The Contax 21mm is great, however, its difficult to find and very expensive. Other good alternatives are the Olympus 21mm lenses and the Nikon 17-35mm.
If your 17-40L is mush in the corners, either there is something wrong with it, or you are shooting it wide open. Hardly any wide-angle lenses perform well wide-open, and there aren't many good reasons for shooting that way anyway. Try taking some shots at f/8. The Distagon will probably cost you over $3000US.
the C/Y Zeiss Distagon 21 is simply superb. It is unlike any other 135 format wide-angle I have used. However, if you want a really beautiful copy in pristine condition with the highly sought step up hood, I am prepared to sell mine for the right price. The reason I can sell it is that I never use it. My work shooting events doesn't require supreme very wide performance, and causes my gear to get knocked around a bit. As a result I have always been too scared to use the 21 so it sits at home in a cupboard looking minty, which is a tragedy really. I take an inferior lens with me instead, happy in the knowledge that it is replaceable. If I were a serious landscape, nature, architectural or interiors photographer the 21 would be the first thing in my bag. I love the lens, and I am not desperate to sell, so I am asking a serious price which reflects its condition and the increasing scarcity of the lens on the market. My nearest used Contax specialist is listing a copy of the lens at UK£3500, without the hood. My price is UK£3250 with hood. You may see cheaper ones on ebay, but as always with ebay you may not get what you expect.
I am based in London and happy to let you try the lens next time you are over if you are interested!
Sorry Richard this price is way over the top. I recently saw the lens go for 2600$/2100€ which would be about 1400 £, this is still a high price considering that new ZF lenses are probable in the next few months or years
carstenw wrote:
If your 17-40L is mush in the corners, either there is something wrong with it, or you are shooting it wide open. Hardly any wide-angle lenses perform well wide-open, and there aren't many good reasons for shooting that way anyway. Try taking some shots at f/8. The Distagon will probably cost you over $3000US.
I have tried three - all failed to focus at infinity and when focused were soft.
It is the only lens I have ever had to send back. The fault could have been the adapters, or the camera (I used a kodak SLR/c) but regardless, it did not work and was disappointing.
If you find one(21mm CZ thatis) make sure it works in your set up.
Having said that, theLeica M lenses have been a real eye opener
foto-z wrote:
Carsten, i think those Canon lenses really are that bad. Remember Hubsand's famous 21mm v Canon 17-40 L test? http://www.16-9.net/lens_tests/1740.html
Graham, I am not particularly in the mood to test my 17-40L right now, but I don't get results like that. They may not be as sharp as the Contax, but they are not as bad as what Hubsand saw. There has been talk about variability, but more recently, many people have been getting decent lenses from Canon. Maybe Canon tightened up their QA? Anyway, mine is quite a decent performer.
xicotencatl wrote:
c/y mount, to be specific! MM or AE... IQ should be the same (I think)
I have two adapters (cost me less than $30.00/e). Now they have a new version for sale (autofocus confirmation), they're about $70/$80 each.
Can't be wrong with these lenses!!
The CZ 21/2.8 Distagon was made in Japan as MM only. You will most likely need a custom made adapter of 1.4 mm thick. (The pre-made ones are 1.5mm thick, and do not allow infinity focus for most Canon users.) FM member Pham Minh Son makes the thinner ones, as well as the fellow with the focus confimation adapters from this fellow
I only tried one CZ21 and it worked perfectly with stunning results. The adaptor came from Pham Minh Son. You do need the thinner adaptor for infinity focus and the Contax lenses do sometimes need to be sent back to the factory for callibration. Many users here have reported stunning results once their lens was callibrated. My CZ21 was callibrated a year or so before I purchased it.
here we are, watching internet myth being propagated. allow me to quote from the same page linked along with those pictures:
This page was originally built to prove to Canon that I had a bad sample. It's behaviour was curious, however: it was as though the lens was acceptably (but not impressively) sharp at a focal length of 17.85mm, but hopelessly soft (as you see here) at 17.9mm. Quite often it would just pop a stinker for no apparent reason. Eventually, after three months haggling, Canon accepted the lens back and the dealer refunded the money,
you're using images of a lens that Canon admitted was faulty, to prove that the lens is faulty. follow the links on that page to the replacement test. pretty dang good on center, and guess what, a $2000-4000 prime is sharper than $600 zooms in the corners.
