How is hte quality of these two lenses? Between the two (ignoring the focal length difference) is one more special ?
philber wrote:
Your wish is Zeiss' command. They told me that they would release every ZF-mount lens in ZE mount this year, except the last one would be the 100 Makro, announced this year with delivery early Jan 2010. So, happy?
We all focus on different things. In the raw file I was mostly looking at the resolution - such as the detail in brick texture, the meters along the back of the buildings, etc. The Contax 28/2 CY had very good resolution, so I was curious if the 28/2 ZE had similar performance. I had no noticed the CA on the courthouse, but also did going look for it since it was visible on the 30" screen under "fit to screen". If I don't see a lens flaw at that size, then it won't be an issue when printing (at least for my standards). Here it is blown up to 400% with C1's CA corrections applied; still there. I would not return / sell a lens based on that.
Lotusm50 wrote:
But of course, the 24/1.4LII fails to deliver the exceptional look produced by the Zeiss lens. If you appreciate the quality and look produced by the Zeiss lens, the 24L just doesn't cut it.
I'd be very interested to see a comparative test between the two.
The 58mm filter diameter used to be a common Canon size, but surely most people interested in this lens would be more likely to have 72mm, 82mm, 67mm and 77mm filters than filters for ancient Canon consumer lenses. A good 58mm polarizer runs to pretty well 10% of the cost of the Zeiss lens, so this is not a trivial issue.
The 28mm lens's barrel is 64mm at its widest, so 67mm would seem to be a more natural diameter anyway. As mentioned by someone else way back in this thread, it's an ugly lens to look at. Having a nickel allergy, I also don't like to see chrome on the front. These things should have been picked up on during product design.
It seems that Zeiss is cutting costs by using the same front assembly for all the mount variants. At least they chose 67mm for the ZF 100mm f/2 and 50mm f/2 Makro thread size, which happens to be the same filter size the very popular Canon 70-200 f/4 IS zoom takes.
Nice review John. I'm headed out to Sedona as well, around New Year's Eve. Hopefully I can put the wides and super wides to good use there. Then it's on up to a frosty South Rim for a couple days.
Nice review, John. Sad that my copy of the ZE 28 was far from as clean as yours. Based on yoru findings, I might revisit that lens with another copy if I feel a gap between by ZE 21 and ZE 35.
John - thanks for the excellent review and very resourceful website - I find your reviews to be very through, non-bias with a nicely authoritative conclusion.
I have been a fan of the ZF 28/2 - purchased right after it was available - I have had nothing but great images from that lens. I use it for landscape quite often - it's not perfect but it is better than the several Canon "L" zooms that I have compared it to at 28mm - though my Zeiss "N" is very close.
I might upgrade to the ZE but after 1-1/2 years I'm finally getting used to the "backwards Nikon" focus/aperture rings! Just kidding - but I have noticed the Alt FM'ers trend towards the convenience of electronic aperture on the new MF lenses.
