somebody mentioned about ZE comparison with this lens. I think ZE Planar has little more contrast than this zoom, however zoom is pretty good and versatile. Not meant to be a scientific test though-

35-70 at50mm f3.4

While you may be correct about slightly more contrast, the zoom photos are slightly underexposed. If you equilibrate the exposure on the table top in PP, they look much more similar, and if you add just a touch of contrast with an S curve in lightness channel, they look nearly identical. The same is true on the other thread looking at the MP 50 f/2 with the wood siding. With just a minimal maneuver in PP, the 35-70 looks better than the 50. Would demonstrate it, but I guess that's a no no on the forum.

richard,
i agree. the whole point is images straight out of the camera, i guess.

I understand, but the zoom had a shutter of 1.3 seconds, while the 50 had a shutter speed of 1.6 seconds and is noticeably brighter on my screen, so apples and oranges out of the camera. Same is true for the second set, where they actually had the same aperture setting. The 50 got 4 seconds of shutter, while the zoom had 3.2 seconds. That's a significant difference. That said, I think on the margin you are probably somewhat correct, meaning that 50 is probably slightly more contrasty out of the camera.

One separate thing to keep in mind is that higher contrast is not always better, and not simply because of taste. I believe it's easier to go from moderate contrast to harder contrast in Raw or jpg than it is to go from hard contrast to moderate contrast. That's my intuition on this.

And what we are discussing is really the macro contrast, not the unique Zeiss microcontrast, I believe, in the shots above. Microcontrast in Zeiss and Leica is simply not something we can conjure up in PP, in my experience.

My 5dii mirror hangs. I have the happypage hk adapter which worked with the 28/2.8, 50/1.7, 60/2.8, 85/1.4/2.8 + 135/2.8. Can I do ā non destructive mod to make it work?

You may have to trim the aperture post a bit - though it's destructive.

Thanks but I donīt think it is the aperture mechanism since it sits on the lower part of the mount. The rokkor conversion taught me that it it stuff in the upper parts that hangs the mirror. Any other suggestions? Has anyone here had to modify to fit the 5D/5DII?
I will probably file a little to see if it works. I dismounted the mount this morning. No way to remove anything unfortunately.

A

I have partially dismounted my lens because it had wobbly front part and now i have problem to put it properly together.
Does anybody have experience with 35-70mm disassembling?

Yes you can. There is a small curved "block" around part of the shroud that needs to be removed. It's held on by 2 tiny screws. That cured the problem on 2 of these lenses I had when I owned a 5D.

Sorry I can't take a photo at the moment.

Mike

I did try that. Still hangs the mirror. Maybe I have a very cranky 5DII. Maybe I can get by with just at tiny bit of sanding.

Ahhh zoom lenses, I remember those they're so expensive for my current camera, gofigure.

Could you remove it ... take it down to a local machine shop & have them make you a new one ... with just a bit shorter. Will cost a bit, but won't be destructive to your lens. Then ... if you resell, you have both an original for restoration ... & ... a modified.

Got this advice from another PM member. Did the mod and now it works as a charm. Most time was spent sealing the lens before filing. The mod took about 15 minutes. I used a small fine file.

"I have two copies of the 35-70 and am using HappypageHK Optix V5 adapters to my 5D (no 5D2 yet) and other EOS bodies. I had to file down the barrel of one of the lenses through which the rear elements travel when the lens is zoomed out to 35mm from 70mm to prevent the 5D mirror from hanging on the end of the barrel. I removed the two very small cross head screws and the curved part from the barrel (the curved part and the 1mm step in the barrel are where the mirror might hang when making an exposure.) I closed the lens zoom back to 70mm and stuffed the barrel with some lens cloth to keep debris out of the lens. Using a flat file I removed enough metal so that the 1mm high step where the curved part was removed earlier was almost down to the painted surface. To make sure I got enough of the barrel filed down, I came back about 120 degrees from that 1mm step. Keep the lens horizontal while filing to let debris fall away from the body, and vacuum out the dust as completely as possible before pulling out the stuffing in the barrel, and vacuum some more, still keeping the body horizontal. The metal is fairly soft, and the file sharp, so the process lasted only several minutes. I examined and removed any metal burrs left on the inside or outside of the barrel before a final vacuum and reattaching the adapter. Works perfectly."

Good thing about the VS 35-70 is its close range capability. Handy when you're walking around.

I shoot a lot of flowers and this little gem works great for flower close-ups. Will post later.

A

Anden wrote:
I shoot a lot of flowers and this little gem works great for flower close-ups. Will post later.

A

Very true.....
I do miss this lens....

Wide open on 5dII

Well, that lot was enough for me, plus I saw recently that David Clapp uses or has used one. It's rare indeed to see so many different photographers produce high impact images so uniformly, thanks to all.

So I too have one coming, as it ticks all my boxes. It's hard to imagine a more versatile lens, and so little recognised.

Now a question or two: If this lens was introduced today for major brands, would it sell: not much, average volume for a manual alt lens, of like hot cakes?
And, how much would it sell for, do you think?

It's strange that time and fashion has past such lenses by...c'est la vie, I guess.

Repackage it in a much easier two-touch zoom format with auto aperture and I could see it being a LOT more interesting.

There's plenty of nice things about this lens, but I know I struggled with its usability a bit.

Indeed a high number of quality images are in this thread, and not to belittle this lens, but said photographers have otherwise demonstrated excellent shots with other lenses.

I'm confused by this thread.

Are you guys talking about the Zeiss 35-70 or the Yashica MC 35-70?