edwardkaraa wrote:
Coming soon from Zeiss, but body made by Sony not Cosina. As soon as 2010 it seems. Zeiss has denied the rumours. It has also denied the possibility of making lenses in Canon mount, 2 weeks before the ZE line was announced
Yes, Zeiss has recently denied it all, and essentially said that it wasn't economically feasible. We did speculate a week or so in this forum about a Sony-built Zeiss/Contax/Zeiss Ikon body and how this would make sense. Hard to imagine that Zeiss is pursuing something with Sony and/or Cosina. I do hope, however, that if such a product does appear that it is a true Zeiss product (controlled, managed, specified, and led by Zeiss) rather than a Sony product with a Zeiss name attached.
kidigital wrote:
Another alternative would be excellent. Unfortunately, these rumors have been floating around even before the M8 was launched in 2006.
Nikon has also recently filed a patent that looks applicable to a rangefinder system. At least the companies are thinking about non-SLR's. Perhaps the M9 will give the competition a goose in the pants.
thrice wrote:
Serious test, very scientific polish site. You can use google translate but the MTF plot for 4 different cameras is at the bottom and very legible to english speakers. The Sigma macro (if you weren't aware) is likely a higher resolving lens than a 50 'cron, as amazing as a summicron can be.
That sigma apparantly doesn't even outperform the Zeiss ZF 50/1.4 (one of their reviews). This is assuming they have consistent lens testing method with normalized results. I have no idea what's the test details this is just from looking at their charts. I may be mistaken.
The comparison would be more convincing if they were to use the Leica-R 50/2 instead.
That sigma apparantly doesn't even outperform the Zeiss ZF 50/1.4 (one of their reviews). This is assuming they have consistent lens testing method with normalized results. I have no idea what's the test details this is just from looking at their charts. I may be mistaken.
The comparison would be more convincing if they were to use the Leica-R 50/2 instead.
Do you have a link to said review I can't find it on their site. I'd be amazed if that was the case, I found the ZF 50mm mediocre for the money.
thrice wrote:
Do you have a link to said review I can't find it on their site. I'd be amazed if that was the case, I found the ZF 50mm mediocre for the money.
Lotusm50 wrote:
I do hope, however, that if such a product does appear that it is a true Zeiss product (controlled, managed, specified, and led by Zeiss) rather than a Sony product with a Zeiss name attached.
Honestly I would rather have a Sony product designed by Zeiss than a Zeiss product manufactured by Cosina. Sony has proven to be able to manufacture equipment at the highest level (high end video cameras, ZA lenses, A900... etc) while the performance of Cosina made stuff has been highly variable so far, even if controlled directly by Zeiss. In my opinion, there exactly are the same chances to get a bad ZF/E 50 as getting a bad Canon, which says a lot.
umm ok? the 50 ZF is 48.8 lp/mm at f/4.0 on a d200x
and the 70 macro is 41lp/mm at f/4.0 on a 1DsIII
You cannot directly compare MTF50 measurements from different sensor sizes. I would say it is likely that the 70 macro beats the 50ZF at equivalent apertures on the same body, other testing would agree with me. Just look at the SLRgear review for the Sigma here, and the ZF here. Both tested on full frame (and crop) sensors.
edwardkaraa wrote:
Honestly I would rather have a Sony product designed by Zeiss than a Zeiss product manufactured by Cosina. Sony has proven to be able to manufacture equipment at the highest level (high end video cameras, ZA lenses, A900... etc) while the performance of Cosina made stuff has been highly variable so far, even if controlled directly by Zeiss. In my opinion, there exactly are the same chances to get a bad ZF/E 50 as getting a bad Canon, which says a lot.
I have worked in camera retail for a long time, and while Sony makes good stuff they are no more reliable than Canon/Nikon.
How much ZM glass have you handled? Have you used the Ikon or a bessa?
I have to disagree. I have used many Sony products over the years. For the last five years I have also used a Kodak SLR/c, and SLR/n. The AF may be slow by today's standards, but it worked - as did the manual focus. Then I bought a Canon 5DII. I still have unresolved problems with the camera, and the lenses are a true lottery. Thank God, I have finally obtained good copies of the Canon 85/1.8 and 135/2.8SF - now I can send my camera in AGAIN and they might do something about my camera front focusing even with +20 microadjust for AF (evidently they didn't beieve me because I was using manual focus lenses). If I am real lucky, they might also fix the manual focus issue (back focus), and the severe (couple of degrees) tilt I see in the viewfinder!
I truly believe that Canon have very loose QA, and they rely on customer complaints to resolve issues. That's a first for me
I just sent a mint A700 away because the "super steadyshot" always slammed the sensor as low as it would go, ruining composition, and obviously not stabilising anything.
Everyone has bad stories, I'm sure your personal experiences are not indicative of every camera Canon have made.
Of course, you could go to the exact same blog, and read "The Leica as Teacher" (by the guy who "owns" the blog, rather than one of the other contributors) that says the exact opposite.
Which, of course, is b*llshit because you can do all that with any camera if you stick with one focal length and manual-everything for a while. Leica is no more a teacher than any other camera, she's just the teacher with the b**bs and the miniskirt. Everybody wants to be in HER class
thrice wrote:
I have worked in camera retail for a long time, and while Sony makes good stuff they are no more reliable than Canon/Nikon.
How much ZM glass have you handled? Have you used the Ikon or a bessa?
I have been in and out of camera retail since 1989 and from my experience one has to factor in the number of sold units vs returns before giving proper miscredit to any brand. I would not say any brand is better than any other but some brands did have a lot of lemons.
Worst QC of the big players in the SLR arena is Canon, from my experience. Malaysian made Nikon bodies came back in droves as well. Sony, from my limited experience with them in shop, has better than average but not perfect QC. Though I don't hold Sony in the highest regard as a company due to their suspect policies in customer oriented matters I have to say their QC is usually very good.
That said I haven't factored in older manual focus SLR´s where Sony never was a player on the field. That is a whole other story where certain SLR's were to be avoided and others just kept on clicking. For digital p&s cameras QC was all over the place and I would say that Canon fared better than most other brands considering we sold a huge amount of them and very seldom got one back, later Fuji models were also top notch in QC while at the bottom of the QC you would find Nikon p&s cameras and Pentax.
I left the circus a few short years ago so I can't comment on Panasonic cameras but I have been hearing reports on the other brands from my former colleagues.
I truly believe that Canon have very loose QA, and they rely on customer complaints to resolve issues. That's a first for me.
I wrote a very similar comment a few years ago, but phrased slightly differently: Quality Control (QC) or Quality Assurance (QA) these days is not what happens in the factory; it is the percentage of returns from customers who have identified a fault and returned a body or a lens—enough of these (and now we would have to add "and enough negative press on the net") and factory recalls are instituted.
Interesting devolution of responsibility but (as films like "Class Action" explore) which may be argued as being sensible from a pure accounting perspective (cost of recall vs. in this case cost of implementing stricter QC).
roanjohnnyc wrote:
As much as I want to shoot a Leica (the cameras are just sexy!!), I just can't justify the price - it's about 50% more than what I would pay for.
What's sexy about a range finder? The only thing sexy is the price. Use the money to buy a Rollex, at least you can show that off everywhere you go.
I wrote a very similar comment a few years ago, but phrased slightly differently: Quality Control (QC) or Quality Assurance (QA) these days is not what happens in the factory; it is the percentage of returns from customers who have identified a fault and returned a body or a lens—enough of these (and now we would have to add "and enough negative press on the net") and factory recalls are instituted.
Interesting devolution of responsibility but (as films like "Class Action" explore) which may be argued as being sensible from a pure accounting perspective (cost of recall vs. in this case cost of implementing stricter QC).
