote:
And what about reading your own links. At least one of those two will not ship to my continent.

One of them ships worldwide, the other includes Asia in the "ships to:" field.

Yes exactly ? That's why I wrote they don't ship it to my continent

Whoops, I presumed you were still in Thailand.
The item location is Germany and in the description below it's said that the shop ships worldwide, so the ebay info at the top isn't correct I'm sure.

Sorry to resurrect this old thread, I'd mentioned on another thread that i've had better results with the R28 by focussing right at the infinity stop, so here for Cyra are the results.

I'm just starting out on a new PC so don't have all my tools up and running yet, so these may look a bit dark, its probably the wide open vignetting thats not been corrected.

Anyhow here's the wide scene plus centre crops, R28 first.

And right edge crops, R28 first

I also had an 18x12 print of this scene from either lens (I think I printed the f5.6 shots) and they were very difficult to tell apart except the wider view of the ZF lens.

thanks a lot johnahill for responding to my call, but there seems one wide shot missing? In the center crops the R28 seems to be sharper (buildings) but interesting how similar the rendering is. In the edge crops the ZF 25 has a slight halo around the light, the R28 does not. Are these 50% crops?

are you using them differently in any respect? Have you compared them at close range as well other than what you showed before?

Ok, here are the complete scene at f5.6 and center crops (50%ish).

R28 first

And f5.6 right hand side, both were lightened so we could see the detail, the ZF25 needed a touch more than the R28.

R28 is the top one

I'd be hard pressed to tell them apart - except for the angle of view.
Seems like two solid performers. (I had the R28/E55 myself.)

John, just curious.. did you notice any softer corners with the Distagon compared to those with the Elmarit? The other thread is discussing this. (BTW, your tests so far did not indicate any difference..) Thanks.

Bob

kosmoskatten wrote:
I'd be hard pressed to tell them apart - except for the angle of view.
Seems like two solid performers. (I had the R28/E55 myself.)


I've come to that conclusion too, both very good and similar rendering style.

I was uploading more samples for Cyra who has the zf25.

Bob YILDIRAN wrote:
John, just curious.. did you notice any softer corners with the Distagon compared to those with the Elmarit? The other thread is discussing this. (BTW, your tests so far did not indicate any difference..) Thanks.

Bob

No, the corners on this distagon are amazing, but this is the old ZF 25mm f2.8, not the new 25 f2.0

I used to have the Zeiss (my first copy was broken, but Zeiss replaced it
and my 2nd copy was as good as yours), now I shoot with the Leica.
IMO, your examples are not difficult enough and don't show a scene where
the difference in rendering would be easily seen.
Those two shots are showing some difference, take a look at
the amount of CA in the leaves and check out the lower left corner,
it's not only the sharpness, but the separation of the reds and greens:

As an aside - I really like that old car shot snowboarder!

Tariq Gibran wrote:
AhamB wrote:
And Zeiss just have sloppy web designers/bad QC on the website. It would be nice though if they would just provide direct links to the data sheets instead of hiding them under service>download center>recent data sheets.

The odd/ worrisome thing though is that if you download the actual product flyer brochure for the lens - which looks like it is also a printed piece - Zeiss lists the same specifications as the website. So, this begs the question - will Zeiss no longer be listing accurate focal lengths for their lenses going forward in all marketing material? Will they also eventually do away with publishing MTF's (which is not listed in the product flyer for the lens by the way)? In fact, on the Zeiss lens page, I no longer even see how to get to the MTF's. Seems a slippery slope.
You're right, I downloaded some months ago several 'old' spec.sheets from Zeiss website and they have still accurate focal lengths -For instance, the ZF 25/2.8 is 25.7mm,. the ZF 28/2 is 28.5 mm. and the ZF 35/2 seems to be exactly 35mm,
The new files include now a DOF chart of doubtful utility but focal lengths are rounded to the nominal value

I've been impressed by the Leica for some time; it seems to be the perfect 28. An impressive piece of optical engineering. The ZF 25/2.8 comes remarkably close though (at least in terms of sharpness), esp. considering the price.

thanks John for the pictures and crops, they indeed look very similar. I appreciate your comparison very much. I've just let go of a Leica 28 at ebay, it went for 1060 €, which was a bargain for the 28, but still a lot of money since I already own the 25. Makes me fell better about the 25 ;-) In you first post there is still missing the image of the 25 ?

snowboarder: that car shot is indeed very much leica looking. Couldn't produce that look with the Zf 25/2.8. Something strange going on in the trees at far left though, what is this? What pp did you do with that shot?

Guess, I can just as well post a few ZF25/2.8 shots

Zf 25/2.8 @f4




@5,6






@2,8



I'd like to see some shots at close range as the last one with the 28. Does anyone have a shot at that distance or MFD?

cyra wrote:

snowboarder: that car shot is indeed very much leica looking. Couldn't produce that look with the Zf 25/2.8. Something strange going on in the trees at far left though, what is this? What pp did you do with that shot?

I saw that as well. The Leica 28 2.8 V2 I briefly owned showed a lot of cyan/blue LoCA wide open (I will see if I still have the samples) and I suspect that is what we are seeing here.