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pilmanok
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Registered: Aug 25, 2010
Location: Germany
Posts: 0
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Review Date: Aug 25, 2010
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $1,840.00
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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colors, sharpness
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Cons:
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expensive
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i am happy with this lens :-)
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 Aug 25, 2010
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rji2goleez
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Registered: Jun 24, 2003
Location: United States
Posts: 3647
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Review Date: Aug 24, 2010
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $1,500.00
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Incredible sharpness, rendition is like no other. Very quickly my favorite lens. I have the ZE mount and now thinking I might sell my 16-35mm f/2.8L II. I can't wait to go out and shoot with this lens. Suffice to say, I have the Zeiss bug.
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Cons:
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None to date
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Aug 24, 2010
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adam_j
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Registered: Mar 5, 2010
Location: United States
Posts: 14
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Review Date: Aug 11, 2010
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $1,700.00
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Solid Construction, Smooth Focus Ring, Sharpness
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Cons:
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Large Front Element (fingerprints or worse)
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So far so good, I'm still getting used to having to manual focus again but that will come back. Sharpness is great and the almost circular aperture blades make for some cool out of focus bokah. It's really the build quality and smoothness of it that stand out at the moment, you can see they really take pride in the construction and usability of the lens.
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Aug 11, 2010
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mahonet
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Registered: Nov 30, 2008
Location: Finland
Posts: 0
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Review Date: Aug 11, 2010
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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excellent image quality, colour, contrast and bokeh
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Cons:
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big, quite heavy, expensive.
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Best wide angle lens for Canon body! Especially for FF. Excellent sharpness already at f2.8. also in borders. There is distortion, but usually it doesn´t bother or it is not easy to find.
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Aug 11, 2010
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Schoenberg
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Registered: Mar 29, 2010
Location: United States
Posts: 6
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Review Date: Aug 9, 2010
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Recommend? no |
Price paid: $1,000.00
| Rating: 6
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Pros:
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Fast. Built like a tank!
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Cons:
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1. Bulky
2. distortion. I can see distortion on this lens.
3. Over-priced. It should be priced same as 35mm f/2.
4. Not really sharp at corners. Many people say that it is very sharp. But at this price, such a prime lens should be better than it is.
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Aug 9, 2010
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JORDI350D
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Registered: Dec 7, 2005
Location: Spain
Posts: 29
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Review Date: Jul 2, 2010
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Best wide angle lens for Canon bodies. Incredible difinition even at 2.8.
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Cons:
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Lens cap. Litle vigneting and distorsion if your use is architecture or similars; not my case.
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As many lens users know, nothing to comment about this lens, just excellent.
Best wide angle for Canon body so far.
B/R,
Jordi
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Jul 2, 2010
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Ajay C
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Buy and Sell: On
Registered: Apr 30, 2007
Location: United States
Posts: 670
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Review Date: Jun 29, 2010
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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incredible image quality and sharpness, close focussing and exceptional build.
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Cons:
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wave distortion, hard to correct.
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Jun 29, 2010
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denoir
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Registered: Feb 11, 2010
Location: Sweden
Posts: 4184
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Review Date: Jun 15, 2010
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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the ultimate UWA. sharpness, colors and contrast
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Cons:
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wave distortion
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The 21/2.8 is the master of fine detail. It is amazing how much this lens picks up. Coming from a Canon 16-35 UWA zoom, this was a massive improvement. Sharpness across the frame wide open both in terms of resolution and micro contrast. The colors and overall rendering style is in line with the rest of the Zeiss Z* line.
The only optical drawback is that it has a wave distortion which may affect architectural photography. I have personally never had any problems with it and it is difficult to find examples where it is apparent.
Up close it can produce some very cool painterly bokeh that basically look like van Gogh on drugs. I absolutely love it, but that's a personal preference.
The bottom line is that it's a first class UWA prime that has no equal when it comes to superb performance at all apertures. Its ability to pick up fine detail is just remarkable.
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Jun 15, 2010
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zombii
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Registered: Apr 10, 2009
Location: N/A
Posts: 1053
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Review Date: Apr 18, 2010
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $1,500.00
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Stunning images that make you feel like you're there. Wonderful color. Super sharp.
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Cons:
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Size
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If you're considering this lens and are unsure whether it's worth it, rent one or try one on at your local camera store. Even relatively mundane scenes will show its ability. I find myself looking for reasons to use it which I've rarely done with a lens this wide. Had I bought this before the ZE 28, I probably wouldn't have bought the 28. The 28 is an excellent lens. The 21 is spectacular.
I've only barely seen the infamous mustache distortion. All other distortions typical of UWA's are very low. Used correctly, this lens can fool you into believing it's not as wide as it is.
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Apr 18, 2010
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teh_rebel
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Registered: Aug 2, 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 679
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Review Date: Apr 13, 2010
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $1,699.00
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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color rendition, sharp all the way through, IQ, etc ...
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Cons:
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distortion (like others have mentioned)
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legendary sounds about right for this lens. MF is not a problem with this lens and sharpness is just amazing. Not to mention the colors and "3-D". Not just for landscape, this works great as well for that wide angle portraits which I have used alot on.
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Apr 13, 2010
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burningheart
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Registered: Mar 20, 2005
Location: Canada
Posts: 2063
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Review Date: Apr 12, 2010
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Sharp including corners, excellent colors, no CA
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Cons:
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Distortion
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Its been said by the others. A top notch lens.
I had an Oly 21 F2 that I sold after I got the ZF 21.
For IR shooters this lens starts hotspotting at F5.6
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Apr 12, 2010
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Xavier Rival
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Registered: Jul 21, 2004
Location: France
Posts: 3946
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Review Date: Apr 5, 2010
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Excellent image quality (sharpness, contrast, color, absence of CA), perfect built quality.
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Cons:
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Moustache distortion...
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This lens delivers fantastic shots in a very wide range of conditions. It is very hard to criticize the image quality (sharp from center to corners, even at wide apertures, contrast). The lack of CA is very impressive, even in shots where I would expect to see quite a bit of it. The bokeh is pretty nice too, which makes some creative shots possible (even though such a wide angle is not prone to reduced DoF photograpy, we can still create some nice effects).
The only issue is the moustache, but it is not a big issue at all, unless one plans to use it for architecture only. Compared to my Canon lenses with similar focal length (17-40L and 24-105L), this lens represents a very dramatic improvement.
The build quality is second to none.
It is expensive, but obviously we get what we pay for here, so it is well worth saving up for.
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Apr 5, 2010
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charles.K
Offline
Buy and Sell: On
Registered: Nov 6, 2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 3041
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Review Date: Apr 2, 2010
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Sharp and detailed, but beyond that is the amazing rendition of color and contrast. A very well engineered product.
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Cons:
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MF only if you do not have alternative focusing screen installed.
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I recently resonated with the expression on how the lens "draws", a feeling that is unique, beyond the sharpness and detail that is normally focused in forums. This lens is amazing as it sees colors and bring them to life, in a landscape without the PP. I still have the 24L, but I find I'm exclusively using the ZE 21.
Great engineering, and accurate focusing mechanism. Although the lens is not light, it is compact.
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Apr 2, 2010
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snowboarder
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Registered: Aug 27, 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2329
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Review Date: Apr 2, 2010
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $1,540.00
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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sharpness, color rendering, amazing and unique "look"
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Cons:
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nothing
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Zeiss 21 ZE was my first Zeiss lens. I waited for the release in Canon mount for years,
refused to buy an used overpriced copy requiring some awkward adapter and metering earlier.
What can I say? I'm not disappointed  This is my favorite landscape lens, started my Zeiss disease
which so far caused me more money spent for the amazing Zeiss optics.
It's not that it's sharp - yeah, of course it's sharp, at f2.8 it's sharper than anything else out there
at any aperture. It's the unique look you fall in love with. The color range, micro-contrast, separation.
It's also a joy to use, amazing quality, the focus is so smooth...
Run to buy one, but be careful - it will cost you more money, because there are other Zeiss gems
like 35 ZE or 100MP ZE which you will buy also (I know it, I did and many other guys did as well).
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Apr 2, 2010
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philber
Offline
Buy and Sell: On
Registered: May 20, 2008
Location: France
Posts: 6418
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Review Date: Apr 2, 2010
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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A lens that fully justifies its legendary reputation. It produces an exceptionally high percentage of "Wow!" shots. Great build quality. Very easy to use, turns my 5D MkII into a point-and-shoot.
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Cons:
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Well-known "mustache" distortion
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The Distagon 21 never fails to amaze even its owners, that's how good it is. It has a way of making shots dramatic and spectacular, due to its rendition of colour and contrast and to its almost preternaturally deep DOF. I set it at f:5.6 and can shoot anything from 8' on without even bothering to focus. It is also wickedly sharp right from minimum focusing distance all the way to infinity. All this makes it the undisputed king of landscape lenses.
For architecture, it has a well documented "mustache" distortion that can spook some potential users. I find such damnation overstated, plus it can easily be cured in post with PTLens.
This lens makes it frustrating that a picture cannot be added to a review, because that would be worth more than a thousand words...
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Apr 2, 2010
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Mike M. Kraus
Offline
Buy and Sell: On
Registered: Jan 14, 2007
Location: United States
Posts: 1186
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Review Date: Apr 1, 2010
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Sharpness, contrast, color, build, the zeiss ' look ', image quality
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Cons:
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Possibly the price, but it has increased since I got mine, nothing else that bothers me
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You probably have read all the reviews and technical stuff so I'll just make it simple. Right now this is my widest lens and my main interest is landscape. I had the canon 17-40 and really liked that, but this 21 ze is really something else ! I love everything about it and the manual focus is no problem. I have the 21 and 35 and wish I had several more ze's
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Apr 1, 2010
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Reviews
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Views
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Date of last review
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34
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37529
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Feb 3, 2013
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Recommended By
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Average Price
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97% of reviewers
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$1,613.20
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Build Quality Rating
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Price Rating
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Overall Rating
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9.97
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8.42
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9.6
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