I think we can rule out focus problems. Bryan from t-d-p does know what he's doing IMO:
"I used zoomed Live View, computer-attached Live view, focus bracketing ... ".
Something is clearly wrong with that one lens. It's too early to conclude that all ZE 85/1.4s are garbage.
Even a perfect Planar 85/1.4 (6 elements, no aspherical glass) will not be close to as good as an 85L (8 elements with aspherics) when shot wide open. The lens wasn't designed for wide-open sharpness to begin with.
Yes, I remember that. Very nice touch. I have no experience with the Zeiss lenses that are made by Cosina but I have been very unimpressed with Canon's QC, although they appear to be getting better from late 2007. The only lens manufacturer with impeccable QC is Leica.
edwardkaraa wrote:
What happened to the legendary Zeiss QC? My Contax lenses used to come with a certificate signed by the guys who did the QC. In 12 years of using Zeiss glass, I have never encountered any lens which didn't conform to their quality standard.
My 50mm ZF had a signed certificate, strange considering the lettering on the focus scale had one of the numbers not completely painted, but oh well no complaints about the lens or build quality.
thrice wrote:
My 50mm ZF had a signed certificate, strange considering the lettering on the focus scale had one of the numbers not completely painted, but oh well no complaints about the lens or build quality.
I suspect that the modern Zeiss certificate is nothing but a marketing gimmick. In the past, Zeiss inspectors had to manually test each and every lens on an optical bench before they could pass the lens, and this was true for both Oberkochen and Kyocera factories.
My Canon 85mm 1.8 wide open is as sharp as my 24-70mm @ f4 and I've had 3 copies of the zoom. However I just got a new 100m f2 and though not quite as bitingly sharp on the edges, I find the skin rendition to be far more pleasant, less harsh. Looking forward to more use of that 100mm.
Having trying many zeiss lenses, only few lenses I like. one of them is the 16/2.8 fisheye. (21/2.8 is probably the next) I'd say some of the zeiss are not as good as what people said. In fact, they are not better than Canon equivalents.
It just occured to me after having read diglloyd's blog about the ZE 85 that the entire problem with this lens is focus shift which is most apparent when shooting test charts. It seems that focus shifts by as much as 2 cm as you stop down. When shooting such a flat subject, 2 cm can be disastrous. I am pretty sure that when this lens is tested on real 3D subjects, it will perform very well.
