I keep meaning to try one but Ming Thein raved about the C/Y 85/2.8 on the A7rii and said his copy was better than several copies of the 100/3.5 he tested.
brendans wrote:
I keep meaning to try one but Ming Thein raved about the C/Y 85/2.8 on the A7rii and said his copy was better than several copies of the 100/3.5 he tested.
I know for sure the CY 100/3.5 is an amazing lens at infinity distances. (very sharp to the very corners at f/5.6)
I own the sony 85 2.8, which is a copy of the Sonnar 85 but with better mfd. IQ is extremely impressive. At similar apertures it went neck for neck with the ZA 85. Cheap build, but mine costs $150 but probably the best value of any lens I've shot. At 2.8 is great, even at 36+ MP sometimes I kick around getting the CY version for the t* coating.
Fred Miranda wrote:
It could be a good option Rob. Have you tried it at infinity distances?
I trust Zeiss MTF graphs and according to it, the ZM 85/4 is superior towards the edges. The C/Y 85/2.8 does very well in the center. They both have 5 elements but the ZM has a 10-blade aperture.
See the MTF wide open and 2 stops down for each lens:
Fred,
Yes, I have tried the C/Y 85/2.8 at infinity on my A7ii (in fact, just this morning,) and I think that it is already good at f5.6 and very good at f8. No, it is not quite the equal at the edges of the ZM 85/4, which I also own, but it is no slouch either. So, as with all lenses, it involves compromises: You give up a bit of sharpness for landscapes but gain a bit of speed for low light and portraits. Also it has lovely bokeh, in my estimation. To summarize, the C/Y is a very good all-around short tele, especially well suited for travel, given its compactness and low weight. As you know, this lens and its cousin the Contax G 90/2.8 have a lot of fans, and it's not without good reason.
Sorry for reviving this old thread but I was going through it and I really like a lot the delicious colors of the photographs posted! Any love still for this lens?
hanay78 wrote:
Sorry for reviving this old thread but I was going through it and I really like a lot the delicious colors of the photographs posted! Any love still for this lens?
The love faded quite some time ago. The latest "flavor of the month" is the Voigtlander 50mm f/2.0 APO-Lanthar or is that the Voigtlander 50mm f/1.2 Nokton? At any rate, just in case you have not noticed, the folks here on FM is such a fickle group... .
AGeoJO wrote:
The love faded quite some time ago. The latest "flavor of the month" is the Voigtlander 50mm f/2.0 APO-Lanthar or is that the Voigtlander 50mm f/1.2 Nokton? At any rate, just in case you have not noticed, the folks here on FM is such a fickle group... .
I loved it when I had it. I'm not a big 50mm shooter though.
lol. Most people have pretty sound memories for lenses since moved along to new owners. This has never happened before - that a camera maker started up a new range to see it blossom to over 100 lenses in a few years! Not counting heritage lenses many of us cherish.
I really like this C-Sonnar one from testing in normal climates but it was just so contrasty in the Himalaya - I say Himalaya because many here shoot in the pleasant pastoral Rockies and Europe's kilometres lower mountain ranges. I now believe the C-S was made for Leica's film cameras (slow to catch on there) where emulsion choice can moderate what comes out if it, and many of those guys are BW only or mostly.
A lot of images never 'came back' to where I was happy with them (I've always said Sony recovery is better from the bottom end). And post work was going to be a never-ending hardship for the exact same reasons we like the colours. They are not easily moved!
Luckily I was able to sell it. I have this vision that Cosina will go bust with like 46 different 35-50mm lenses in their current catalogue with no more super E-mount optics. I like them all from images seen but I've got what I need, the APO-Lanthar. It gets fidgety waiting for the word to go, post-corona.
hanay78 wrote:
Sorry for reviving this old thread but I was going through it and I really like a lot the delicious colors of the photographs posted! Any love still for this lens?
I still have it and love it. As a result I’m really not interested in the other 50s that seem to have taken up everyone else’s attention. However, it sounds like philip_pj has found it too contrasty under the high altitude conditions he experiences—my guess is that the overall brightness of those environments is the reason, as I have also found the lens to be very contrasty when the light is bright, and it loses some subtlety then. But so do many lenses—those are tough conditions. It really shines at the other end of that spectrum, particularly the colors.
At any rate, mine isn’t going anywhere, and while I don’t use it for infinity landscape (which I generally don’t do anyway), I find it to be excellent for the rest of the landscape images I like to make. One just has to work within the limits of the len’s character as it changes with different f stops.
AGeoJO wrote:
The love faded quite some time ago. The latest "flavor of the month" is the Voigtlander 50mm f/2.0 APO-Lanthar or is that the Voigtlander 50mm f/1.2 Nokton? At any rate, just in case you have not noticed, the folks here on FM is such a fickle group... .
I still love it and use it from time to time.
But it’s not a technically good lens. Low colour saturation, moderate sharpness, spherical aberration all over the show, and at least on Sony never gets very sharp in the outer field (and a ray angle which would make it very hard to correct using PCX filters).
But I like the Sonnar bokeh and the overall look, and the c sonnar performs better than a classic Opton or Jena copy while preserving that overall look.
The new Nokton will be interesting. It could looks like a Sonnar with more even sharpness, or it could be an attempt to get as close to optimal a technical performance as possible given the speed and compact size. Not sure which I prefer!
Of course, the point I made above pertains to my situation only. There is no way that I would be able to know who still uses that lens or even still has that lens. I went for it 4 years ago since the offering of Sony E-mount lenses was somewhat sparse back then. Of course, the availability of TAP made it easier to adapt that lens. In my situation, if I don’t use a lens, pretty much any lens, in 6 months, I will sell it. And please, don’t get me wrong, it was a great lens alright. I bought a mint used copy and when I sold it, I didn’t take that much hit. It would have been a significantly larger hit, had I sold it now.
DavidBM wrote:
I still love it and use it from time to time.
But it’s not a technically good lens. Low colour saturation, moderate sharpness, spherical aberration all over the show, and at least on Sony never gets very sharp in the outer field (and a ray angle which would make it very hard to correct using PCX filters).
But I like the Sonnar bokeh and the overall look, and the c sonnar performs better than a classic Opton or Jena copy while preserving that overall look.
The new Nokton will be interesting. It could looks like a Sonnar with more even sharpness, or it could be an attempt to get as close to optimal a technical performance as possible given the speed and compact size. Not sure which I prefer!...Show more →
I think the new CV 50/1.5 Nokton will be far from technically perfect but perhaps it will perform similarly to the CV 75/1.5 Nokton. If this is the case, it will be a high resolution lens (starting at f/2.8) with a pleasant character and rendering wide open. I don't expect to see low axial CA, low vignetting or very sharp corners wide open though.
I revisited the ZM 50/1.5 a few months ago on the Leica but wasn't very impressed even though I still like the funky rendering wide open. I much prefer the CV 50/1.2 Nokton but it's much heavier than the Sonnar. The new 50/1.5 could be a great compromise.
DavidBM wrote:
I still love it and use it from time to time.
But it’s not a technically good lens. Low colour saturation, moderate sharpness, spherical aberration all over the show, and at least on Sony never gets very sharp in the outer field (and a ray angle which would make it very hard to correct using PCX filters).
But I like the Sonnar bokeh and the overall look, and the c sonnar performs better than a classic Opton or Jena copy while preserving that overall look.
The new Nokton will be interesting. It could looks like a Sonnar with more even sharpness, or it could be an attempt to get as close to optimal a technical performance as possible given the speed and compact size. Not sure which I prefer!...Show more →
I still love and use mine from time to time too but some people seem not to realize that it’s a highly specialised tool. The C Sonnar is not The One Well Behaved 50 to Rule Them All and anyone who purchases it with that expectation is headed for certain disappointment. I use a 50mm lens for about 80% of the pictures I make and there are half a dozen 50s I use more frequently than the C Sonnar but what it provides on those comparatively rare occasions when I do need it makes this unique lens well worth keeping.
AGeoJO wrote:
Of course, the point I made above pertains to my situation only. There is no way that I would be able to know who still uses that lens or even still has that lens. I went for it 4 years ago since the offering of Sony E-mount lenses was somewhat sparse back then. Of course, the availability of TAP made it easier to adapt that lens. In my situation, if I don’t use a lens, pretty much any lens, in 6 months, I will sell it. And please, don’t get me wrong, it was a great lens alright. I bought a mint used copy and when I sold it, I didn’t take that much hit. It would have been a significantly larger hit, had I sold it now....Show more →
I didn't think you were dissing the lens, Joshua, just thought you were making the point that the huge popular enthusiasm for it has waned to say the least.
I reviewed it favourably, and liked it then and now.
By I was always mystified by the general love and enthusiasm for it that peaked for a while. As others above have commented, (and as I hope I made clear in my review) it was always a special tool for a particular look, not a high performance general purpose lens. As such it should only appeal to people who are mad enough or rich enough to own a few fifties...
To me this lens is an all-time great, and one of the best character lenses in production.
I only have 2 50mm’s, and this is one of them. Still use it regularly, on film and digital. The new CVs and other 50s have not had much appeal to me although I have tried and owned several.
I just wish it were better on a stocky Sony, and an extra 25mm--not a 50mm guy really.
In the photographs of the thread, from two or three years ago colors are delicious. I do not find so in most of the favoured/fashionable lenses of the last time, but this, and the zm 34 f1.4 and zm 85 f4 are fantastic!
I agree with nehemiahphoto—for me this lens is virtually unmatched as a character lens. It has enough sharpness (though my second copy is considerably better than my first—the first was fine the second more than sharp enough), but the rendering just has magic to it when you get it right. There are many very good 50s, but nothing else has the look of the C-Sonnar. It’s the only 50 I use (although I own another) because the rendering/draw/contrast/colors bring real character I want in my images.
Really it’s a matter of where your priorities are in making images. For most it appears that sharpness rules—plenty of competing options for that (although I think most overstate the increased advantage of modern lenses, as in my experience many vintage lenses are every bit as sharp compared head to head). For some flatness of field matters—certainly this is valuable for some images (I use a different lens when this is necessary).
In the beautiful images I come back to (of my own and others), the qualities of modern lenses are rarely what makes the image. Indeed, I often wish those qualities would get out of the way. The C-Sonnar allows that.
I often find the most of the modern glass I own does not make the best images to my taste. I find I predominantly use modern glass for some type of optical correction (coma), features (AF) or size. In terms of aesthetics, I am not overly concerned with flare resistance, corner sharpness, flat field or some CA at the expense of rendering.
I have a surprising amount of all time-keepers from a relatively small smattering of lenses: Lux 75/80, ZM 50 1.5, G21, G28, Pentax 31, RX1, CY 35 1.4, Minolta 100/2, Minolta 58 1.2, CY 50 1.7, Sonnetar 73 1.5 and GM 24 1.4.
Given the amount of lenses I've used and photos I've shot, it's quite a small number of lenses. Most are out of production, and the one in production are more rendering based. Very much against the consensus of FM with CV and Sigma lenses being favored.
Anyway, I just simply love the ZM 50 1.5. I recently swapped out my silver copy for a black copy optimized for f1.5. I really like it from f1.5 to f2.8 at MFD within 10 feet especially. I wish people would post more Sonnar photos on here too.
I often find the most of the modern glass I own does not make the best images to my taste. I find I predominantly use modern glass for some type of optical correction (coma), features (AF) or size. In terms of aesthetics, I am not overly concerned with flare resistance, corner sharpness, flat field or some CA at the expense of rendering.
I have a surprising amount of all time-keepers from a relatively small smattering of lenses: Lux 75/80, ZM 50 1.5, G21, G28, Pentax 31, RX1, CY 35 1.4, Minolta 100/2, Minolta 58 1.2, CY 50 1.7, Sonnetar 73 1.5 and GM 24 1.4.
Given the amount of lenses I've used and photos I've shot, it's quite a small number of lenses. Most are out of production, and the one in production are more rendering based. Very much against the consensus of FM with CV and Sigma lenses being favored.
Anyway, I just simply love the ZM 50 1.5. I recently swapped out my silver copy for a black copy optimized for f1.5. I really like it from f1.5 to f2.8 at MFD within 10 feet especially. I wish people would post more Sonnar photos on here too.
.
