One would never know that's the conclusion he reached by reading his B&S (auction) page.
He says, "Other than the Zeiss 21mm, there is no lens in existence capable of rendering sharp corners at f5.6 in the 17-21mm range – apart from this one. This is a 100% crop from the extreme upper left corner of a 5D at 17mm / f5.6" and "Majestic build quality; widely considered to be the finest WA zoom ever made."
How big is "region B" and did he/could he effectively measure sharpness across each millimeter of that region? Is the region defined by an actual measurement? And how different is the sharpness in region B? The graph posted earlier in this thread is just a representation of the shapes of the curves, not something from which you can effectively judge the relative strength of one lens over the other. I guess, until we see the actual tests, we really don't really know how these 2 lenses compare, and if there are tradeoffs how each of us might value those tradeoffs in a decision between the 2 lenses.
Seems I should explain myself. I was prepared to spare no expense to acquire an uncompromised AF, AE wide angle (preferably Zeiss) lens. I really, really wanted the N17-35 to be the bee's knees.
All my initial impressions were good: the lens has no CA; it resists flare and ghosting better than any wide angle I've seen, and it's very sharp in the 17-21mm range, particularly in the corners. It's a stunning piece of work to use: fabulously made and immaculately converted. It's worth a lot of money. But, for me, it wasn't a lens I wanted to keep.
I'm on record as saying that AF on a lens this wide is not a dealmaker. For me, AE is useful, but AF isn't. And the lens does have this 'region thing': the resolution dip visible on the MTF charts is visible when you go looking for it, though the corners remain the sharpest thing this side of a CZ21.
It's just that, for me, I'd rather have CZ21 and CZ15 primes. The advent of CS2 and CS3's warp correction tools also has a bearing on this: for the first time I can iron out the Distagon's waveform distortion. I suspect (and hope) that mine is an eccentric, minority view because the N17-35 has unique properties and deserves a home on as many working full frame cameras as possible. The full review will be online in the next day or so for you to judge for yourself how it performs.
It Filled A Niche In My All-But-One Prime Kit....
I Saw The MTF Chart, Compared It To My Other Choices, And Bought.
I Do Mostly Tele'y Work, But Wanted A Better Than Canon Wide Angle.
AF Helps My Weakin' Eyes, Even With Split Prisms In All My Cameras,..
And This Will Do Everything I Desire... Thank You!
hubsand wrote:
It's just that, for me, I'd rather have CZ21 and CZ15 primes. The advent of CS2 and CS3's warp correction tools also has a bearing on this: for the first time I can iron out the Distagon's waveform distortion.
I'm sure you'll be happy with it, John: it's on its way to you today.
I sold the CZ21 because I hit a run of architectural shots with lots of griddy lines that the Zeiss was messing up . . . the Nikon 17-35 I just bought, though not quite as sharp, is perfectly corrected for geometry at 21mm – just like the Contax zoom. Coincident with this, the value spiked, so the Distagon went.
Back then, there was no N 17-35 or CS3. The beta version of CS3 is capable of unpicking the distortion from my archived 1Ds II / CZ21 files without making too much mess of the fine detail. I'm convinced its the only way to improve on the Nikon zoom – but it means going back to manual everything.
The Contax is easily the best auto-everything 17-22mm lens, and most people seem perfectly happy with its performance in the 24-35mm range, too. It has the Zeiss mojo.
By all means, email me a problematic CZ21 pic and I'll try CS3 on it for you and send you back a corrected file.
So, there is a winner in a competition CZ N 17-35 vs. Nikon 17-35. It is Nikon zoom. Unfortunately, the competition was never broadcasted. We got to see MTS charts and theoretical speculations about A, B and C regions. It is really frustrating for me. I was hoping to see real test shots Zeiss vs. Nikon. Are there any test shots? Was the decision to secretly sell Zeiss zoom based on the theory alone? I doubt it. The comparison 'CZ 21 vs. CZ N 17-35 vs. Canon 16-35' makes no sense to me, because you know the winner and looser before the competition even begins. It is like comparing Ferrari vs. Honda Civic vs.bicycle. No need to even waste you time on conducting tests like these. It would be really interesting to see the shots showing the superiority of Nikon.
PLOG1964 wrote:
So, there is a winner in a competition CZ N 17-35 vs. Nikon 17-35. It is Nikon zoom. Unfortunately, the competition was never broadcasted. We got to see MTS charts and theoretical speculations about A, B and C regions. It is really frustrating for me. I was hoping to see real test shots Zeiss vs. Nikon. Are there any test shots? Was the decision to secretly sell Zeiss zoom based on the theory alone? I doubt it. The comparison 'CZ 21 vs. CZ N 17-35 vs. Canon 16-35' makes no sense to me, because you know the winner and looser before the competition even begins. It is like comparing Ferrari vs. Honda Civic vs.bicycle. No need to even waste you time on conducting tests like these. It would be really interesting to see the shots showing the superiority of Nikon....Show more →
Check out http://www.16-9.net/lens_tests/ - the comparison between Nikon 17-35 and EF 16-35 is already there as well as a few others involving CZ21...
PLOG1964 wrote:
It would be really interesting to see the shots showing the superiority of Nikon.
Something says to me that we'll see them very soon and the results will be controversial (referred to the lens performances, NOT to the way Mark does his very accurate and useful tests). I'm not too much interested to know why but if Mark decided to sell the lens, I'm sure he had valid reasons.
One thing is for sure: the hype around the 17-35 is progressively vanishing and this means that the conversion cost should be the same of the other N lenses. No "profiteers" anymore so no reason to maintain high prices (my humble opinion, obviously).
niklasl wrote:
Check out http://www.16-9.net/lens_tests/ - the comparison between Nikon 17-35 and EF 16-35 is already there as well as a few others involving CZ21...
It's not up already: the page returns a missing link. Mark said it should be up in the next few hours and, for what is worth, I would like to thank him for all the time and the patience he spent to do all the tests on 16-9.net.
The 24mm world-cup took months to be completed and all this work is "for free" for us: personally, thanks to you Mark, my culture (about a certain type of photographic equipment) growth and I'm grateful for this. Thankyou!
Emanuele
Edited by Emanuele_C on Jan 19, 2007 at 09:25 PM GMT
PLOG1964 wrote:
So, there is a winner in a competition CZ N 17-35 vs. Nikon 17-35. It is Nikon zoom. Unfortunately, the competition was never broadcasted. .
Is that the conclusion? Where did you get that? Based on the information that has been released on these pages, I'm not sure I would come to that conclusion -- at least not for what my uses might be.
I guess we just have to wait and see what the actual results are and then come to your own conclusion in view of the relative stengths and weaknesses of each.
My original comment may have sounded rude. I really did not mean it. I really appreciate what Mark did sacrificing his spare time. I was considering to buy Nikon WA zoom. I reconsidered and got CZ N 17-35 though. Was it a right decision? For the price I paid for CZ 17-35 plus conversion I could buy two Nikkor zooms. Was it worth paying double price of Nikkor WA zoom just to get AF, AE and Exif features. If any test shots Nikkor vs. CZ are available they would answer my questions. This would be highly appreciated.
My original comment may have sounded rude. I really did not mean it. I really appreciate what Mark did sacrificing his spare time. I was considering to buy Nikon WA zoom. I reconsidered and got CZ N 17-35 though. Was it a right decision? For the price I paid for CZ 17-35 plus conversion I could buy two Nikkor zooms. Was it worth paying double price of Nikkor WA zoom just to get AF, AE and Exif features. If any test shots Nikkor vs. CZ are available they could answer my questions. This would be highly appreciated.
My original comment may have sounded rude. I really did not mean it. I really appreciate what Mark did sacrificing his spare time. I was considering to buy Nikon WA zoom. I reconsidered and got CZ N 17-35 though. Was it a right decision? For the price I paid for CZ 17-35 plus conversion I could buy two Nikkor zooms. Was it worth paying double price of Nikkor WA zoom just to get AF, AE and Exif features. If any test shots Nikkor vs. CZ are available they could answer my questions. This would be highly appreciated.
At the top of page 17, hubsand sold his D21 and replaced it with a Nikon 17-35. He had a good reason to do so for his photography. Does it imply everyone else must do the same? Or that the Nikon 17-35 should now cost more than the D21? Obviously not.
It is true that looking at whether somebody puts his money in where his mouth is tells us a lot about something, but he is replacing the Contax N 17-35 with the D21 and CZ15 pair, not with a Nikon 17-35 as we initially speculated. He must have sound reasons to do so. In any case, it does not mean everyone would make the same decision. Andrew for instance went the exact opposite direction from 15+21 to 17-35.
Let's wait for the test results. He has always performed his tests with the highest integrity, but even if we do not have faith in that, he does not have conflict of interest any more - he no longer has the N lens. He also posted a corner crop on B&S with no softness and no CA. If there is a different lens which shares the same quality in the 17-20mm range, let's jack up its price to US$3,000.
