Rock Huffwell wrote:
That does look much better focused (note the canon appears to be sharper at f/2 than f/2.8 ). I still would not be positive about perfect focus, but despite being wide open the zeiss does appear to perform better too.
It looks like the Canon focus was indeed all over the place for different F stops.
In your F2 Canon example, the focus actually looks to be on the brick building in the back this time as it actually looks sharper at that point than the Zeiss at either F2 or 2.8.
Tariq Gibran wrote:
In your F2 Canon example, the focus actually looks to be on the brick building in the back this time as it actually looks sharper at that point than the Zeiss at either F2 or 2.8.
Really? I think I see a lot more detail and contrast in the brick of the Zeiss F2 shot than the Canon f2 shot.
I'm not a "Canon guy." I'm mostly a "Nikon guy", though now that I'm using a Sony NEX for my lightweight camera, I keep an eye out for just about anything that performs well. I'm curious about the Zeiss for Nikon and NEX, and wanted to see how it was doing. The fact that the Canon was clearly misfocused made the comparison largely irrelevant.
Rock Huffwell doesn't need his 24mm lenses to be fast, neither do 93% percent of photographers. If you're in the 7%, the Nikkor is clearly the best for now. I'm keeping my ZF 25/2.8 and spending my money on my many illegitimate children.
Regarding the complaints about misfocus: it could also be varying field curvature between the lenses. There are no center crops so we can't see if the focus was actually different there.
AhamB wrote:
Regarding the complaints about misfocus: it could also be varying field curvature between the lenses. There are no center crops so we can't see if the focus was actually different there.
if there is field curvature you test by refocusing the lens so that the plane of focus will be where you are looking at for whatever aperture/distance.
look Im not trying to defend the method, just point out how much unnecessary butthurt there seems to be over a non-issue.
The f/2 comparison definitely looks better in focus, and more even match-up between the two lenses. If the CA and vignetting was corrected in LR3, I'd say the Canon is the clear winner at this f/stop -- it definitely has better contrast and detail. I'm not convinced of the focus on the shots -- all should be done with manual focus (AF off) in Live View to get the best accuracy (even there, it can be slightly iffy).
Both seem to be very good lenses with somewhat different characteristics and features, similar to the 100MP/100L comparisons.
Gunzorro wrote:
The f/2 comparison definitely looks better in focus, and more even match-up between the two lenses. If the CA and vignetting was corrected in LR3, I'd say the Canon is the clear winner at this f/stop -- it definitely has better contrast and detail. I'm not convinced of the focus on the shots -- all should be done with manual focus (AF off) in Live View to get the best accuracy (even there, it can be slightly iffy).
Yes, but this is how you would focus either lens for critical use anyway. If you can't nail it then you need to rework your technique.
What strikes me is the CA present in the Canon shots, which I suspect is even stronger wide open. That and the lack of CA in the Zeiss shot. I don't think either lens appears to have a major contrast/detail advantage, but I think the Zeiss looks a little better.
To me, Zeiss is the clear winner. A more interesting challenge would be the Nikkor 24/1.4. Nikon knows how to make great wide angles. Canon has a few good ones nowadays in EF mount but has not history of making superb wide angle glass in EF mount. Compared to the competition I would say Canon has been ranking at the bottom of the top tier lens makers in that field. That is one of the reasons alternative glass conversions to EF mount happened in the first place.
FlyPenFly wrote:
Really? I think I see a lot more detail and contrast in the brick of the Zeiss F2 shot than the Canon f2 shot.
I thought so first but this might be due to zeiss's micro contrast giving the impression of more detail? (Looking at the asphalt roofing and hedges on the side)
Oh, and JT, thank you so much for the effort for the review and added comparisons.
Nope, we are not! Go back and check out the added crops at F2 for Canon and note this crop at F2 for the Canon and compare it to the Zeiss at F2 and F2.8:
FlyPenFly wrote:
So it seems then in this retest the Canon focus was on the middle building while the Zeiss focus was on the rear building.
Yes, unfortunately, the focus varies with the Canon quite a bit at different F-stops (quite dramatically from F2 to F 2.8 as this crop demonstrates) which really renders the comparison somewhat useless.
Fly -- I was referring to the combination of both edge areas in the f/2 comparison. The results are close on the right side with a slight advantage to Zeiss, but the top of the center building is better contrast and detail in Canon.
With lenses such as these with so much inherent spherical aberration, only one reading can be taken from specific areas, not the whole picture, or shoot at a smaller aperture to get the whole frame in focus. Even with f/5.6, special care must be taken to get the focusing right with LV.
My opinion of the composite of these shots: at wide apertures, the ZE seems better across the frame, but Canon is better in the center.
Tariq -- I agree that it would be great to see the Nikon added to a comprehensive comparison of these lenses!
Jorge Torralba wrote:
No one has mentioned that the Canon shot at f2 had the advantage of being stopped down.
Anyway, I did what I could. Maybe one day when I get the Zeiss again (Feb for NIkon) I will redo with better conditions and set up.
Thanks for the effort. These tests are not as simple as a lot of folks may think.
Many really fast lenses I have tested actually are out performed even one or two stops down as compared to slower lenses even wide open so if anything, the Canon performance at F2 is pretty decent. As I said in the other thread, it's a much easier task to design a slower F2 lens which performs really well wide open vs a 1.4 lens. Erwin Puts wrote about this phenomenon at length - the difficulty in designing really fast lenses - in a number of his Leica lens reviews. Thus, the "advantage" of the Canon 1.4 at F2 is not a foregone conclusion vs the Zeiss F2 design wide open. If anything, the opposite is more commonly the case with 1.4 designs.
). I still would not be positive about perfect focus, but despite being wide open the zeiss does appear to perform better too.
I will redo with better conditions and set up.