Jorge Torralba wrote:
The 35 is incredible. I read your comments on the CA and have posted an image in this group http://www.nikoncamerauser.com/forums/showpost.php?p=361&postcount=1 that shows the CA against harsh contrast area. It is the 100% crop with a street clock. Besides that, the lens is untouchable.
I agree. So far in my use of the lens, I've never come across any more CA than shown in this image, and usually I don't find evidence of any. The ZF 35/2.0 is outstanding both in terms of performance and build quality.
Conner999 wrote:
Nice shots. That said, shooting this winter with my 35/2 sealed it's fate. As much as I loved the resolution, contrast and color, the CA exhibited in the classic (and nightmarish) trees against snow CA-acid test shots compelled me to look for a better solution. .
This is a classical situation where you would encounter hi DR and possibly overblown highlights. Overblown highlights have a tendency to cause sensor bloom and possibly birefringence, this does not mean that the lens has no CA, though you may need to question your findings, as not the total amount of what you say was CA.
Actually did you shoot with the lens wide open and did you try to expose the shot lesser than the meter told you by 1-2 stops?
BTW everytime I see samples of CA on ZF lenses it turns out that this overblown highlights are involved.
Lotusm50 wrote:
I agree. So far in my use of the lens, I've never come across any more CA than shown in this image, and usually I don't find evidence of any. The ZF 35/2.0 is outstanding both in terms of performance and build quality.
Well, mine ZF 35/2.0 wasn't. As I have pointed out in an earlier post, my copy had a relatively narrow band of double contours and serious loss of resolution running from top to bottom near the left hand side of the image.
To elaborate a bit on my testing: I tested this lens against my 1,4/35L Canon and the Nikkor 2/35 AF lens on a 1DsIII and (excluding the Canon lens) on a D3. Tests were made at infinity and at closer range (ca 2,5 m). The Zeiss lens showed good contrast and colour saturation, but rendered details a bit coarse, not as fine grained as the Canon lens. Resolution was quite good across the frame, nearly (but not quite) matching the 35L. I should perhaps add that the 35L is the second copy I have of this lens, and it is quite outstanding. Resolution in the corners was better than the Nikkor, but over the rest of the field the Nikkor held its own. Contrast and saturation of the Nikkor was lower, however. An interesting observation was that DOF appeared shallower on the Zeiss lens. The 35L had an apparent deeper DOF at each stop than both the Zeiss and the Nikkor. Not entirely unexpected; over many years of lens testing I've seen similar phenomena. Last when comparing Canons prime 2,8/200mm with the 4/70-200 IS zoom. Surprisingly the zoom was sharper (except at the extreme edges) and had better contrast, saturation AND DOF at 200mm.
But I digress. What really brought the 2/35 Zeiss down was this curious blurry vertical band that could only be (nearly) eliminated by stepping down to f11. The problem persisted at close distances. No difference between 1DsIII and D3. Well, one could perhaps say it was bad on the D3, but really embarrassing on the 1DsIII.
I was disappointed with this lens as I had foreseen it as a high quality walk around lens on my D3, but after receiving two defective copies of the 2/35 Biogon for my M8, it didn't really come as a shock.
The upshot of all this AFA I can tell: While I think the optical design of the 2/35 Distagon (and for that matter the 2/35 Biogon) is sound, the actual execution of the lenses leave something to be desired. I have had four new ZM/ZF lenses, but only one (Biogon 25mm) has performed comme il faut.
One can of course dismiss this as *anecdotal*, but what else is there to go on? AFAIK no one has ever published a large-scale test to reliably establish lens sample variations (or average quality levels for that matter). Frankly I also wonder how many of the euphoric posts praising Zeiss (and other lenses) reflect proper, carefully made tests with painstaking examination over the WHOLE field to reveal the true performance of the optics in question.
I will take a look at the newly announced ZF 18mm, but if it proves equally disappointing, I will waste no more time on the Cosina/Zeiss products.
Andi - highlights were fine in the shots in question (handheld incident meter was used and verified with histogram), but as stated earlier, I did acquire the lens twice as I thought I'd perhaps been a bit too rash in selling my first copy and REALLY liked what the 35/2 otherwise delivered, but the CA issue was still beyond the limit of what I would consider acceptable for a lens I wanted as my primary walk-around 'reportage' lens in the circumstances I would be using it.
Along the lines of Arne's far more eloquent analysis, the issue I have with the ZF line is not the optical designs per se, but the ergonomic choices made with some of them and the consistency of execution.
