Mirror wrote:
Before I read the entire 23 pages it would be great if you could help me out. Looking for a compact 35mm lens (My favorite focal length) with a decent weight that provides a \"special character\" for my A7RII. Basically I felt in love with the special 3D Zeiss Pop Look with certain lenses in the past and look for another candidate - hopefully the Distagon ZM...!? (The 1.4 FE is too big and heavy for me - although the AF is nice to have on board)
I was just not happy with the small FE 35mm 2.8 that gave me flat pictures - hard to explain. So do you think that the Zeiss Distagon here is the right lens to go based on my points above? I also thought about the Voigtländer 1.7 but for my taste the Vignetting is just too much here...
Can you recommend the Zeiss for the A7RII and which Adapter should I choose? I try to avoid cheap china adapters.
Many thanks for your help!
Lots of wiggle room here. Hmmm..compact, decent weight, special character and yet produces great 3D Zeiss pop? I keep a battery grip always attached to my A7RII, so this might disqualify me on the weight/size evaluation, but I\'ll try. From my 35mm lenses, this would included M-mounts: Zeiss Biogon f/2.8c, Biogon f/2.0, Distagon f/1.4.... and in FE..Loxia...I\'ll not consider my other 35mm lenses, but the Hexanons are worth a look. The Biogons are small, especially the f/2.8c, but they stay with my film cameras... I\'ve fallen prey to obsession with the peripheral, which is just plain silly in that I don\'t really shoot subjects that would suffer from this shortcoming at the apertures that I typically use. In fact, I suspect that with larger apertures and more central subjects, the poor peripheral presentation of the M-Biogons might add to the \'pop\", but like the Loxia, the M-Biogon f/2.0 is not a wide open lens with tack sharp centers. The f/2.8c is centrally sharp at f/2.8.. and pretty compact. The Loxia is a great street lens and I tend to use it in the f/2.8-5.6 range. The auto magnification is a nice plus and like all of the Zeiss lenses, it is well made. I just received the Distagon, but it is clearly spectacular centrally with regards to sharpness, contrast.. you name it. It is probably sharper with great microcontrast wide open than my f/2.8c at 2.8 and Loxia at f/2.0. Where this lens seems to shine is in the transition to blur and (for a 35mm lens) the smooth bokeh. It is absolutely minuscule compared to the FE version and has a smaller girth and about the same length as the Loxia+adapter. I can already see that it Trumps my other lenses if shot close to f/1.4.. pun intended. It is also the most expensive of the bunch and I\'m guessing that it is the most likely to make you smile if you are a 3-D pop junkie.
I use the Voigtlander VM-E Close Focus Adapter, but also have the Techart Pro on order.
