Been searching the net and FM but dont find much information on this combo - and hardly no images, and no of interesting sizes.
Having the NEX and in my case also the Contax G bug, I am thinking of getting this one. Some other Zeiss' 35-70 do remarkably well - I think the C/Y is one example.
But does anyone know anything about the Contax G, is it a good performer as the other G's?
It is the one lens I never tried on the Contax G. I had almost forgotten there ever was one.
Should be very good to excellent, or even superb considering the rest of the G line.
Thanks. Yes I found that thread. No images though. Looking at MTF charts the lens should be just great. I cant really read MTF-charts, but I see that all curves on the Contax G 35-70 is above the C/Y version. With my limited MTF knowledge it looks like the lens has the performance of a fixed lens :-)
But it is a unique/different design witha protruding rear element (like the G21 and G28) so I wish there would be some images available, both to be able to judge the performance and some about the character. Found zero examples even on Flickriver :-(
The G is not as sharp as the CY wide open. The size is great. At f8 it is nice. It seems to be better on the 5n at 35mm than the 5 in the corners at infinity. The constant 3.4 of the CY to 70mm is very nice. What would you like in the way of a comparison? http://forum.getdpi.com/forum/258126-post63.html
Can you tell that from the MTF-charts? MTF's look very impressive for the Contax G compared to the C/Y in my eyes (albeit wideopen means 3.4 for the C/Y). Constant 3.4 is of course a really good thing with the C/Y.
What I'd like to see is e.g. a full size image well focused wideopen and another at say F/5.6 or 8.
Would you want these shots at 35 or 70? Where I see the difference is when comparing at 70mm with faces. Eyebrows often do not seem as sharp wide open at 70mm on the G. It is very dark in Dayton today, hopefully tomorrow will be better.
The kipon and metabones adaptors work fine for the G the nex.
Do the Kipon and Metabones work on the 35-70mm G? I had seen a post from Bo Ming that said the Metabones did not work as the lens base is too wide. I sent message in ebay to a Kipon seller and they said it didn't work on 35-70mm.
I had been planning on trying a Contax 35-70G but I gave up when the better adapter manufactures didn't seem to be compatible.
Any insight on the smoothest focusing adapter with demonstrated compatability on the Contax 35-70 G would be greatly appreciated.
Inglis, if possible 35-50-70 and anything reasonably far away with something on the edges (not necessarily corners). And preferably not trees/woods as it's awfully hard to judge sharpness on that.
Appreciate if you find anything to shoot - the weather is for sure a lottery...
Bill,
Well now that I try, I must have never used the G 35-70 on the Metabones. It certainly does not seem to fit. But I have used it with a Kipon over the last year or so. Trying it now, the focus on my one year+ old Kipon is a little rougher at the 70mm end, pretty easy at the 35mm end. This is then my only experience with an adapter on this lens, so I cannot compare the Kipon with others. The G 35-70 does have nice Zeiss character. We are supposed to have better weather tomorrow, so I will try to get something.
It would not matter even if you were disputing it - we are collectively quite insensitive to criticism, and many welcome it - hah.
'Why? (I'm not disputing it, just want to know :-) '
Parallelism of MTF lines, especially the critical 40 lpmm set, is associated with excellent design due to a high level of aberration control. Diverging lines indicate the presence of such aberrations, and the culprits include the relatiively benign astigmatism (usually seen as a gentle decrease as image height increases), or the one we really love to hate - chromatic aberration.
You will also witness that high levels of parallelism are generally associated with flat or gently decreasing line pairs, indicating excellent image shaping - because objects in image space are accurately drawn in both measured directions - sagittal and tangential.
These two perpendicular oriented measures are surrogates for ALL directions with reference to image centre, where by definition both lines are the same.
A good recent example is the Zeiss Distagon white paper indicating the massive fall in tangential performance for many symmetric design wide angle lens when used on (for example) NEX cameras, due to an acute beam angle from the exit pupil to the sensor toppings.
It is possible also that the light CA seen in the 21mm ZE/F is due to line separation in the outer parts of the frame, as an example.
The best lenses show high levels of closely parallel lines in MTF charts.
Examples: the Leica 90AA, 100/2.8 APO, 280/4 APO, many ZE/CY lenses also.
Some lenses like the CY 80-200/4 show very closely parallel lines at a lower level of actual performance. What we see here is something CZ have drawn attention to in the recent past - that high quality imaging can be produced by such lenses because the *impression* of sharpness is apparent, due to the parallel lines of all line pairs. The lens in question, the CY 35-70/3.4, surprises with its lack of bite at 100% viewing - due also, I suspect, to this phenomenon - excellent shaping.
It is not to be assumed that lenses that do not show this character are necessarily poor - many Leica R lenses show curvy lines and it is speculated that smooth OOF areas result from it - and the Leica 'glow'. But the best Leicas are fantastic in the centre of the image.
What I find really hard to understand is how to translate what the three lpmm measurements means in an image. Some use only two (Canon I think). A thumb rule like yours about the "critical 40 lpmm" is very helpful. But why dont they measure 50 lp/mm, or 60? And why is the measurement of 10 lpmm interesting? Part of the answer is found in the luminous-landscape article; they talk about "contrast" for 10 lpmm and "resolving power" for 40 lpmm. Same coin - different sides. Guess that's it, but then we have the 20lpmm measurment - and Canon uses 30 lpmm too..
@Wilhelm: lp/mm literally means what the unit suggests: line pairs per millimetre. You should relate this directly to spatial frequency on the sensor. Taking your 5Dmk2 sensor:
width: 36mm
pixels: 5616
linepairs: 5616/2 = 2808
max lp/mm: 2806/36 = 78. This is the Nyquist frequency (max. lp/mm that the sensor can resolve), if I'm not mistaken. (Michael/mpmendenhall explained the calculation to me once but I forgot to bookmark that post.)
I think that 40 lp/mm is the frequency that is most important for the sharpness of the fine details in average print sizes. 20 and 10 lp/mm represent image features of 2x and 4x that width, respectively.
For m4/3's lenses the pixel density is higher, which means that the Nyquist frequency is higher and higher spatial frequencies need good contrast (MTF value) for a lens to be sharp, so the MTF curves that are provided go up to 60 lp/mm.
I have this lens on the Kipon adapter. The metabones will not work because this lens is slightly larger than the primes. It is very good on the 5N throughout its full range. It is a slow lens, but its advantages are size, weight, and superb image quality.
