OleAndre
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My latest purchase is the Zeiss C Sonnar 50/1.5. Beforehand I had read a lot about it. Due to its quirks this is not a lens for landscapes, instead its built for portraits and photos with shallow depth of field. Its said to have somewhat less contrast than, say, its sister Planar 50/2.0, nor is it as sharp. And mfd is at 0.9 meter, which is hardly impressive. And then there is the focus shift and heavy field curvature...
When I received it on Thursday I was surprised to see how small it is. An f1.5 lens which weighs only 250 grams and is just 4.5 cm long is quite astonishing. I put it on my Hawk´s factory M to E adapter, which shortens to minimum focus distance to at least 50 cm. The small size makes it a perfect companion with the A7x. Mechanics are great as well. The focus ring is just like you would expect from any Zeiss ZM lens, the same goes for the aperture ring. The first thing that comes to my mind is why Zeiss did´t use this design for their Loxia lenses. With ZM lenses I never fumble with how to detach the lens from camera, or mistakenly change the aperture when wanting to change the focus. Why Zeiss, why?
To be clear, I do not intend to use this for landscapes, I have a range of other lenses for that. And as long as possible I will shoot it at f2, alternatively f1.5, because it is somewhat better bokeh at f2 than f1.5. I do not care about corner sharpness with this lens, heck, even edge sharpness is irrelevant to me with this one. All I care about is taking advantage of that field curvature, combined with the low contrast and saturated colours. That Zeiss "pop" is what I am after.
So far I have only used it for a few hours on Saturday and today (busy with bi-annual report at work...), but I think I am in love. Sure, that sounds a bit cheesy, but its close to how I feel about this lens so far. There is something magical about this lens. Rendering is highly subjective of course, but to me this lens surely provides me with something I have not achieved with other lenses. Maybe with a bit of fiddling in post I could have gained something close with other 50s as well. But the expression I get from this lens, combined with how "easy" it is to get that expression makes it a joy to use.
I just want to show a few of my "test" photos from Saturday. First, a portrait of my wife when having lunch at Fiskeriet, a fish shop that also serves fantastic fish soup here in Oslo. To be clear, my wife was in a bad mood that day, and was not particularly happy about me pulling out the camera (with a lens I had not asked for permission to buy). She complained about dark areas under her eyes due to bad sleep, and high humidity which made her hair less good. But she smiled and the C Sonnar surely did a great job at capturing her better features. And I really like the bokeh in this one!
W with C Sonnar by Ole Kjennerud, on Flickr
The next shot is from a very alternative area in Oslo, near Hausmania which was populated by house occupants for many years until recently. The area is packed with graffiti and is very vibrant.
Wall by Ole Kjennerud, on Flickr
Lastly, a shot of my wife again from Youngstorget. She insisted on not having her face in the photo on this one
Umbrella by Ole Kjennerud, on Flickr
Hope you enjoyed these photos, and I wish all a wonderful Sunday.
Ole
Edited on Feb 22, 2017 at 03:33 PM · View previous versions
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