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Archive 2008 · TEST: 14-24 and CZ21mm

wayne seltzer
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p.3 #1 · p.3 #1 · TEST: 14-24 and CZ21mm

David,
You might want to do some into the sun shots to show the flare performance of the two lens. I think the nikon is much better. It was much better than the new 18zf at flare resistance as Lloyd (digilloyd) showed.
Anybody shooting interiors/architecture will prefer the lesser distortion of the nikon and the fact it is barrel type and not mustache.

Dec 20, 2008 at 02:32 PM

deshojo
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p.3 #2 · p.3 #2 · TEST: 14-24 and CZ21mm

You must have got a really bad copy of the Distagon David.
Either that or a crappy adapter that no-one bothered to check or adjust at any stage.

I reckon you should have a word with the idiot who lent you the 21mm for the test. He can't possibly know what he's talking about, and has obviously been using a rubbish copy for years without realising. He probably doesn't even know how to spell Zies.

Whatever the case, I can't be bothered to read the article properly and absorb the detail because it conflicts with my pre-conceived ideas.

Dec 20, 2008 at 08:13 PM

deshojo
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p.3 #3 · p.3 #3 · TEST: 14-24 and CZ21mm

brainiac wrote:
Thanks David - great test. Personally, I don't like the purple/green CA in the zone C crops from the Nikon, and f2.8 is quite important to me, so bearing in mind the size and weight difference I still think I will hang on to my Contax 21.

On the issue of conflict between reviews, I think both you and hubsand have done very good and very helpful tests. At the level we are scrutinising these files, it's not very surprising that one 14-24 was better than one Zeiss 21 and another 14-24 was worse. I don't think it nullifies either test,...Show more →

Aaaaaahhhhhh.
What a refreshing oasis. Thank you so much.

Dec 20, 2008 at 08:15 PM

hubsand
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p.3 #4 · p.3 #4 · TEST: 14-24 and CZ21mm

Would all victims of the 'juxtaposition effect' please form a disorderly queue here . . . sure the 14-24mm looks TERRIBLE at f2.8 when it's sat next to the mighty Zone A master that is the CZ21.

But snuggle up ANY OTHER sub 24mm wide angle lens at that aperture alongside and suddenly the Nikon kicksass all over you bases. Which am its.

In my experience I can't honestly claim the 14-24G is better than the CZ21, so I would strongly recommend that you don't take the Nikon over the Zeiss if resolution is paramount. However, David seems to be saying 'Ignore Mark, and buy his adaptor anyway.' Clearly, I'm not going to take that lying down, and will fight the sentiment in public if necessary.

Even allowing for different samples and varying CZ-EF adaptors It's a difficult comparison to summarise: but I'll try: all Zeiss wides outresolve our most demanding tools in Zone A, and they have peerless microcontrast, so one stop down so it's just not possible to outperform them for perceived sharpness - in Zone A. However, they dip a bit in Zone B and usually a lot in Zone C, as demonstrated in the MTFs which are always bell-like. The CZ21 is in very rarefied company in achieving beyond Nyquist at max aperture, but it's not totally immune to resolution fall-off in the outer image circle. The Nikon is obviously slower off the mark but it resolves very flat across the field and has unusually even illumination at the edge of its image circle. So it's not hard for it to peg back it's wide aperture losses in Zone B/C comparisons made a stop or two down. And when it really comes on song at f5.6, it's delivering a world class C Zone, even by the Distagon's standards. For a zoom lens that looks a lot better at 14mm than the CZ21, that's pretty amazing.

For a long time I've had to stop saying that for fear of compromising my editorial integrity among those who accuse me of hyping the lens to sell adaptors. The truth is that the 14-24mm has now been hugely under-hyped by me for about a year and I've had enough.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the 14-24G is the best ultrawide ever made. I still think the CZ21 is sharper, though. But great test!

Dec 23, 2008 at 07:56 PM

carstenw
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p.3 #5 · p.3 #5 · TEST: 14-24 and CZ21mm

Erm, the 14-24G is the best *DSLR* ultra-wide ever made. Have you compared to Leica M lenses, like the Zeiss 15mm or the Leica 16-18-21mm f/4 ASPH, or a Hasselblad SWC 903 or a Rodenstock or Schneider LF lens? Not that this is relevant, but the statement is a little over-achieving.

Dec 24, 2008 at 05:47 PM

hubsand
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p.3 #6 · p.3 #6 · TEST: 14-24 and CZ21mm

Well . . . in terms of resolution, the 14-24 easily outperforms any LF lens: actually the widest SuperAngulon XL's don't resolve particularly well in the corners, and of course they don't need to resolve that highly per mm for LF. The MF Biogons are stronger candidates, but they're not as wide as the Nikon and also didn't need to resolve as strongly. Ditto the Mamiya 43, which has a fair shout at the claim of most impressive WA, but, again, nowhere near as wide. If the rangefinder ultrawides are as good, we may never know: they can't directly be tested against the Nikon, and we may not yet have discriminating-enough cameras to tell them apart: across much of the frame, the 14-24G scrapes the upper limit of what the 1Ds3 can resolve. When you allow for the fact that the 14-24G performs in the upper echelon of this company, yet is a zoom, I don't think it's an unreasonable claim to say its the best (or most impressive, at least!) design thus far. Of course, there is some 'angels dancing on the head of a pin' in this, and plain guesswork and speculation, too . . . .

Dec 25, 2008 at 05:52 AM

dcmiller
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p.3 #7 · p.3 #7 · TEST: 14-24 and CZ21mm

carstenw wrote:
Erm, the 14-24G is the best *DSLR* ultra-wide ever made. Have you compared to Leica M lenses, like the Zeiss 15mm or the Leica 16-18-21mm f/4 ASPH, or a Hasselblad SWC 903 or a Rodenstock or Schneider LF lens? Not that this is relevant, but the statement is a little over-achieving.

We can say it's the best ultrawide zoom ever made. Quite an accomplishment.

We are talking about ONE copy of a lens compared to ONE copy of a lens. The new ZE should be better corrected than the 14-24. When lenses are close in sharpness I believe they're within the margin of error and one can't claim a winner. There's so much that can go wrong when shooting for sharpness at high resolution.

I really like Nikon's "technical" attitude toward lenses in the last few years - the 14-24 and the three new PC lenses: Making the best ultrawide, instead of making a mediocre 14-30 that can take filters.

Dec 25, 2008 at 10:16 AM

kjrain
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p.3 #8 · p.3 #8 · TEST: 14-24 and CZ21mm

Interesting, I have another question: anyone compared CZ21 vs ZF21? thanks.

Dec 21, 2009 at 11:56 AM

Marco
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p.3 #9 · p.3 #9 · TEST: 14-24 and CZ21mm

I compared the ZF.2 21 Distagon to my 14-24 and found very little differences in sharpness.

I use a D3 so the differences would be more visible on D3x or 5DII/1DsIII, but the Zeiss is slightly better wide open, particularly at the edges. Stopped down to f/5.6-f/8 they are just the same resolution wise, though the Zeiss has somewhat higher microcontrast and color differentiation.
The 14-24 has more even illumination, much visible wide open but still discernible when stopping down. It has also less and more easily adjustable distortion.
Both are not free from flare. The Zeiss keeps contrast/detail better when shooting into the sun but at certain angles it flares much at the edges.

IMO the performance/price ratio is much higher on the Nikon, considering it's a zoom. They designed an impressive piece of glass which almost matches and in some areas even surpasses a legend prime by Zeiss... quite an achievement.

Despite academic talks though I sold the Nikkor and kept the Zeiss, as it is smaller, lighter, accepts filters and I prefer its drawing and "look"

As for comparison between CZ21 and ZF21, I don't have the former anymore, but I used it for a while when I had Canon (1Ds) and to me they behave the same (great sharpness even wide open, not free from flare, mustache distortion, almost no CA).

Dec 22, 2009 at 06:01 AM

alba63
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p.3 #10 · p.3 #10 · TEST: 14-24 and CZ21mm

Marco wrote:
IMO the performance/price ratio is much higher on the Nikon, considering it's a zoom. They designed an impressive piece of glass which almost matches and in some areas even surpasses a legend prime by Zeiss... quite an achievement.

Despite academic talks though I sold the Nikkor and kept the Zeiss, as it is smaller, lighter, accepts filters and I prefer its drawing and "look"

Hi Marco, this is interesting, I also think about getting either the Nikon 14-24 or the ZF21. I use a 5d MkII and a Fuji DSLR. SO far I have the ZF 25, 35 and 85 and there really is something about their "rendering" (very vague term) that I like. Warm colours, good preserving of highlights and shadows.

The newer Nikon pro grade zooms are all very sharp, but somehow the image looks more clinical also, Zeiss while not being optically perfect, has more character. Which is what I am after.

regards
bernie

Dec 22, 2009 at 07:58 AM

Yakim Peled
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p.3 #11 · p.3 #11 · TEST: 14-24 and CZ21mm

This Nikon is an impressive piece of engineering though the Zeiss still holds an edge wide open.

Happy shooting,
Yakim.

Dec 22, 2009 at 08:28 AM

Marco
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p.3 #12 · p.3 #12 · TEST: 14-24 and CZ21mm

alba63 wrote:
...Zeiss while not being optically perfect, has more character. Which is what I am after.

Exactly my feeling.

Although I must admit that big part of my decision of selling the 14-24 was due to its size/weight and lack of filter thread.

For most typical uses of extreme wides the quality of bokeh isn't so important, nor it is its max aperture (even if I'd love a Nikon counterpart of that beautiful 24/1.4LII!) and if Nikon delivered a small 16-35/4 with the quality of the 14-24 I'd be seriously tempted...

Dec 22, 2009 at 08:32 AM

Specularist
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p.3 #13 · p.3 #13 · TEST: 14-24 and CZ21mm

Nice test, but I disagree with the general conclusions. It's hard to know how close the JPEGs represent the original data, but to me the Zeiss is at least as sharp at f/5.6 (and much sharper at f/2.8, judging by the crops). As always with lens tests, what I'd really like to see is raw files for each tested f-stop.

The Zeiss has a cooler colour rendition, but not by as much as this test suggests. The particularly cold corners are a camera-specific problem: the 1Ds Mark III can't deal with the incident light angle, resulting in excessive vignetting and colour casts. The lens can hardly be blamed for this, though people all over the internet including Lloyd Chambers at diglloyd blame the cyan cast on the lens. It's instead a practical problem of using the lens on camera X or Y.

The Distagon flares much more, which will surprise some - though perhaps it shouldn't. After all, it's a lens of unknown age and coating condition against a new Nikon with fewer elements and a Nano Crystal Coat.

The Nikkor also has much less distortion at 21 mm, but that's no surprise considering its size.

Where the Zeiss really shows its class is lateral chromatic aberration: there is none. In contrast the Nikkor is smearing false colour liberally over high-contrast tangential structures. Fix it in post, is the sentiment today.

It would be very interesting to see similar comparison photos for the newer Distagon (ZF/ZE), which in comparison to the original Distagon is more resistant to flare but perhaps not quite as good with lateral CA (rampant speculation on my part here…).

Dec 22, 2009 at 08:39 PM

TWoK
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p.3 #14 · p.3 #14 · TEST: 14-24 and CZ21mm

Complaining that the 14-24/2.8 is big when touting the Zeiss 21/2.8 is listed in the cliche dictionary for the pot calling the kettle black.

Dec 22, 2009 at 08:49 PM

Specularist
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p.3 #15 · p.3 #15 · TEST: 14-24 and CZ21mm

The Zeiss is small compared to the Nikkor, as shown in David Clapp's photo.

Dec 22, 2009 at 09:26 PM

philip_pj
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p.3 #16 · p.3 #16 · TEST: 14-24 and CZ21mm

Hey, an issue that can be settled by empirical data:

14-24/2.8: 98mm x 132mm; 1000 grams
CZ ZF21 : 87mm x 110mm; 620 grams

Shorter, narrower, (much) lighter.

The Rube Goldberg Nikon is a good example of what can be achieved if accepted design principles (like filters, unprotected elements, excess weight) are thrown out the window. Not the landscaper's friend but David obviously likes it.

I read somewhere a front element replace was not a great deal compared with the purchase price, and it might be wise to factor that in for resale...because there will certainly be a steely gaze fixed on the front element by any wised up would-be buyer!

Really need a ZF/ZE 21 and a revised test using RAW, ideally without adapters, so Nikon mount. KEH are still trying to get $1400-1800 for the now outdated 21/2.8.

Dec 22, 2009 at 10:11 PM

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