Samuli Vahonen
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 p.29 #15 · ZE/ZF/ZM Images (Official Thread!) | |
Andrew, nice landscapes, I got so inspired that I started searching for suitable grassy hills from Finland since we should get spring 1 month from now. This far only found one suitable hill, luckily it's only 100km from where I live. Finland is either flat or then there are trees everywhere blocking the views.
Philippe, nice statue pictures. Thou I have to say I disagree with your comment "The 35 draws attention to itself (the red dress), whereas the 21 highlights the shot (the Lady)", to me it's the opposite, 35 is very neutral (assuming Zeiss 3D is included in neutral drawing style, to me it is...) and 21 draws in a way it's drawing takes attention from the subject.
Adam, I would not use 85ZE for close-ups, performance decreases like Philippe says ~8-10ft/3m. It's magnificent for full body shots and anything else within enough distance between camera and the subject. However I find this lens best for shooting medium size subjects (smaller than house, bigger than half body portrait), so I would not categorize the lens as architecture/landscape. Due to focus shift and other problems I don't recommend the lens to anybody, but if you are willing to see the trouble shooting with it and understand the pros and cons of the lens, this lens does deliver excellent results, if you happen to like the drawing style.
On Friday I was in American Car Show (biggest event in Finland regarding custom cars, motorcycles and car audio) and I really struggled to focus with 100ZE when shooting handhold. This was due to short focus throw on 2m-infinity range, even the lens turns almost 360 degrees on usual shooting distances it's "too fast" for me. Also experiences same problem with Contax S-Planar (turns 600+ degrees, but very short throw on normal distances). Then I ended up shooting mostly with 85ZE, which definitely was not in my mind when I left from home to shoot these shiny chrome covered motorcycles and cars... Due to this I needed 2-3 minutes extra on computer (aargh!!) for each "final" image to remove bokeh CA and magenta blooming around highlights. Bokeh of 85ZE is more rough than with 85LmkII or Samyang for example, even at f/2 - at f/2.8 it starts to "smoothen" (talking about bokeh quality, not quantity). But on the end I'm quite happy about results I got.
Even optically 85ZE is almost like 1.4/85C/Y, the aperture is much more round at f/2-f/4, which I have not realized earlier (some of the photos with S-Planar which I had used aperture f/4 reminded me about this - horrible hexagons). Typically bokeh highlights are not that important for me and I typically try to avoid having them in picture due to distraction they cause for viewer but on situations like this they cannot be avoided. I was almost going to replace 85ZE with C/Y version, luckily I didn't.
ACS 1 - Carl Zeiss Planar T* 1.4/85 @ f/2, 1/100s, ISO 800
ACS 2 - Carl Zeiss Planar T* 1.4/85 @ f/2, 1/100s, ISO 800
ACS 3 - Carl Zeiss Planar T* 1.4/85 @ f/2, 1/200s, ISO 400
I really don't understand how other people are able to focus so well with 100ZE's short focus throw (on normal shooting distances) e.g. John Black on his recent portrait tests. I can nail focus from tripod easily but handhold I find it very very difficult, sometimes even impossible. With 85ZE closed down to f/2 I had no problems at all. Seems that I'll have to find 2/100 C/Y somewhere to see if I find the focusing better in it, also it's drawing style seems "more Zeiss" than "clinical" 100Z* has. On other hand I'll have 85ZE, why I would need 2/100 C/Y. Damn, too many lenses to choose from...
Samuli
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Thats an AMAZING SHOT BTW!
