Got it with my Hawks adapter and I will do a second check and tests but at the hard stop which I wanted to have just leave the Gold shim in the rear element . Take out the brass one and all the ones in the front. So I'm either dead on or extremely close to hitting infinity at the hard stop. Im in the middle of painting my exterior of my home. The painting bid was 4k and being extremely handy and having a sprayer i said no way am I writing that check.
Many thanks for these photos, this is precisely what I had to do to get the 25mm ZM to focus to infinity.
Sorry I haven't posted sooner, have been busy with work and family.
I'm interested to hear anyone's feedback on the ZM 25mm with the 1m Proxar filter attached.
I find the setup fantastic personally, and the differences night and day, it am always interested to hear what others have to say also 😁
davidzimand wrote:
I went back and removed the lens barrel to expose the inner shim rings, that are also secured by a screw - as I now remember seeing someone else mention.
I took some images that may help others see how easy it is and identify the rings.
This was done by removing the outer ring. I will likely return the rear brass shim as my focus now exceeds infinity using the VME adapter.
This setup utilized the Proxar 1M removed from original casing and remounted as noted above by many using step up adapter filter rings.
When you take the lens apart the section that holds the front element has 4 shims 2 gold 1 silver and 1 brass . There is a screw there but the shims have a slot in them and they just pull over the screw to remove. Don't do anything with the screw.
On the rear there is a screw off rear element about 3/4 of a inch long. You can see shims just unscrew that lens part and there are 2 shims there smaller than the front. 1 brass and 1 gold.
Right now I only have the gold shim in the rear element. Everything else was removed. The video was for a 18mm not the 28mm.
Now my Hawks looks to be good but my Fotosy is going past infinity. I may use the Fotosy for this lens because I rather use the Hawks on the 35 since it will make it focus closer with the Helicod adjustment. So I need to test this all out but the good news you can get infinity at the hard stop of any adapter your using. Just a matter of finding the right combination but I can tell you now it won't be more than two shims
There are two sets of shims as others have said, one sets location is shown in the video.
The second set is found by unscrewing the rear chrome bayonet from the focusing helicoil part of the lens.
Both can be used to adjust the lenses to reach infinity, however...
By adjusting the rear set of shims found under the bayonet, you are shifting the rangefinder focusing than. This is important to keep mindful, as by adjusting these shims, the rangefinder focus on Leica cameras will be thrown off.
I would consider these shims under the bayonet the rear set.
The front set is found by removing the front lens block from the rear focusing helicoil as the video showed.
This set of shims could be called the front set. Adjusting these shims will adjust infinity as does the rear set. However, adjusting the front set does not alter the rangefinder focusing tab placement, as it would if the rear set under the bayonet would.
For those that want to add the correction lens to their ZM lens and still use the lens on a Leica/ Voigtlander/ Zeiss rangefinder camera, only the front set of shims should be adjusted.
For those who are only interested in using the lens on a Sony camera, and do not care about the rangefinder focusing system working correctly on rangefinder coupled cameras, then you can adjust both shim locations to achieve infinite focus.
Now, for lenses that have floating elements, like the ZM 35mm Distagon, I would advise that one opens the lens up and remove the internal shims under the rear lens block to achieve infinite focus with correction lenses attached. Why is this?
Because this does not disturb the rangefinder focus system, which in turn does not disturb the optimal placement of the floating element.
If only the rear shims below the bayonet mount are removed to allow the ZM 35mm Distagon to achieve infinity on the Sony cameras, the floating element and rangefinder focus tab will not be in the right place. Whether this causes a measurable issue on the image quality of the lens, I'm not sure.
Hope this helps with understanding which shims do what 😁
When the ZM wstam wrote:
So there are two sets of shims. But the video shared only show one set:
Is the set shown in the video the front or rear set?
candreyo wrote:
Now, for lenses that have floating elements, like the ZM 35mm Distagon, I would advise that one opens the lens up and remove the internal shims under the rear lens block to achieve infinite focus with correction lenses attached. Why is this?
Because this does not disturb the rangefinder focus system, which in turn does not disturb the optimal placement of the floating element.
If only the rear shims below the bayonet mount are removed to allow the ZM 35mm Distagon to achieve infinity on the Sony cameras, the floating element and rangefinder focus tab will not be in the right place. Whether this causes a measurable issue on the image quality of the lens, I'm not sure....Show more →
I believe you are correct @candreyo . I only removed the "rear shims" from my ZM 35/1.4 in order to achieve infinity and the results are very good. I get sharpness across the field even at f/1.4. So, the front-lens works as described BUT....
...there is something I noticed. If I focus the lens to the extreme corners at f/1.4 without the front-lens, I get better results than with the front-lens which it seems to indicate that the floating element is not positioned in the correct position. That could indeed be caused by removing the "rear shims" instead of the internal shims....
The only way to know for sure is to put back the rear shims. Then remove internal shims until infinity focus is achieved and test this again. I know what to look for so it should be a easy and definite test.
It should not be a problem with the ZM 25 and 28mm lenses as they don't have FLE.
Fred
So, I just played with this and the result is puzzling on the Zeiss 35/1.4 ZM:
After removing all "internal shims" (4) and keeping all "rear shims" (4) was not able to focus at infinity.
I then, play around removing one "rear shim" at a time based on their thickness so I could have as many thick shims as possible. (I started removing the thinner shims one by one and testing infinity)
The only way I could focus at infinity with the Hawk's adapter fully retracted was to leave one "Gold" (thickest) and one "Silver" (3rd thickest) as rear shims. I tried other combinations and I could not achieve perfect infinity.
So, the puzzling part was that that's exactly what I had kept before (1 gold and 1 silver) before removing the 4 "internal shims". Focusing should have changed by removing the internal shims but it didn't make any difference. ()
So, right now I have all 4 internal shims removed and 2 rear shims kept (gold and silver). I can achieve infinity focus with the Hawks but it's to the dot. (hard stop of the lens)
Great Fred just waiting on my close up lens to get here. Have all the parts ready. I'm still working on the 25mm but I'm either dead on or zeroing in on it. Be nice to see the sun again so I can't test this.
I just tested this with real images and can confirm what I wrote above.
Removing the 'internal shims' makes no difference. If it does, it's so small, I can't detect at 1:1 magnification and I find that puzzling. I'm very meticulous about infinity focus and this was surprising to me. Perhaps someone has an explanation for it.
If removing the internal shims didn't make a difference...What's the point of the internal shims then??
With all internal shims removed and only 'gold' and 'silver' rear shims kept in place, I am able to achieve infinity at the lens hard stop. (it's actually perfect infinity on my Hawks fully retracted)
Fred Miranda wrote:
I just tested this with real images and can confirm what I wrote above.
Removing the 'internal shims' makes no difference. If it does, it's so small, I can't detect at 1:1 magnification and I find that puzzling. I'm very meticulous about infinity focus and this was surprising to me. Perhaps someone has an explanation for it.
If removing the internal shims didn't make a difference...What's the point of the internal shims then??
With all internal shims removed and only 'gold' and 'silver' rear shims kept in place, I am able to achieve infinity at the lens hard stop. (it's actually perfect infinity on my Hawks fully retracted)...Show more →
sorry i haven't looked at where exactly the internal shims are, but it sounds like the internal shims are to get the floating element correctly positioned relative to the front lens block and the rear shims are for infinity adjustment.
sebboh wrote:
sorry i haven't looked at where exactly the internal shims are, but it sounds like the internal shims are to get the floating element correctly positioned relative to the front lens block and the rear shims are for infinity adjustment.
I think that's the case. Do you think I should put them back? It really makes no difference removing or keeping them.
Fred Miranda wrote:
I think that's the case. Do you think I should put them back? It really makes no difference removing or keeping them.
yes, put them back. presumably they will keep the FLE at the correct distance if you have infinity tuned correctly otherwise and no front filter. i don't know how the front filter changes optimal FLE placement though, you could experiment to see if there is any performance improvement with different internal shims?
sebboh wrote:
yes, put them back. presumably they will keep the FLE at the correct distance if you have infinity tuned correctly otherwise and no front filter. i don't know how the front filter changes optimal FLE placement though, you could experiment to see if there is any performance improvement with different internal shims?
Yes, since I'm in the mood for opening this lens multiple times today (), I will do a test at infinity with all the internal shims and then without them. I already know it does not affect focus distance but perhaps it will affect FLE placement as you described.
So, I tested this and could not detect any difference in IQ (with or without the internal shims). Weird.
Does the Zeiss 35/1.4 ZM really has floating elements? I don't see this information officially anywhere. I've read reviews talking about it but nothing from Zeiss.
If someone knows this for sure and has a link to it, please let me know.
Fred
Fred Miranda wrote:
So, I tested this and could not detect any difference in IQ (with or without the internal shims). Weird.
Does the Zeiss 35/1.4 ZM really has floating elements? I don't see this information officially anywhere. I've read reviews talking about it but nothing from Zeiss.
If someone knows this for sure and has a link to it, please let me know.
Fred
Fred Miranda wrote:
I just tested this with real images and can confirm what I wrote above.
Removing the 'internal shims' makes no difference. If it does, it's so small, I can't detect at 1:1 magnification and I find that puzzling. I'm very meticulous about infinity focus and this was surprising to me. Perhaps someone has an explanation for it.
If removing the internal shims didn't make a difference...What's the point of the internal shims then??
With all internal shims removed and only 'gold' and 'silver' rear shims kept in place, I am able to achieve infinity at the lens hard stop. (it's actually perfect infinity on my Hawks fully retracted)...Show more →
I thought that ypthe shims are for calibrating the lens to the rangefinder mechanism (certainly it's a shim change that optimizes the 1.5/50 for wide open or f2.8 accuracy with the rangefinder. Must that's all irrelevant with mirrorless...
DavidBM wrote:
I thought that ypthe shims are for calibrating the lens to the rangefinder mechanism (certainly it's a shim change that optimizes the 1.5/50 for wide open or f2.8 accuracy with the rangefinder. Must that's all irrelevant with mirrorless...
I think you got that right. The internal shims for the ZM 35/1.4 are probably there for rangefinder calibration. They have no relevance to focus distance.
However the rear shims do adjust focus distance. With the front-lens, keeping a gold and silver works for the Hawks (hard stop) and overshoots for TAP. It does not reach infinity with my Novoflex and my cheap adapters like Fotasy and Pixco. (For those you may need to replace the silver shim with a thinner one)
)
), I will do a test at infinity with all the internal shims and then without them. I already know it does not affect focus distance but perhaps it will affect FLE placement as you described.