My son and I spent last week wandering extreme western Virginia, around the almost totally enclosed valley of Burkes Garden, and then the Farm Heritage Trail (4 highways linked) in the eastern edge of West Virginia. We spent some time in coal country near Pineville and Welch, and in New River Gorge, visiting some of the ghost towns there.
My contribution to the trip's photography was done exclusively with a Zeiss lineup, the 21mm, the 35/1.4 and the 135/2. The new 135 turns out to be pretty good at isolating farm buildings and concentrated scenes at several hundred yards, which compliments the 35 and 21 very well. I had no idea I'd be doing landscapes with it.
This spring is one of the wettest on record in this part of the country. I shoot with my Nikons set at Neutral in Picture Control, always, but some of the images look as if they'd been juiced in Vivid or pumped in PP, which is not the case. The grass on some of the farms looked like it was dyed green....
1. Farm Heritage Rd, Monroe Co., WV. D800E, ZF 135/2 @ 5.6, ISO 100
2. Looking down from the bridge to the barn in image 1. D800E, ZF 135/2 @ f 4.5, ISO 100
* * *
OK, I think I've figured out that direct links to sized image options off my Zenfolio site work infinitely better than trying to pull resized image files directly off my computer and posting them here. There is still some quality lost somewhere, but it's better. Please look at my slide show for the best possible view. Those images are done in a very good algorithm straight off the huge D800E jpeg files. I seldom have time to do the best sequence of RAW Adobe to ProPhotoRGB, to 16 TIFFS, then downsizing, etc. I'm old, time is short.
Finally!!!! I found "defect" from APO-Sonnar T* 2/135, slight green and magenta tint (just tint due to bokeh CA being much smaller than 1px). This is the worst I have been able to create, and I have really tried...
Carl Zeiss APO-Sonnar T* 2/135 @ f/2, 1/250s, 5DmkII@ISO100
We had discussion about 2/135 vignetting/light fall off in HD images thread (see this post and few above by Toothwalker and myself) - I continue discussion here since it has nothing to do with HD images...
Toothwalker wrote:
The light falloff is measured at infinity, unless mentioned otherwise. In the case of the 2/100, the graph has three curves: F/2 at infinity, F/4 at infinity, and F/2 at 1:2. As far as vignetting is concerned, the 2/100 and 2/135 should be pretty close at infinity focus.
All lenses have less illumination falloff at close focus than at infinity.
Vignetting is also not something that is subject to sample variation --- unless the sample is run over by a truck. On the other hand, improper attachments may aggravate the falloff.
Here are 3 images, which are processed with dcraw and since it's open source it doesn't do any vignetting correction (at least I didn't find any code indicating it doing that) - Aperture and LightRoom may do whatever and may have features like lens profiles, so output from those may be also "whatever".
Please ignore ugly colour etc. in the 3 photos below, they are just added for discussion basis about this topic, and I didn't want to spend tens of minutes time tweaking correct color balance etc. with command line tool.
If the light fall-off is similar between Makro-Planar T* 2/100 and APO-Sonnar T* 2/135 according to lens PDF then there is one more factor, which also is mentioned by Lloyd in his blog: "The Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar has an exceptionally digital-friendly chief ray angle, and I would call it out as the best lens available on a DSLR today...". Maybe this is reason why 2/135 has less vignetting at landscapes @ f/2 that 2/100?
Of the two first images above here are versions with colors I prefer (done with Apple Aperture, with highlights slide restored more structure to clouds etc.) - HD versions in HD thread
The shots below aren't great shots but they surprised me when I opened them. One is wide open, the other stopped down to f3.2. Not happy with the colors due to lighting and excessive makeup for a dance competition. That said, the excessive makeup really made me realize how sharp this lens is. 0 sharpening added. I couldn't. Any sharpening made them look 'fake'. I'll be taking these shots down soon because I don't feel they are the most flattering. Just impressed with the 50P. Wide open it's fun. Slightly stopped down the focus shift kills me. But when I get it right it's great.
Samuli Vahonen wrote:
If the light fall-off is similar between Makro-Planar T* 2/100 and APO-Sonnar T* 2/135 according to lens PDF then there is one more factor, which also is mentioned by Lloyd in his blog: "The Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar has an exceptionally digital-friendly chief ray angle, and I would call it out as the best lens available on a DSLR today...". Maybe this is reason why 2/135 has less vignetting at landscapes @ f/2 that 2/100?
It could make a difference, but a small one as the chief ray angle of the 2/100 is not particularly digital-unfriendly. (It is a pity that the lens specs are less detailed than in the Contax days; the position of the exit pupil is no longer listed.) Perhaps you can try to compare the vignetting directly?
Some great photo's here.
Ronny the last set really sings.
Jochen, Lieutenant, great images.
Samuli, you're shots elevate these fairly ordinary scenes to something amazing. I hope that doesn't sound offending, i mean I've never seen trees and that type of landscape rendered so well.
Here's a quick one from me with the ZE50P from some local woodland i've only recently started visiting, it was raining quite heavily but I'm not sure that is visible in the image.
Cheers, Blackout. Very nice, and I'm sure that the fantastic quality of these shots is totally down to the lens and when I get one I'll be able to do just as well....
Hi everyone, new poster here. Quick question for this particular group - does anyone own and use both the 35 2 and 50 1.4?
I rented a 35 2 last summer for a few days and liked it so much I've have had my heart set on one ever since, but I've also always been a fan of a fast 50 and I like the sample images I've seen from the 50 1.4, pretty different than the way my Sigma 50 1.4 renders.
Thanks, and let me say there are more outstanding photos in this thread than I could appreciate in a lifetime!
