philip_pj wrote:
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Often get 7-8 keepers in a row. It's small size is why I want the new 85/2.4 for closer work / a little less flattening. [I'm not at all sure the Batis was for me, good though it surely is.] I hope for bokeh much like the CY100 in the 85/2.4 - .....
Have you looked at the c/y 85mm Sonnar Philip? To me it has similar properties to the 100 Sonnar. I use it with a helicoid close focus adapter for close work (same with the 100) and it really delivers.
The flowers in the large pot by our front door died and dried up. I was just experimenting with the 50/1.4 Planar ZE wide open at its closest focusing distance. (cross posted in the other Zeiss lens thread)
Contax (CY) lenses are contenders for the most aesthetic drawing style, as judged across different lenses in lens ranges. Very consistent right through and film-like (of course), and a large number of appealing lenses in there. I wrote to Zeiss earlier this year to ask them to consider producing a 35-70/3.4 mid zoom, but a tele zoom like the beautiful 80-200/4 would go very well too.
They may need to be reminded that their predecessors in Carl Zeiss produced no fewer than eight CY zooms, around 5-6 of which were artistically oriented gems, very pictorial and with a sure grasp of aesthetics. A lot of users want slow zooms for key subject matter: landscapes, cityscapes, street work. The manual focus aspect is fine for the intended niche, a lot of users are fine with turning their own focus rings, and using EVF. The CY range absolutely dwarfed anything they have done since. The later ZE/ZF lenses had a slightly harder, more 'made for digital' look, all very, very good however, with several carry over prime lens designs. Zeiss micro-contrast in zooms is very enjoyable indeed.
The company makes very few mediocre lenses. It would not kill them to make 2-3 zooms, because German zooms are very special - both Leica and Carl Zeiss saw it as their mission to be able to make zooms as good or better than their renowned prime lenses, so they went full bore. They put a lot into it back when the Japanese were churning out scores of high spec but low durability and mediocre quality zooms for the mass market. Very few C/N/S users go looking for a 1990's AI-S or FD zoom the way we see these Zeiss zooms, with 1-2 exceptions maybe. One from CY 21/2.8 (shot onto an a99, a much underrated body and sensor):
#1 CY 100-300, of upper Tibet - real problems with exposure, no contrast at that altitude (this one 5200m, far end of lake is 25 kms away, water had crazy reflections). #2 CY 21/2.8. Both on a900, a love/hate camera, lovely color but you can almost feel the lenses fighting the CFA to get to the sensor, and taking serious hits on the way through.
There was a big truck event for kids at a school a block away from home, so we brought our 5-year-old boy over to check it out. Much to our surprise, they also landed a friggin' helicopter on the playground lot. We weren't there for the arrival, but we did get to see the take-off. Pretty safe to say that this trumped the firetruck and bomb squad truck -
