There is a fair amount of variation on the damping of the ZF focus rings. My ZF85 is the stiffest, and ZF21 the lightest. Only the 85 is stiff enough to be noticeably inconvenient. To me the aperture rings have always been perfect, not too much resistance and nice click stops. The placement of the ring is also exactly where I want, although I guess some people want it elsewhere.
As an aside, does anyone else think that the ZE's are a lot uglier than the ZF's?
Paul: I doubt there will be any changes in the prices of the Contax N lenses. Including conversion they're already a LOT more expensive than any of the ZE's, not to mention there are only two primes that overlap (50 and 85) and there are no ZE zooms. Also, they have autofocus.
Hi.
I noticed ZE lenses are fatter (28mm for instance) or heavier (for instance the 18mm), compared to ZF/ZK mounts. Is this due to the electronic diaphragm? So do you need to manually stop down using the dial coupled to the electronic diaphragm, or does it stop down automatically when the shutter is released like the EF or EF-S lenses?
I had Sigma lenses that do not work on newer EOS. I do worry about the future compatibility with the ZE mounts...
mawz wrote:
Same optics, different focusing helical and aperture mechanism. ZE's focus Canon-style and have electronically controlled apertures.
I seem to remember reading something a while ago that the ZEs were a little different optically from the ZFs due the cover glass thickness difference between Canon and Nikon. I'll see if I can find it.
Dan
www.danbrownphotography.com
brainiac wrote:
I never understand this whole stop-down metering thing. I just set the aperture I want to use, focus, and shoot.
But what if you want to shoot at f/8 with a long lens during the "golden hour" when there isn't that much light around, it gets too dark for critical focusing but the DOF is still rather shallow.
I'm not *too* bothered by stop down metering, but not having to do it would be nice. After so long I'd be worried that I'd shoot stopped down thinking I was wide open.
Stopped down metering with live view is the way to go if you are shooting landscapes in the golden hour. With the lens stopped down the LCD can be used to check the entire image are out at 5x or 10x mag. I've use stopped down metering for well over 5 years (without live view), and it has always held its charm for me. Even better now with live view.
Pondria wrote:
ZE owners,
Does the lens provide any kind of Focus confirmation ?
Yes, ZE lenses give focus confirmation. But I use it only when it gets dark. Otherwise, once you have the hang of it, MF is just simpler, because I don't have to worry about where I want the AF to focus on. I just focus on that area, and shoot. No focus/recompose, no swearing at 5D2's outer focus points. But, in fariness, I have to say that I don't get 100% shots in focus, so sometimes I do focus bracketing as suggested by Brainiac (thanks again, Richard!). Simply, even AF with great Canon lenses didn't always avoid OOF shots either...
brainiac wrote:
I never understand this whole stop-down metering thing. I just set the aperture I want to use, focus, and shoot.
That is stop-down metering.
I would assume the same as any other manual focus lens.
The best in my testing esperience is the Ee-s and Eg-s screens or their respective equivalent for your camera body. Plain high precision matte screens.
I use Eg-s with my 5D MkII and recommend it. I didn't go to third party screens with split screens, because they are rumored (true? false?) to interfere with metering.
