abam wrote: "...the Canon 135L which is approximately the size of the new 35/14 Distagon ZE (the Zeiss is actually about one cm longer)..."
the new distagon is larger than a 135L? great googly moogly.
Yes - larger! It's about the size of the Canon 24-70/2.8 - size & weight - A.K.A. "the tub" - you're going to really have to love the Zeiss to want to use it often - certainly so to travel with it. I'm sure it will be nice & sure I'll never know.
"great googly moogly" - must be a Zappa fan! I haven't heard that one in a few decades.
Leica 35mm Summilux-R is ASPH but not marketed as such (Per Thrice).
sorry, but this is simply not true.
Regardless, per Putt "But also compared to the current Summilux-M 35mm f/1.4 ASPH. the performance attainable in practise is almost equal.
this is one of very few Putt's statements, who otherwise writes interesting things, that astonish me.
The performance of the Summilux-R 1,4/35mm at wide open is on the whole far behind that of the Summilux-M 1,4/35mm Aspherical or ASPH or ASPH floating.
Just ask anyone from the optical deparment at Leica (possibly avoiding marketing people there....), they will confirm that. And something different would be sad circumstances.
Another example of indeed quite rare nonsense from Putt's pen: he stated that the much beloved Leica Apo-Elmarit-R 2,8/180mm gives the same superb quality at infinity as well as at close range (actually he once wrote that close range performance is minimally better), something which is also stated in the Leica advertising for this lens. While it is understandeable on a markting perspective, at least up to a certain point, making such a statement simply means ignoring facts. This 180mm truly has no peers in image quality at middle and far object distances, but its performance is very significantly lower at, say, 2m object distance. It's about technical measurements, not something you will necessarily see in all pictures, especially not photogrphing flat subjects, so you may certainly find its close range performance perfectly satisfactory. Nonetheless the global aberration correction at close range has less to be compared with its middle and long distance quality.
Putt is a very competent tester and writer, but he's human and he's no scientist and occasionally he doesn't nail it.
denoir wrote:
Interesting. So how does one go about finding actual measured MTF curves?
Only Zeiss publishes them and guarantees that lenses follow them. As far as I know no website or lab is doing independent MTF measurements (and publishes them). I would think that slrgear's "blur index" is the closest to what you are looking for. At least for most lenses I saw the obvious connection between their measured results and MTF charts. What their blur index also shows is what we all already know, but it still amazes me - just how big differences are amongst same lens model when it comes to Canon and Nikon. They seem to have very big tolerance.
trdonja wrote:
As far as I know no website or lab is doing independent MTF measurements (and publishes them).
The original version of photodo.com did MTF tests for many lenses of the era, and the data remains very useful today — though it obviously doesn't include information for newer lenses. Here is their measured MTF data for the Canon EF 35 mm f/1.4L. Comparing it to the new Zeiss MTF, the Zeiss is clearly better at full aperture, and better at f/4 than the Canon at f/8; though Zeiss probably cherry-picks a particularly fine specimen for testing.
this is one of very few Putt's statements, who otherwise writes interesting things, that astonish me.
The performance of the Summilux-R 1,4/35mm at wide open is on the whole far behind that of the Summilux-M 1,4/35mm Aspherical or ASPH or ASPH floating.
Just ask anyone from the optical deparment at Leica (possibly avoiding marketing people there....), they will confirm that. And something different would be sad circumstances.
Another example of indeed quite rare nonsense from Putt's pen: he stated that the much beloved Leica Apo-Elmarit-R 2,8/180mm gives the same superb quality at infinity as well as at close range (actually he once wrote that close range performance is minimally better), something which is also stated in the Leica advertising for this lens. While it is understandeable on a markting perspective, at least up to a certain point, making such a statement simply means ignoring facts. This 180mm truly has no peers in image quality at middle and far object distances, but its performance is very significantly lower at, say, 2m object distance. It's about technical measurements, not something you will necessarily see in all pictures, especially not photogrphing flat subjects, so you may certainly find its close range performance perfectly satisfactory. Nonetheless the global aberration correction at close range has less to be compared with its middle and long distance quality.
Putt is a very competent tester and writer, but he's human and he's no scientist and occasionally he doesn't nail it. ...Show more →
Yes, I found Putt's statement interesting too but he carefully qualifies it as "attainable in practise". What's your hands-on experience with these lenses and some photos for comparison would be perfect? I cannot find such comparisons from anywhere.
Regarding 180mm 2.8 APO, I have this lens and I am impressed with its performance at both long and short distance and do not see discernable differences for my purpose (portraits at short distance).
philip_pj wrote:
This appears to be a 'modern' CZ all round, but with much more weight than was necessary.
Not to be picky here and i don't mean to single you out, but the issue needs airing, IMHO. How do you know what was "necessary"? How would you determine what weight was necessary?Would you have traded-off performance for weight? How much?
CZ obviously thought the weight was necessary or it would not be designed the way it was.
This is type of trade-off issue for uses where Zeiss appears damned if they do, and damned if they don't. If they give the lens the performance that people expect and desire, then people complain that it is too heavy, too big or too expensive. But if they would trade-off performance for weight, size and cost issues, then people would complain that it's not any good and not worth bothering with. This is similar to the discussion around the ZF 25/2.8. Zeiss designed the lens with what appears to be an optimal set of trade-offs, providing excellent performance in a relatively compact, reasonably priced lens. Yes, people complain that it doesn't perform exactly like it's bigger more expensive brother, the 21/2.8. Never mind that it is nearly half the price of the 21/2.8. Quite frankly (and Zeiss has learned this from their market response over the past 3 or 4 years), if Zeiss went down the route of the 25/2.8 with the new 35/1.4 people would complain about its performance all day long. So Zeiss gives us the a 35/1.4 with fewer compromises in the name of size and cost. The market spoke and Zeiss listened and responded appropriately with the 35/1.4. If size and weight is more important to the buyer than (wide open) performance then they can buy the excellent and very reasonably priced ZF35/2.0.
Agree on the weight and size issue. When going for alternative lens on a Canon body, I would rate PQ difference high enough to trade AF and IS for it. Thus weight and size is not a big deal for me. I can see that being able to travel light can be very high on the list for others.
Lotusm50 wrote:
Not to be picky here and i don't mean to single you out, but the issue needs airing, IMHO. How do you know what was "necessary"? How would you determine what weight was necessary?Would you have traded-off performance for weight? How much?
CZ obviously thought the weight was necessary or it would not be designed the way it was.
This is type of trade-off issue for uses where Zeiss appears damned if they do, and damned if they don't. If they give the lens the performance that people expect and desire, then people complain that it is too heavy, too big or too expensive. But if they would trade-off performance for weight, size and cost issues, then people would complain that it's not any good and not worth bothering with. This is similar to the discussion around the ZF 25/2.8. Zeiss designed the lens with what appears to be an optimal set of trade-offs, providing excellent performance in a relatively compact, reasonably priced lens. yes, people complain that it doesn't performance exactly like it bigger more expensive brother the 21/2.8. Never mind that it is nearly half the price of the 21/2.8. Quite frankly (and Zeiss has learned this from their market response over the past 3 or 4 years), is Zeiss when down the route of the 25/2.8 with the new 35/1.4 people would complain about its performance all day long. So Zeiss give us the a 35/1.4 with fewer compromises in the name of size and cost. The market spoke and Zeiss listened and responded appropriately with the 35/1.4. If size and weight is more important to the buyer than (wide open) performance then they can buy the excellent and very reasonably priced ZF35/2.0.
Lotusm50 wrote:
Not to be picky here and i don't mean to single you out, but the issue needs airing, IMHO. How do you know what was "necessary"? How would you determine what weight was necessary?Would you have traded-off performance for weight? How much?
CZ obviously thought the weight was necessary or it would not be designed the way it was.
This is type of trade-off issue for uses where Zeiss appears damned if they do, and damned if they don't. If they give the lens the performance that people expect and desire, then people complain that it is too heavy, too big or too expensive. But if they would trade-off performance for weight, size and cost issues, then people would complain that it's not any good and not worth bothering with. This is similar to the discussion around the ZF 25/2.8. Zeiss designed the lens with what appears to be an optimal set of trade-offs, providing excellent performance in a relatively compact, reasonably priced lens. yes, people complain that it doesn't performance exactly like it bigger more expensive brother the 21/2.8. Never mind that it is nearly half the price of the 21/2.8. Quite frankly (and Zeiss has learned this from their market response over the past 3 or 4 years), is Zeiss when down the route of the 25/2.8 with the new 35/1.4 people would complain about its performance all day long. So Zeiss give us the a 35/1.4 with fewer compromises in the name of size and cost. The market spoke and Zeiss listened and responded appropriately with the 35/1.4. If size and weight is more important to the buyer than (wide open) performance then they can buy the excellent and very reasonably priced ZF35/2.0.
But still, nikon seems to have been able to make a 35 1.4 that is smaller, got AF AND is amazing in the IQ department. One should think that being all manual would make it possible to cut down somewhat on the size? For me, this might be the deciding issue on which 35mm to get, I dislike huge lenses.
Lotusm50 wrote:
CZ obviously thought the weight was necessary or it would not be designed the way it was.
This is type of trade-off issue for uses where Zeiss appears damned if they do, and damned if they don't. If they give the lens the performance that people expect and desire, then people complain that it is too heavy, too big or too expensive. But if they would trade-off performance for weight, size and cost issues, then people would complain that it's not any good and not worth bothering with.
Agreed! However, I would throw out the idea as food for thought that perhaps this design is working within constraints that are very different than the original Distagon 35/1.4. Cosina does not make many high-end optical designs (the Voigtländer stuff is very good, but mostly not super-challenging), so it is possible that the new ZF35/1.4 is larger than it needed to be in the old days, to allow for more "slop" in the construction, without impacting the performance too much.
Specularist wrote:
though Zeiss probably cherry-picks a particularly fine specimen for testing.
I am skeptical by nature, but if I would believe one company it would be CZ. They claim that all lenses they sell fall within the x% of measurements, I forgot what the % was. I believe them, because they don't claim big things, they seem to be quite realistic about marketing their lenses and admitting that some things they just can't achieve.
Also as many have noticed and mentioned, their "example" photographs are very average most of the time, probably showing what an average photo will look like.
ulrikft2 wrote:
But still, nikon seems to have been able to make a 35 1.4 that is smaller, got AF AND is amazing in the IQ department. One should think that being all manual would make it possible to cut down somewhat on the size? For me, this might be the deciding issue on which 35mm to get, I dislike huge lenses.
Nothing stops you from buying the Nikon instead, right? I have yet to come across a Nikkor that gives Zeiss IQ, so I don't understand why that won't be the case with this 35/1.4 versus others too.
Makten wrote:
Nothing stops you from buying the Nikon instead, right? I have yet to come across a Nikkor that gives Zeiss IQ, so I don't understand why that won't be the case with this 35/1.4 versus others too.
I know, I just prefer manual focus over af. But in this case I might have to rethink that strategy. Both of the competing lenses are bigger, heavier and in general more clumsy.
When it comes to look, I'm not that big a fan of the "general" zeiss-look. I like what people do with the 35 1.4 though, and I would love to have a go at it. To me, the 35 1.4 (old version) seems a bit atypical zeiss, but I guess most people would disagree with me there.
I suspect that the new zeiss 35 1.4 and the nikon 35 1.4 af-s will have a very similar look, the samples posted from both so far indicate that at least.
the size of this lens (and it's competitors) seems like the best argument i've seen for getting a rangefinder if you want to go fast and wide.
ulrikft2 wrote:
I know, I just prefer manual focus over af. But in this case I might have to rethink that strategy. Both of the competing lenses are bigger, heavier and in general more clumsy.
When it comes to look, I'm not that big a fan of the "general" zeiss-look. I like what people do with the 35 1.4 though, and I would love to have a go at it. To me, the 35 1.4 (old version) seems a bit atypical zeiss, but I guess most people would disagree with me there.
I suspect that the new zeiss 35 1.4 and the nikon 35 1.4 af-s will have a very similar look, the samples posted from both so far indicate that at least. ...Show more →
there's no kit from leitax for it but from what i've seen of the mount and design the contax 35/1.4 should be as convertable to nikon as your rokkor 58/1.2.
ulrikft2 wrote:
Hmm, I guess I could try that. Have to wait to see if the classic one will drop in price as the new one is released first though
I have a feeling its gonna stick around $1000 if the new one is $1800. A similar situation would be the Zeiss C/Y 28/2 going for $800 when the modern version goes for $1200. I can't believe people used to get the C/Y 35/1.4 for, like, $600 or so and even less for the Rollei version.
ulrikft2 wrote:
googly moogly indeed. Almost wants me to get rich, buy a M9 and a small sexy 35mm.. :P
Indeed, that is the main reason I sold my Zeiss ZE 21. I can't imagine having a 21/35/100ZE kit? Great performance but the size and weight are over the top for me. I'll keep the Nikon 20/4, Rollei 35/1.4, and Olympus 90/2 as smaller lighter alternatives.
bluetsunami wrote:
I have a feeling its gonna stick around $1000 if the new one is $1800. A similar situation would be the Zeiss C/Y 28/2 going for $800 when the modern version goes for $1200. I can't believe people used to get the C/Y 35/1.4 for, like, $600 or so and even less for the Rollei version.
That pricing is based on the new Zeiss 28/2 being optically superior to the older version. A better comparison might be the 21/2.8. Even though the new ZE is optically superior (especially in the flare department), the older one still sells for well over $1200.
From what I have seen the newer version of the Zeiss 35/1.4 loses some of the charm of the older version at f/1.4. The transition from in focus to out of focus has changed. From an MTF standpoint it may be optically superior, but if it doesn't have that charm wide open the demand for the older version may increase. The fact that the older version is smaller and lighter isn't going to hurt either.
sebboh wrote:
the size of this lens (and it's competitors) seems like the best argument i've seen for getting a rangefinder if you want to go fast and wide.
and
ulrikft2 wrote:
googly moogly indeed. Almost wants me to get rich, buy a M9 and a small sexy 35mm.. :P
Well, that's the plan. Get rich first, then buy the $7k M9 -- it would only make sense to me when $7K no longer seems like a great deal of money.
