Lucinda wrote:
so what will this lens set me back?
If you are patient, you may find one in great condition for ~$1,500 on the buy and sell board.
It's a small and light 35 f/1.4 alternative with great character.
GMPhotography wrote:
Another round of Bokeh but not so sure the vignetting is that serious here. Maybe the other series but this looks cleaner. Maybe its me
I think it looks a little better, or at least more in line with what I saw during my rental. Which is not that say that, under those same lighting conditions as the first round, I wouldn't have seen the same things. Unless you can control the lighting or reproduce it magically, you never really know.
It's an awesome sort-of-little lens. Bit big by RF standards, but a good fit for the a7rII. For a really good time, pick some night you'll be in a city, rent an APO-Sonnar 135, and hit the town with it, the Loxia 21, and the Distagon 35. That is a sweetheart trio of Zeiss goodness.
Guy, I'm leaning towards selling you my good copy FE 35/1.4 just to help you end your quest for a 35mm lens on your a7r2. How many 35s have you tried this year?
Actually having the 24-70 gives me the freedom to play now. I can play around in those focal lengths. It's mostly a art lens for me as I like the look of it. Now it maybe better on a mod or a Leica but for me and my use I like it a lot on the stock A7rII. Having the new 50 I don't want another big lens . I have 3 now and that's enough. One of my really big issues with the ZE 35 1.4 is horrible onion rings
Typical price lately has been around $1600 new (even a few within the U.S via the auction site). I noticed back when the pound fell, you can also order from Robert White in the UK for the same (it was actuall closer to $1500 for a short time due to the pound).
Today I tested the Zeiss 35mm f/1.4 ZM at infinity distances and was very impressed with the results.
I know this lens was not designed for the A7RII's thicker cover glass but I'm seeing outstanding performance to the very corners starting at f/5.6. (with f/4 not being far behind).
At f/8 there is only a slight improvement. Center and mid-field areas look very strong making this lens a great alternative for landscapes as well.
I can only imagine how this lens performs on a Kolari converted body but frankly I don't believe there is a need for that unless you want sharp edges at wider apertures.
See 1:1 crops below at f/4, f/5.6 and f/8. Image taken with the TechArt Pro adapter in MF mode. (parked at infinity)
Crops show the very edge of the image's top left area.
That looks good, particularly if the lens was not refocused for the corner and no additional sharpening was applied (?). What I noticed with a few other M wides that generally have performed good at infinity on my unmodified A7r is that by F8 the performance looks very decent until the extreme corner is reached where sharpness falls off a cliff. Even with this ZM 36/1.4 here, I can see a tiny bit of that occurring if we are being nit picky. In practical use though, the amount of sharpness fall off seen here at F8 would probably be inconsequential. It does look better than what I would have expected, particularly if there is no difference between center and corner focus.
Tubac Arizona . Zeiss ZM 35 1.4 ISO 1600 at F4, 10 second exposure. Camera on a ledge supported by a pack of smokes. See I don't need no stinking Leica.
Arrgggh this is tempting.
But it'd have to replace my FE 1.4 and Loxia. And I think I'd like native AF at f1.4 and f2; so still want the FE.
And I'm not sure that stopped down there is much to choose between this and the Loxia, which is more portable.
And there is no way I can justify *adding* it to my 35mm stable in addition to to those two (and the FE2.8 which is my pancake for when I'm hungry...)
Honestly I think it's better than both the FE and the Loxia. The tech art works really nice on this but it's not faster AF than the FE. I say it's the size of the Loxia pretty much , slightly bigger. It's very sharp wide open if that means anything to you and better than the FE and Loxia wide open .
Tariq Gibran wrote:
That looks good, particularly if the lens was not refocused for the corner and no additional sharpening was applied (?). What I noticed with a few other M wides that generally have performed good at infinity on my unmodified A7r is that by F8 the performance looks very decent until the extreme corner is reached where sharpness falls off a cliff. Even with this ZM 36/1.4 here, I can see a tiny bit of that occurring if we are being nit picky. In practical use though, the amount of sharpness fall off seen here at F8 would probably be inconsequential. It does look better than what I would have expected, particularly if there is no difference between center and corner focus....Show more →
I would really like to test it against a Kolari body. However, after inspecting the ZM 35/1.4's crops @f/5.6 and f/8 at infinity, I can't imagine how it could be better for the edges. This lens on the A7RII is way better than the Loxia 35/2 and has less field curvature at these apertures. My guess the mod is more relevant when there is a need for sharp edges at wider apertures than that. I can post a comparison with the Loxia 35 but it's really no contest.
I'm in Freds camp on this. I really like to see how it could be better than on the stock A7rII. I'm serious this thing is rocking our Sony sensors. No denying it maybe better but man how much better could it possibly be, this thing is a razor.
Maybe wide open in the extreme does like Fred mentioned. After seeing the shot I took above it can certainly work for landscape. I did not buy it for that but it seems to work.
GMPhotography wrote:
I'm in Freds camp on this. I really like to see how it could be better than on the stock A7rII. I'm serious this thing is rocking our Sony sensors. No denying it maybe better but man how much better could it possibly be, this thing is a razor.
Maybe wide open in the extreme does like Fred mentioned. After seeing the shot I took above it can certainly work for landscape. I did not buy it for that but it seems to work.
I didn't buy this lens for landscapes but it beats all my 35mm natives and the RX1RII. I'm forced to use it for landscapes now!
I even thought about sending my A7RII to Kolari when a new camera model comes out but after seeing the images, I changed my mind. I mostly use this lens at f/1.4 and will be using it for landscapes at f/5.6 or smaller.
