philber wrote:
Am I te only one to follow the Zeiss Touit launch campaign, with 4 photographes with Touit in Bangkok?
I am never seen Zeiss do something like this, yet they launched other lenses recently (135 f:2.0, 15mm)
Either this means that the company expects great things from their Touit range comemrcially, or their marleting has taken on a new approach. Or both.
I would guess this is a result of their new marketing partner. The 15 and 135 adhere to the older ZE/ZF design and probably predate the Touits and 55/1.4. I wonder if their next models will incorporate the new design (and marketing) philosophy. Isn't there supposed to be a new ZM this year too?
To answer your question, I'm not following the campaign. Maybe Zeiss feel they need to do this to build their brand (and justify the pricing) among those who previously would have never known the name now that they're offering a more mainstream consumer product.
I see what you say, Ron, but they sold huge numbers of lenses and camera ranges back in film's dying decade. So in market terms they have been plenty mainstream in the recent past - recent relative to their company's lifespan.
They used to have the reputation of not offering much information about their breakthroughs and changes of strategy, new designs etc., in total contrast to the Japanese companies. They have been a diffident and almost disinterested outfit at times, as though talking themselves up was anathema to them, they had important work to do after all, they made constant improvements with no fanfare and their staunchest critic was themselves.
Now times are different, they feel they want to communicate with the user base more effectively, and all power to them. So we see Facebook entities, newsletters, a pro website, competitions, discussion fora, a series of highly intelligent and informative white papers, video releases, and a new design focus. Good.
That's interesting Philip. Maybe there is also some geographic influence on this. I've been into photography for about 30 years and even worked in photo retail during the 90s. I honestly can't say I have much of an impression about Zeiss from back then other than they made Hasselblad's lenses. I remember Contax, but never paid it serious attention when considering new equipment probably because Contax was such an obscure brand in Canada, even more so than Leica, at least that's my feeling. It wasn't until the ZE/ZF line and my interest in buying a few of those or adding a Leica and some ZM that I really noticed Zeiss.
BTW, one of my favourite things to read and daydream about in middle school was Tamron's lens catalogs. Back in the manual focus SLR days, I thought quite highly of them and owned a number of their SP lenses - they had some interesting glass. Unfortunately their product line really suffered in the early AF era and Sigma has really come a long way.
Like Ron, I have been taking photos for over 30 years, but luckily I was exposed to Carl Zeiss/Contax in the early nineties by one of my photography mentors who was a big fan of Carl Zeiss. Before that I had long experience with Canon FD glass, and I owned also a full Olympus line up, and a couple of Tamron SP. Perhaps film is the medium on which good lenses shine, since at that time, all printing was done optically and no PP was possible beyond color corrections. I was hooked on the Zeiss look ever since as my few Zeiss lenses wiped the floor with anything I had worked with previously.
I'd been taking photos for 15 years or so with Nikon, Canon, and Leica 35mm cameras and on medium format with with Mamiya (6x7) and Fuji (645 and 6x9) cameras before I bought a Hasselblad 500 C/M and discovered Zeiss lenses (which, of course, were a revelation). Even so, I was totally unaware of Contax cameras and lenses until I stumbled upon the Alt forum a few years ago. Back in the day, in Australia at least, most "serious" photographers used Canon or Nikon SLRs. Our loss.
But happily now there are so many other (better) choices: Contax C/Y, Leica R, Minolta MC/MD, Olympus Pen F, and a rich variety of M- and LTM-mount lenses (to list my favorites)...
Thanks! I thought I was the only one that saw the quality of this lens and was going to purchase it. Most people are saying the Sony 1.8 is good enough, but not me.
Dennish,
I have the Sony 35/1.8. I bought if for the AF when taking pictures of my daughter, which is getting more difficult now that she's crawling. It's a good lens and has really pleasant rendering. If all I used it for was people pix, I would be plenty satisfied.
However, I took a bunch of photos with the Sony 35/1.8 of the San Francisco skyline out of my friend's window on the 17th floor above Russian hill with great light. They came out OK, but the contrast and fine detail is nowhere close to my ZM 35/2.8 or ZF 35/2. I'm hoping the Touit 32 will perform closer to or better than these lenses.
Thanks Jeff, That's what I'm hearing about the Sony from my friends who have had it. Not only that, it is very difficult to get one that's not de-centered. I am looking forward to getting my Touit 32 especially after testing it but am second guessing myself over the Money. Next week when it comes in I will test it one more time against some of my Nikon D800e lenses. Just for the fun of it I will also compare it to my Pentax 35mm f3.5 645 SMC which is scary sharp.
It's easy to not have had exposure to Zeiss even for those of us in it for a long while. I have their lens data publication and was surprised to see lens sales numbers in the tens of thousands, especially high figures for the Contax G lenses...
Then yesterday I read, and was genuinely amazed by the recent sale of Canon's *90 millionth* lens, just in EF (EOS). It put things in perspective. I had to check the number of zeros.
dennishh, even a comment on the comparison you envisage would be very welcome here, I am sure.
I have a ZM 35 f:2.0 that I hardly use, because, except when I desperately need this FL and no other, I reach for my Leica 24 Elmar or my Summilux 50 Somehow, the ZM doesn't seem to please me on the NEX 7 as much as my ZMs did on my NEX 5N. So I will definitely try out a Touit 32 and see how that works out, because the IQ defintely seems to be there?
philber wrote:
I have a ZM 35 f:2.0 that I hardly use, because, except when I desperately need this FL and no other, I reach for my Leica 24 Elmar or my Summilux 50 Somehow, the ZM doesn't seem to please me on the NEX 7 as much as my ZMs did on my NEX 5N. So I will definitely try out a Touit 32 and see how that works out, because the IQ defintely seems to be there?
That's understandable since the ZM 35 corners have color shift on the Nex 7 and I just don't like going through the extra step to fix them. Even if the only change with the NEX 7 replacement is fixing the corners with rangefinder wides, I'll be very be very happy with it.
One of the reasons I kept my 5N is to use with my ZM 35 and Leica 28. ( The other reason is that for the amount I could get for a used 5N, I'd rather have a back up body).
I did the same, Jeff. Actually, on my last photo trip, I kept my 2 Leica on my 7 and shot my 2 ZM on my 5N. Not only did that spare me CornerFix, but it also seems to me that the ZM mate better with the 5N sensor than with the 7.
No, I am not referring to the colourshift issue, because my Elmar 24 suffers from it as well on my 7. It is as though the ZM 35 f:2.0 has excessive micro-contrast on the 7, and the result is "hard"", which I then need to tame down in PP. It is less obvious with my ZM 18, and I never had that feeling when I used a ZM 35 f:2.8 and a 50 f:2.0 on my original NEX5.
Is anyone following the Zeiss Photo Challenge? The more images I see the less I want to buy the lens, am I being to picky? They don't post shutter speed, camera used or f stop. http://blogs.zeiss.com/photo/en/?p=3883 This new marketing approach my hurt more than it helps.
