sebboh wrote:
i'm excited because my contax g lenses finally arrived yesterday (45mm and 35mm)! i have only gotten a chance to take a few random test shots but one thing is clear: the 45/2 is an all round excellent lens. very sharp and contrasty from wide open with very good correction of every aberration i know how to look for (except loCA). smooth bokeh with diffuse borders on circles of confusion as well. the only problem i can find with it is that it isn't as small as the 35/2. the 35/2 clearly isn't as perfect a lens. i'll have to spend more time with it to decide how i feel about it. anyway some shots....Show more →
sebboh - I am liking the bokeh you get with the Contax lenses. Out of curiosity - do they share the same (or similar) optical formulae as the ZM line?
The ZM 50/2 and G 45/2 have similar Planar designs, but the ZM 35/2 and G 35/2 have different designs. One thing that I like about the G lenses is they have a closer minimum focus distance.
FWIW, the G 35 has a strikingly similar mtf chart to the Leica 35/2 IV, and it was apparently releases later on down the line to draw Leica users into the G system.
OK, I will redo my lens comparison on Saturday when I have more time, and we are promised nice weather, so I will find something a bit more exciting for you to view. I will do 100% crops for Boris, and f:3.5 for Lotus.
BTW, to add to my post above, I decided to measure the mfd and wfd for my Contax G 35/2 with the Kipon to Nex adapter, and it focuses about .07 meters closer than the stated .5 meter mfd when attached to Nex via adapter! That is a bit closer than any of the 50mm SLR lenses that I have for 35mm sensors, and around 10 or 11 inches closer than the ZM 35/2.
corposant wrote:
sebboh - I am liking the bokeh you get with the Contax lenses. Out of curiosity - do they share the same (or similar) optical formulae as the ZM line?
thanks, all planars share the same basic formula (douglas addresses the relation to the relavent zm lenses). in fact nearly all fast (non macro) fifties share the same basic formula. this doesn't necessarily mean they all have the same drawing style. you can only tell so much from a lens element diagram.
thanks all for the comments. has anyone tried shimming a kipon contax g to NEX adapter - are there any complications from the more complex adapter? i feel like these would be excellent lenses to have a hard infinity stop (and closer mfd).
Wow, that 45 sure seems to have a bit more pop than my 35. Makes sense, since the 35 is basically the 45 design with an extra corrective element thrown in the middle.
I've taken apart and reassembled the Kipon adapter, and I'm not sure that you could shim it. I'll tell ya, though, it sure seems like the market is still open for someone to build a better version of the Kipon. The internals of the Kipon are thrown together pretty sloppily. One thing that would help is a focus ring that doesn't have so much play in it from front to back.
douglasf13 wrote:
Wow, that 45 sure seems to have a bit more pop than my 35. Makes sense, since the 35 is basically the 45 design with an extra corrective element thrown in the middle.
yeah my 45 has noticeably more contrast and bite wide open than my 35. not sure how much difference there is stopped down. my default curves settings add a fair amount of pop as well.
douglasf13 wrote:
I've taken apart and reassembled the Kipon adapter, and I'm not sure that you could shim it. I'll tell ya, though, it sure seems like the market is still open for someone to build a better version of the Kipon. The internals of the Kipon are thrown together pretty sloppily. One thing that would help is a focus that doesn't have so much play in it from front to back.
i just opened my adapter up and was similarly disappointed with what i saw. i think i ought to be able to make make a decent shim for it in the machine shop though. i'm rather tempted to just take the two mounts from it and build a new adapter though. we'll see how much free time i have.
Anon Moss wrote:
My understanding is that many lenses are designed to extend past infinity somewhat to allow for changes in temperature.
That's usually only the case with longer (200+ mm) tele lenses and also the reason why they are quite often painted white (to make them absorb less heat from the sun which would otherwise make the metal barrel expand).
i've been fooling around a bit comparing the contax g 35/2 to the pen f 38/1.8 with some surprising results. with the adapter both lenses stick out from the camera roughly the same amount though the pen has a significantly smaller diameter. the contax wins hands down at f/2 - sharper across the frame (particularly towards the edges) with less vignetting (as one would expect with a FF lens versus a half frame lens) and a bit more contrast and saturation. the pen however, appears to be superior at f/5.6 both in sharpness and CA. so far this is only based on shooting similar shots at short to medium distances, i haven't shot at infinity or any walls straight on so i can't talk about extreme corners. i'll do some further comparisons soon so i can decide which one to keep.
Regarding the PEN glass, being for a half frame sized negative, I'm surprised it covers the APS-C image so well. I know they are popular on m4/3, with its 2x crop sensor, but would of thought we'd see more fall off and corner softness from a lens with such a small image circle compared to the full frame G lens, which any problems areas would be expected to fall outside the sensor area.
millsart wrote:
Regarding the PEN glass, being for a half frame sized negative, I'm surprised it covers the APS-C image so well. I know they are popular on m4/3, with its 2x crop sensor, but would of thought we'd see more fall off and corner softness from a lens with such a small image circle compared to the full frame G lens, which any problems areas would be expected to fall outside the sensor area.
half frame is just about perfect for aps-c (aps-c has the same image length and a little shorter height). the pen f lenses show vignetting on aps-c similar to the performance of FF lenses on FF cameras - noticeable wide open but stop down a bit and it's gone. both my pen f lenses also show drastic drop off in sharpness wide open at the corners (due to field curvature) that also disappears with stopping down. in the two pictures posted previously i actually added vignetting to both of them (though more to the contax than to the pen f).
uintaangler - Great shots with Leica Elmarit 28. Is it Leica R f2.8 lens ? Color is very strong and saturated. It reminds me of slide film, like Kodachrome.
sebboh - Wonderful set with G 35 f/2 (?) It seems like a wonderful lens. Low view point is definitely the strength of NEX.
uhoh7- interesting effect with tilt adapter. Nice color. What was the ISO setting ? I did not notice noise.
akul wrote:
uintaangler - Great shots with Leica Elmarit 28. Is it Leica R f2.8 lens ? Color is very strong and saturated. It reminds me of slide film, like Kodachrome.
sebboh - Wonderful set with G 35 f/2 (?) It seems like a wonderful lens. Low view point is definitely the strength of NEX.
uhoh7- interesting effect with tilt adapter. Nice color. What was the ISO setting ? I did not notice noise.
Akul
ISO set to auto, varied from 200-400 in this set.
Shutter 1/160, aperture F/1.4 (I think--might have been 2)
Philippe, these 50ZM images are great. Very nice rendering, especially the first and last one. I should probably order one and give it another try (I returned my 50ZM due to a backfocus problem).
akul wrote:
uintaangler - Great shots with Leica Elmarit 28. Is it Leica R f2.8 lens ? Color is very strong and saturated. It reminds me of slide film, like Kodachrome.
sebboh - Wonderful set with G 35 f/2 (?) It seems like a wonderful lens. Low view point is definitely the strength of NEX.
uhoh7- interesting effect with tilt adapter. Nice color. What was the ISO setting ? I did not notice noise.
the 35/2 clearly isn't as perfect a lens. i'll have
