hubsand wrote:
It may simply be that the new Zeiss lenses are not as good as the old Contax ones.
This would ignore the fact that MTF's published for the ZF 25mm lens by Zeiss show that is the clearly and significantly better than the old Contax 25mm lens. The old Contax 25mm is a 30 year-old design (I beleive it was the same design that was used for the Contarex!) Even the ZF 50mm and 85mm lens, which are refinements of the same designs used in the Contax versions, are shown to be better than the Contax lenses. I suspect that the new Makros will have MTF's that will show them to be superior to the older Contax designs as well.
jjlphoto wrote:
I think it is safe to say the designs are different for a reason. Is it because the old Contax designs are off the table because of the Kyocera license, who knows? Whether the new ones are better, worse, etc, will always be subjective. They are different lenses made in different economic times for different markets. I have a gut feeling that performance of many of the Contax classics, whether they were CY or N mounts will never be seen again.
The Kyocera license would have nothing to do with the Zeiss designs for the Contax lenses. These lenses were Zeiss designs, manufactured and sold by Zeiss (With respect to these lens Kyocera was an OEM supplier, not a licensee). As I suggested above, the 50mm and 85mm are basically the same design as the Contax equivalent lenses. I suspect that the ZF lenses will be accepted as better than the equivalent Contax lenses. There is just something wrong -- and it not to my thinking the design of the lenses. These ARE different times, and there hase certainly been an advance in Zeiss' technology and lens design know-how since the Contax lenses were produced. We can expect these advances to be present in the ZF lenses, and the MTF's suggest that they are.
shiwan wrote:
While I think that Cosina will get their things together and produce C/Y-quality lenses, realistically, I see it taking years until then.
{snip} As Cosina becomes better able to meet Zeiss' quality standards, I can see them moving on to more complex designs and assemblies.
The only issue I have with this is that Zeiss famous (or infamous, if you are Kyocera) Quality Control should be preventing lenses that don't measure up from ever leaving the Cosina factory. Has Zeiss' QC suddenly significantly lowered it's standards and requirements? Unlikely, as that is, above all, what is expected of Zeiss, and it would be quite contrary to Zeiss' corporate culture to do so. Over time, rather than seeing the quality of the lenses improve, we should see (if we have access) Cosina's quality rejection rate fall, and perhaps the supply of the lenses improve.
Edited by Lotusm50 on Feb 05, 2007 at 07:30 AM GMT