I always thought it was a design feature. Little surprised it's in a 50 though but who am I to argue. Been to Phoenix lately it does get to 120 degrees in the freaking shade. Lol
Lot of hot air here trust me.
Bobu wrote:
There is more than just secondhand hearsay.
The following text is written in the Loxia 50 manual:
'To compensate for temperature fluctuations and tolerance limits of the camera body's flange focal distance, the focusing ring is equipped with an over-travel mechanism, parcticularly for lenses with longer focal lengths.
This means depending on the camera and the environmental conditions at hand, the best focus for a motif in the infinity range is usually achieved BEFORE the focus ring is moved into the mechanical stop position.'
It's pretty clear that it was a design choice by Zeiss to allow focus past infinity and it seems that nobody reads manuals anymore
Well I am surprised they think it necessary on a 50 even, never mind 35.
I think the reference to 'flange distance' regrettably might be more significant.
gyoung143 wrote:
A thought occurs to me overnight, do the ze/zf 50 and 35 lenses focus past infinity? Does anyone here have any to offer information?
Gerry
Yes they do. This has been a discussion for many years already. I never understand what the big deal is. If you know that the real infinity is right before the hard stop... just put your focus ring right before the hard stop. Simple as can be.
When I had my medium format backs with a tech cam. With those Rodenstock and Schneider lenses I was able to adjust the infinity stop with about 3 screws on the lens. We did that because there was no live view and any manual focusing was a guess at best. So you worked blind when it came to focusing. The way to do it was shooting tethered and view exactly where infinity was than retighten down the screws and set it in place so in the field it was easy to get to infinity with just the hard stop. Now my bet you could actually do the same with these manual focus Loxia because there setup in the same manor. Obviously the trick is knowing how to exactly do that mechanically with these lenses. A great repair shop would know exactly where these screws are which would be under the focusing ring rubber pad.
I honestly don't know what the big deal here is either, I've been shooting for forty years and almost all lenses go past the infinity mark. It's a design feature not a fault. There is a reason it's like that with thermals and heat or even cold for that matter. If your hell bent on having a infinity stop it can be done with me manual focusing lenses like the Loxia. Honestly there is maybe one area of photography that immediately would make sense and that is Astro work. After that with all the tools for focusing on mirrorless it makes little sense to me. Even the fly by wire Batis lenses you can find infinity pretty easy with the focusing tools we have. If your into Astro work than stay mechanical and adjust the lenses if you want as it can be done. Fair warning though it will throw off your focusing ring markings. A 15 ft marking will not be 15 ft any more
I would personally not even attempt this in a mirrorless system with all the tools for focusing we have , with tech cams and the CCD backs there is no way to focus accurately as it was trail by error. You shoot you chimp and you adjust as needed. Actually with Alpa tech cams with there lenses we would use add on focusing rings to get even more accurate with the markings after we adjusted the infinity stop. This way we could put it on 15 ft exactly, than use laser measurements tools to figure out exactly our closer range distance. Here we are in a whole different realm of photography. Now I don't know exactly how to adjust these Loxia or even if you can depending on the design but given it is a mechanics focusing ring I'm pretty sure you can. Question is are you good enough to take this on and willing to take the risk of screwing it up. Good luck with this but I would not recommend this without answers from Zeiss or a great repair station.
Its not a huge deal I know, I spent most of my professional life using cameras like Sinar, Cambo, even Mamiya C3 etc with no scales at all. Just something to take into account if you've been used to hard infinity stops at infinity on Leica and Nikon.
With the ZK (yes, Pentax) versions of the Zeiss lenses, it was pretty easy to adjust the hard stop at infinity.
You'd unscrew and remove the faceplate, loosen some screws in the barrel, adjust, and tighten.
Of course, I adjusted it so that it was perfect for me, and hadn't thought about any effects of temperature on focus. I'm in Canada and then I sold it to some guy in Arizona...
Hope it still works for you, DesertDude77, wherever you are!
Phillip Reeve wrote:
I prefer the optics of the FE55 but I like the handlling of the Loxia a lot better. For my use a classic 50mm lens for a fraction of the price is good enough but if I felt I needed one normal lens with modern coatings I would chose the Loxia over the FE.
I ordered this lens yesterday. I read some reviews on this lens but was surprised how much reviews didn‘t correlate with what I saw in the pictures on Flickr using this lens. I absolutely love it‘s bokeh/rendering. Should I call it “special“? Not sure, but really fabulous to my eyes. It has so much character.
zeitlos wrote:
I ordered this lens yesterday. I read some reviews on this lens but was surprised how much reviews didn‘t correlate with what I saw in the pictures on Flickr using this lens. I absolutely love it‘s bokeh/rendering. Should I call it “special“? Not sure, but really fabulous to my eyes.
It is always like this with older Zeiss optical formulas like Loxia Planar 50/2 or Loxia Biogon 35/2.Many people tend to pixel-peep wide open and/or are not able to do proper PP in order to squeeze all Zeiss goodness from the picture.
The Loxia 50 was one of my favorite lenses on E mount. It definitely has something special.
zeitlos wrote:
I ordered this lens yesterday. I read some reviews on this lens but was surprised how much reviews didn‘t correlate with what I saw in the pictures on Flickr using this lens. I absolutely love it‘s bokeh/rendering. Should I call it “special“? Not sure, but really fabulous to my eyes. It has so much character.
For a very short time, I had tried making the switch to digital but it didn't take. First I tried a Nikon Df and soon tired of the weight. When I started using a digital camera to scan film, the first was a Sony A5600 that I bought for my wife to use. Then came a battered A5100 with an adapted 55 Micro-Nikkor. Late in 2018 B&H was having a sale and I was able to get a brand new A7II for about $800 usd. At some point I thought about trying that for actual photography and bought a trio of Loxia lenses, 21, 35 and 50. Trey were great! Kicked in the focus magnifier as soon as you started to focus, well built and a nice smooth focus throw. I like they all used the same filter size and didn't weigh a ton. I missed film, sold the Loxia's and bought a FE90 2.8 Macro for scanning.
Sony A7II, Loxia 21:
I have all Loxias,but mostly take 25/2.4+35/2+50/2+85/2.4 with me.The widest 21/2.8 is very often redundant,as 21mm is not my favourite focal length (I prefer 16mm and 24/25 instead).Yet I'm not going to sell 21/2.8 as it is an excellent piece of modern Zeiss glass and I want to keep all Loxias.Who knows if/when any new Zeiss in FE mount will come out?
I still use the Loxia 50 (paired with the Loxia 25).
It has a more modern look and better crispness than the Loxia 35 and pairs with the L25 better I think.
It's forte must be the very rich and lively color rendering.
Glad to see folks still discussing the virtues and beauty of the Loxia series! Definitely my favorite part of the Sony system and always wish I could adapt to newer Canon RF bodies!
85mm is my least used, and I actually prefer the Batis 85 for people and tighter shots.
As I began to accumulate the Loxias, starting with 35mm, I was surprised how beautiful my images were compared to criticism in the forums of its "faults". The 50mm is even nicer!
I was the beneficiary of those cast-off lenses, at bargain prices. I'll likely keep using them until I die (hopefully a long time off).
