Okay, our opinions differ as to quantity on that..
Are you talking about sharpness?
I honestly don't understand how anyone can say the Zeiss and Olympus lenses are close in the corners when it comes to color and contrast. Unless black lines are SUPPOSED to be purple. --c
there are several lenses where i just cant understand their famous reputation, and one of them is the zeiss21. the distortion is horrible and its just not the case that you can correct easy and well this moustache forms which deliver lenses as the zeiss ( in this amount as the lense does ). same for the hi praised nikon17-35/2,8 zoom. these lenses are sharp, and thats all, and for me this is not enough. maybee my criticism therefore belongs to my job as architecture photographer, but if you see a portrait shot with a good corrected lense aside from a shot with a bad corrected ( as the zeiss ) you can realize also that every proportion a.e. of a face is "thicker" and seems to be unproportioned, compared with the better corrected shot. i really hate this. for 3000$ and for 400$ dollars, it doesnt matter.
another thing which i dont understand very well is :
i am content with my oly 24pc, but expecting wonders i bought also a 18mm oly,- found this lense very bad. totally unsharp if the more than f8 opened,- and very bad colors and contrast overall,- although in this case the lense was well corrected and sharp ( f16 - f8). was the lenses defect? the look was as new,- but i gave it away immediately cause it performed indiscutable bad,- on the kodak slr as well as on the 1ds.
charlesk wrote:
Its up for sale if you want a mint 25mmf2.8 I would sell it now for $400.00 based on what I have seen of its performance. After a brief foray into the exotic world of Contax Zeiss, I think there is a reason why canon is still in business.
10Tenths, the 25mm is generally considered the worst of the Zeiss wides. One reason why it is rarely discussed around here. Don't draw too many conclusions from it. --c
Now you tell me !
I noticed the absence of the 25mm in the collection of several people. But I figured that it was because they had the 21. I notice that people would own 21, 28 35.
Damn! I just never asked. To be honest, knowing how good the 16-35L is, if the 21 is that much better, I would really be interested in getting the 21 but I am just scared of making another mistake. Now if I could test myself before I buy? I will ask a seller of 21 if I can return if it fails the my test.
At least I discovered the 1.7 which I am happy with. Please is the 50mmf1.4 as good as the 1.7?
Where 7 is "good" and 9 is "excellent", the 25 scores a 5.5 on the edges at f/5.6 and the 21 scores an 8.4! They are not even close.
Nobody can guarantee that you will like a particular lens but it is rare that I have heard of anyone having any issues with the lens other than distortion and price -- one of which can be corrected by software. --c
Andy wrote:
it's all so darn subjective. we shoot with what works for us. for me, i shot with and owned two copies of zeiss 21/2.8 and 18/4. there was simply no benefit for me, landscape shooting, over my canon 16-35L. and i print large. i never pixel peep on screen, that's not real world imo - i look at the printed image. in fact, i shared some 20x30 prints, same scene, exposure, etc, from yosemite with several pros here in ny, and all three picked the canon 16-35L over the zeiss 21.
there are a lot of tradeoffs, for some, there are some benefits. and i don't begrudge anyone who wants to use this glass! but i've seen very few real world examples of the zeiss in action - everyone talks about it but they don't share the results. guy's shown the airplane cockpit (impressive shot!) but other than that i've only seen "tests"
i do agree that there is a unique economy going for the zeiss glass - fed by the fuel from folks here and on other fora ... many new shooters see this hype, and want to try it for themselves.
for me, i'll take the af and metering of my 16-35L over the zeiss 21 - it's not worth the tradeoff imo. but that's just my opinion.
mike, thanks for sharing your results, it should make for an interesting discussion. btw - the results of the zuiko look impressive, you probably have just caused a 50% jump in the going price for these now
Thank you for that very honest insight. I have found the 16-35L to be very impressive in a "real world test" especially when I didn't expect it to be as good. I have a better appreciation for Canon wide-angled lens after my first tests. It made me a bit skeptical about unsubstantiated claims people make about any lens.
So what you are saying is that this type of test does not show much in real world shots. I appreciate you veiw point because I never shoot pictures of text in real life so I wonder why they use this as an exclusive test of a lens ability?
rehnniar wrote:
i am content with my oly 24pc, but expecting wonders i bought also a 18mm oly,- found this lense very bad. totally unsharp if the more than f8 opened,- and very bad colors and contrast overall,- although in this case the lense was well corrected and sharp ( f16 - f8). was the lenses defect? the look was as new,- but i gave it away immediately cause it performed indiscutable bad,- on the kodak slr as well as on the 1ds.
Rehniar,
Nice to see you here! I'm becoming something of a Zuikoholic. I've spent some time looking into their lenses and the different versions in the same focal length. Many of their lenses have gone through changes over the years, some more than just coatings. The 18mm is one of the lenses that is believed to had an optical change. The newer version is supposed to perform better than the old. Don't know how to tell them apart though.
It's funny that I spent a lot of time in the darkroom subtely blurring and darkening the corners of prints to send attention to the center of the picture!
Now I obsess about perfection to the edges: uniformity that I toiled against for hours!
However, today with PS there are so many easy derivatives possible for images: stitching for panos, composites etc that one may want to start with the best images possible.
I use my landscapes as backgrounds for composites so I'm pressing for all the detail I can get, delusional or not!
So I use a CZ 21 until the Mamiya ZD or similar is within my reach!
10Tenths wrote:
I considered buying the Contax Zeiss 21mm last week, but after a recent experience with Contax Zeiss 25mmf2.8 I just purchased (cost me $541, failed test against 16-35L, badly) I would rather not make another mistake at a cost of $3500.
I'm sorry to say, but you should've done some research beforehand. If you did ANY research at all, you would discover that the Zeiss 25 is NOT one of the recommended lenses that have stellar performance. The wide lenses that have excellent performance are the 18, 21, and both the 28mm distagons.
The 18mm is one of the lenses that is believed to had an optical change. The newer version is supposed to perform better than the old. Don't know how to tell them apart though.
FWIW, my experience with my copy of the 18 is that it is notably better than the Canon 16-35 zoom at 18mm, but not as good as the Oly 21 -- of course the 21 can't get to 18 though
charlesk wrote:
You consider these comparable in terms of CA and contrast? Uhh.. okay. --c
As I said earlier, compare the line at the dude's butt -- and don't enlarge the crop. CZ21 on the Left, Oly 21/2 on the right, and the CZ clearly shows red/green CA where the Oly shows blue:
And IMO, the r/g CA is actually MORE visible in the CZ21 image than the r/b CA is in the Oly image...
Not only that, please note the huge difference in resolution at the belt-loops... KIDDING!
,
Edited by Jack Flesher on Aug 07, 2005 at 05:26 PM GMT
CZ21 on the Left, Oly 21/2 on the right, and the CZ clearly shows red/green CA where the Oly shows red/blue:
The CZ21 shows a black line with one spot containing off-color fringing. The Oly doesn't "show red/blue" -- it's a freaking purple line. There is NO black in it at all.
And IMO, the r/g CA is actually MORE visible in the CZ21 image than the r/b CA is in the Oly image...
The Oly doesn't "show red/blue" -- it's a freaking purple line. There is NO black in it at all.
Dude... if you look closely you can see the whole Oly image is shifted slightly blue -- look at the shirt, pants and grass -- probably due to minor processing differences in the original raw files. This of course will carry through to the shadow line affecting it as well.
In closing, you are certainly entitled to your opinions about the vast superiority of the CZ... But speaking for me myself personally, nowhere in these images do I see enough of an optical superiority to validate the difference in these lens' respective market values...
Okay, I've said all I'm going to about this and am out of here on this thread.
--c
--c