Jonathan Brady wrote:
My balls aren't perfectly round. Thankfully, my wife saw fit to use them anyway and we have two great kids as a result.
Work with the tools you've got, fellas.
That's funny but it does not hurt presenting the qualities as well as flaws of any lens. Let's just agree that the wide open specular highlights' shape at certain distances is a flaw. Many would go as far as not buying this lens just because of this oddity.
Having said that, flaws are sometimes what makes some lenses unique and I'm not ashamed to own many lenses with great character derived from their flaws.
Agreed. They bother me. What bothers me more is that Zeiss has opted to ignore me, after acknowledging my initial inquiry.
Edit: I think we need to figure out the extent of the phenomenon.
Jonathan Brady wrote:
My balls aren't perfectly round. Thankfully, my wife saw fit to use them anyway and we have two great kids as a result.
Work with the tools you've got, fellas.
Better than a perfect rounded ball but couldn't make a thing huh
Ok, here comes some stuff about the Batis 2/40 CF. I've started a photography project called '30 Days of Batis 2/40 CF'. In short, the story behind this project is that I got my own Batis 2/40 copy from ZEISS in a bit advance in order to make something useful with it. I decided to create a small photography project to test it and tell others about it. For the next thirty days I'm going to update my blog with a new picture and story every day. Since I'm not a professional youtube reviewer or similar – more of a regular end user and enthusiast really – this will be a quite personal take with the Batis, but I hope to throw in some creative pictures and tests as well. Let's see how long I can go a picture a day (I've got a little buffer). For those interested in new Batis 2/40 this project should provide some examples, thoughts and other stuff as well.
Read the full story from the blog and check out the first image (though taken with the Loxia 2/35). The blog can be found here:https://30daysofbatis.com/
Ps. I have a similar 'announcement' on dpreview forum and I'll update the thread there (as I've started it by myself), but here at FM I'm just going with this single post and if you interested to follow to project (for next thirty days) you will just have to visit the site by yourself. I will of course participate on discussions in this thread.
your project „Days of Zeiss“ in 2016 changed my life. Not only did it reawaken my interest in photography while stressful times got ahold of myself.
It literally deaccelerated my life a bit, made me appreciate the finer arts in general quite a bit more. And in particular it reprogrammed my photographic brain to a more perceptive, appreciative state.
Quite a few of your pictures are among my favorites of all time, and the corresponsing story snipletism is among the most honest, humble and reflective wisdom i have read on photography anywhere. Every episode lit a flame of curiosity in me.
Not a professional? Ha! Being a professional merely means you are able to make a living our of your skills and talents. You achieved much more with yours. You touched my life, and most likely that of many others.
I will be always grateful for that.
And i look forward to this new journey of yours with anticipation like a little boy at xmas.
The Batis 40mm buffles a lot of us Zeiss loving peeps in here. It has the potential to become one of our glueonsinglekitautoprime classics. The nanogonal bokeh ball wide open oddity has our panties in a twist, the story of a physically stopped down aperture at close distance has our minds in awe.
Let the journey begin. What a lucky day for all of us.
Humble greetings
Björn
Kalainen wrote:
Ok, here comes some stuff about the Batis 2/40 CF. I've started a photography project called '30 Days of Batis 2/40 CF'. In short, the story behind this project is that I got my own Batis 2/40 copy from ZEISS in a bit advance in order to make something useful with it. I decided to create a small photography project to test it and tell others about it. For the next thirty days I'm going to update my blog with a new picture and story every day. Since I'm not a professional youtube reviewer or similar – more of a regular end user and enthusiast really – this will be a quite personal take with the Batis, but I hope to throw in some creative pictures and tests as well. Let's see how long I can go a picture a day (I've got a little buffer). For those interested in new Batis 2/40 this project should provide some examples, thoughts and other stuff as well.
Read the full story from the blog and check out the first image (though taken with the Loxia 2/35). The blog can be found here:https://30daysofbatis.com/
Ps. I have a similar 'announcement' on dpreview forum and I'll update the thread there (as I've started it by myself), but here at FM I'm just going with this single post and if you interested to follow to project (for next thirty days) you will just have to visit the site by yourself. I will of course participate on discussions in this thread.
The Batis 40/2 seems to stop down at close focusing distances (other lenses might change effective FL for close focusing), which results in nonagon bokeh balls.
One big thing we will test for when everyone starts getting their production copy is to see if this is a result of pre-production firmware or copy-to-copy variation or just inherent design (although I think we are leaning towards the latter).
Did I miss something?
Kalainen wrote:
Ok, here comes some stuff about the Batis 2/40 CF. I've started a photography project called '30 Days of Batis 2/40 CF'. In short, the story behind this project is that I got my own Batis 2/40 copy from ZEISS in a bit advance in order to make something useful with it. I decided to create a small photography project to test it and tell others about it. For the next thirty days I'm going to update my blog with a new picture and story every day. Since I'm not a professional youtube reviewer or similar – more of a regular end user and enthusiast really – this will be a quite personal take with the Batis, but I hope to throw in some creative pictures and tests as well. Let's see how long I can go a picture a day (I've got a little buffer). For those interested in new Batis 2/40 this project should provide some examples, thoughts and other stuff as well.
Read the full story from the blog and check out the first image (though taken with the Loxia 2/35). The blog can be found here:https://30daysofbatis.com/
Ps. I have a similar 'announcement' on dpreview forum and I'll update the thread there (as I've started it by myself), but here at FM I'm just going with this single post and if you interested to follow to project (for next thirty days) you will just have to visit the site by yourself. I will of course participate on discussions in this thread.
I really believe it's a design choice, for the good or for the worse (for me definitely the latter, guess almost no one would have spotted a difference in FL in really close-up shots, while nonagonal bokeh is pretty apparent IMHO).
Really a pity, because othwerwise there seem to be a lot to like in the lens..
Kalainen wrote:
Ok, here comes some stuff about the Batis 2/40 CF. I've started a photography project called '30 Days of Batis 2/40 CF'. In short, the story behind this project is that I got my own Batis 2/40 copy from ZEISS in a bit advance in order to make something useful with it.
If it’s confirmed that the lens stops down progressively from anything less than infinity your 30 days will be really painful 😖
Sorry but this design is crap , the pancake 35/2.8 is faster...
So if I take a beautiful candid photo of a child laughing with their Grandfather,but there's "nonagonal bokeh" goin on in the background,does that make it a crap photo?
This lens has been released yet but there are a lot of haters already
If people like Batis 18, 25, 85 and 135, there are no good reasons not to like this lens.
KarmaKramer wrote:
So if I take a beautiful candid photo of a child laughing with their Grandfather,but there's "nonagonal bokeh" goin on in the background,does that make it a crap photo?
No, but it makes it worse than the exact same photo with proper rounded bokeh balls in the background IMHO
Angular bokeh balls tend to be far more distracting, at least to my eyes.
And it's not a matter to be "hater" for the sake of it, just pointing to what seems a clear design fault, unless Zeiss explains us mere mortals what precious other charactistics of the lens would have been sacrificed in order to give us a proper full aperture at all FL instead of this questionable behavior (apart from some FL change near or at MFD).
And no, I'm not going to spend USD 1300 for a F2 lens that 90% of the time I can only shot at maximum F2.4/2.8/3.5/4..
I remember reading on photo.net the pro Ellis Vener advising people to 'take responsibility for every pixel'. It's a big part of the craft to care what all of the image looks like. Sometimes weaker corners won't matter and often the subject is very strong other things fade from mind somewhat. But these days viewers are very conscious of bokeh because of emphasis by makers themselves, fashion, photo editors / movies, and ultra fast lenses. Here, it might indicate the intention the lens is designed for other uses than where it shows up.
PS pointing out criticisms is key to discussions. It might be a trend that comes from so many lenses appearing these days, people have high expectations. It moves the needle forward.
your project „Days of Zeiss“ in 2016 changed my life. Not only did it reawaken my interest in photography while stressful times got ahold of myself.
It literally deaccelerated my life a bit, made me appreciate the finer arts in general quite a bit more. And in particular it reprogrammed my photographic brain to a more perceptive, appreciative state.
Quite a few of your pictures are among my favorites of all time, and the corresponsing story snipletism is among the most honest, humble and reflective wisdom i have read on photography anywhere. Every episode lit a flame of curiosity in me.
Not a professional? Ha! Being a professional merely means you are able to make a living our of your skills and talents. You achieved much more with yours. You touched my life, and most likely that of many others.
I will be always grateful for that.
And i look forward to this new journey of yours with anticipation like a little boy at xmas.
The Batis 40mm buffles a lot of us Zeiss loving peeps in here. It has the potential to become one of our glueonsinglekitautoprime classics. The nanogonal bokeh ball wide open oddity has our panties in a twist, the story of a physically stopped down aperture at close distance has our minds in awe.
Let the journey begin. What a lucky day for all of us.
Humble greetings
Björn ...Show more →
Björn, you really caught me off-guard here. Really, I find it difficult to find words for such a supporting comment - didn't expect a comment like yours to emerge when I start up the new project. Makes me humble. I can only respond that there once was a one blog based photography project that inspired me in much same way as you describe here and made me this photographer I am today. So, let's just say I managed to pass on the favour to someone else and happy about it. Thanks for your touching comment.
-Toni
The Batis 40/2 seems to stop down at close focusing distances (other lenses might change effective FL for close focusing), which results in nonagon bokeh balls.
One big thing we will test for when everyone starts getting their production copy is to see if this is a result of pre-production firmware or copy-to-copy variation or just inherent design (although I think we are leaning towards the latter).
Really wanted to like it, imagine it to be a contrastier version (for good or bad) of either 40/1.2 or Zony 35/1.4 but it seems the bokeh is nothing to write home about. There’s a certain edgyness or roughness that I dont like with the images, perhaps harsh bokeh combined with high contrast gave me that impression. However lenses like the batis might fit nicely for s-log shooting.
fplstudio wrote:
If it’s confirmed that the lens stops down progressively from anything less than infinity your 30 days will be really painful 😖
Sorry but this design is crap , the pancake 35/2.8 is faster...
I don't think Sony 35/2 can do at 24cm. I believe its minimum focus distance is 34cm. So I would rather have a shot 40mm f4 at from 24cm than nothing.
At macro mode and close focus, this design is not uncommon. I think even the Leica Q does that. (stop down to 2.8 automatically while the lens was advertised as constant f1.7)
Tirpitz666 wrote:
No, but it makes it worse than the exact same photo with proper rounded bokeh balls in the background IMHO
Angular bokeh balls tend to be far more distracting, at least to my eyes.
And it's not a matter to be "hater" for the sake of it, just pointing to what seems a clear design fault, unless Zeiss explains us mere mortals what precious other charactistics of the lens would have been sacrificed in order to give us a proper full aperture at all FL instead of this questionable behavior (apart from some FL change near or at MFD).
And no, I'm not going to spend USD 1300 for a F2 lens that 90% of the time I can only shot at maximum F2.4/2.8/3.5/4..
is the lens really designed to shoot <15" from the sensor 90% of the time? If that's the case, you might as well consider buying the 50 f2.8 macro, would be much more beneficial.
I figure that most folks would be shooting 1m+, where the lens is at f2, and the additional close focus is a perk.
The real point for me is not that design ‘per se’ but the fact that the lens is advertised as a 40mm with F/2 constant aperture where it is not. If as some have reported the lens stops down at anything but infinity , I would expect a reputable company to clearly disclose such behaviour and properly mark the lens as f2-fx in its name.
With that being said good photographers can take wonderful pictures with this lens.
Kalainen wrote:
Take a look at the new blog post, it deals with this issue: https://30daysofbatis.com
-Toni
Thanks for testing and describing the aperture behavior at different focusing distances in your new blog post and also for getting some feedback from Zeiss on this topic (indicating that they are preparing something to explain it)! It helps to clarify the actual behavior. It's good that this seems to affect only close distance shooting <1m. Still not totally happy with this behavior for close-up use, but at least other use cases are unaffected.
I'm still waiting for the lens to be announced for Japan market with price and release date. Will decide about buying when I see the Japan price. I'm tempted to get it but I already have many other lenses in the 35-40mm area. Main use case would be for walk-around and travel, as a relatively light AF option. My FE 35/1.4 is very good but it's a little bit heavy for these uses, and for MF I'm very happy with my CV 35/1.4 and 40/1.2. I also have the 24-105/4 that can cover some of the same ground for travel use. I used to have FE 35/2.8 but I sold it as I much preferred the rendering on the FE 35/1.4 (especially bokeh).The special close focus feature on the Batis could have been a bonus but I think it's watered down by the aperture behavior at close focus distances. Anyway, the lens could still be quite nice for any other type of shooting.
I'll keep checking your blog for the rest of the 30 days too for getting more insights into the lens
but it does not hurt presenting the qualities as well as flaws of any lens. Let's just agree that the wide open specular highlights' shape at certain distances is a flaw. 
Many would go as far as not buying this lens just because of this oddity.
