This image shows off the Loxia 21's ability to render subtle changes of warm and cool colors, as well as smooth graduations in tone.
So far, I find the lens capable of brute contrast and saturation, and soft, mellow tones in subdued lighting. I like having choices! Seems to respond well to PP without being too theatrical.
Loxia 21, hand held, LRCC (no lens profile used -- shows slight vignetting, intentionally left)
AGeoJO wrote:
Thank you, Jim! Are you providing the music for the hoedown ?
The Loxia 21mm kicks some serious b*tt, huh?
Thank you, Philippe!
Simple yet great images whether they were taken with your Otus 28mm or not!
Here is another image from Venice 2017...
My favorite of your Venice 2017 images, BTW that all are sublime!
Thank you so much Joshua for your tremendous and successful effort.
No matter which subject you choose, your resulting images are exquisite!
Let's say I needed another reason why I like the Loxia 35 so much.
Here at f/8 it is sharp from edge to edge in the whole middle distance focusing range. Colors, malleable, great contrast.
There must have been some real dogs of this lens sent to reviewers. I can't explain the difference between what I'm getting and about 40% of what I read before buying.
Gunzorro wrote:
There must have been some real dogs of this lens sent to reviewers. I can't explain the difference between what I'm getting and about 40% of what I read before buying.
I have theory for this; people assume some qualities from Zeiss lenses, which causes them to have too high expectations of some aspects of the lens performance - then they get disappointed by wide open boke and corners - as they don't have patience, knowledge and skills they don't learn and everything about the lens seems awful => then they go to forum/review/whatever to complain about it. I would have assumed high price and manual focus would have scared these users, and they would buy some other lenses, but it seems that my assumption was wrong.
I don't have Loxia 35, but I have the ZM-series 2/35 and lens requires knowing it's behavior well e.g. majority of urban boke scenes need stopping down to f/3.2-f/3.5 for boke optimization, but background detail at certain frequency may require even closing down to f/4.5. On nature boke scenes it's safer bet to use f/4-4.5 as "default" maximum aperture on boke scenarios, at least on Nordic evergreen forest, which tend to have horrible backgrounds from boke point of view. Naturally quantity of boke has big effect, if shooting at minimum focus distance and background is far away the quantity of boke hides most of the boke quality issues and it's likely that f/2.5 becomes usable aperture. Sometimes boke contrast makes big difference, e.g. using polarizer on backlight forest scene can cut the highlights (=rough reflections from undergrowth etc.) and this makes it possible to use larger aperture without distracting subject with busy boke. And when boke gets ugly with ZM2/35 it tends to be really ugly. I would assume Loxia 35 behavior is similar.
Samuli Vahonen wrote:
I have theory for this; people assume some qualities from Zeiss lenses, which causes them to have too high expectations of some aspects of the lens performance - then they get disappointed by wide open boke and corners - as they don't have patience, knowledge and skills they don't learn and everything about the lens seems awful => then they go to forum/review/whatever to complain about it. I would have assumed high price and manual focus would have scared these users, and they would buy some other lenses, but it seems that my assumption was wrong.
I don't have Loxia 35, but I have the ZM-series 2/35 and lens requires knowing it's behavior well e.g. majority of urban boke scenes need stopping down to f/3.2-f/3.5 for boke optimization, but background detail at certain frequency may require even closing down to f/4.5. On nature boke scenes it's safer bet to use f/4-4.5 as "default" maximum aperture on boke scenarios, at least on Nordic evergreen forest, which tend to have horrible backgrounds from boke point of view. Naturally quantity of boke has big effect, if shooting at minimum focus distance and background is far away the quantity of boke hides most of the boke quality issues and it's likely that f/2.5 becomes usable aperture. Sometimes boke contrast makes big difference, e.g. using polarizer on backlight forest scene can cut the highlights (=rough reflections from undergrowth etc.) and this makes it possible to use larger aperture without distracting subject with busy boke. And when boke gets ugly with ZM2/35 it tends to be really ugly. I would assume Loxia 35 behavior is similar.
Thanks, Samuli -- Your explanation may well have something to do with the negativity I've read or heard about.
My approach is probably a little different from many users buying somewhat "exotic" equipment, and in this case lenses. I can see why some might be disappointed if their paradigm for a Zeiss lens is bokeh related (not that I've found this an issue with the Loxia 35, but some might). I'm more interested in finding the f-stop range for best overall sharpness, color, and contrast, and that is usually outside the "Bokeh Zone" of close focus and wide open aperture. Nothing wrong with people enjoying blowing out backgrounds (I love what Bob and Helena are doing with unusual lenses and directing the view through softness to a central subject or design), I've used that technique and have a few lenses for it, but it's not my usual approach (and honestly, I'm not as good at pre-visualizing as some of these brilliant folks!).
I'm curious what other photographer on the forum would adopt as their mission catch-phrase. I'm mostly in the "f/8, and be there" camp, with a leaning toward the "f/64" club in a moderately casual way. And maybe that is the simplest way to describe why these lenses appeal so much to me.
Gunzorro wrote:
Joshua -- This is obviously one of your favorite models, and for good reason!
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3-shot pano, Loxia 21, hand held, LRCC
Yup, she and her husband became our good friends, Jim. Thank you!
I was there late last year and I love your images from the Getty Center!
k-h.a.w wrote:
My favorite of your Venice 2017 images, BTW that all are sublime!
Thank you so much Joshua for your tremendous and successful effort.
No matter which subject you choose, your resulting images are exquisite!
Cheers, Karl-Heinz.
K-H., thank you so very much. I am very flattered...
Here is another one of the same model but with a friend this time around
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