Gunzorro wrote: Samuli Vahonen wrote: Gunzorro wrote:
There must have been some real dogs of this lens sent to reviewers. I can't explain the difference between what I'm getting and about 40% of what I read before buying.
I have theory for this; people assume some qualities from Zeiss lenses, which causes them to have too high expectations of some aspects of the lens performance - then they get disappointed by wide open boke and corners - as they don't have patience, knowledge and skills they don't learn and everything about the lens seems awful => then they go to forum/review/whatever to complain about it. I would have assumed high price and manual focus would have scared these users, and they would buy some other lenses, but it seems that my assumption was wrong.
I don't have Loxia 35, but I have the ZM-series 2/35 and lens requires knowing it's behavior well e.g. majority of urban boke scenes need stopping down to f/3.2-f/3.5 for boke optimization, but background detail at certain frequency may require even closing down to f/4.5. On nature boke scenes it's safer bet to use f/4-4.5 as "default" maximum aperture on boke scenarios, at least on Nordic evergreen forest, which tend to have horrible backgrounds from boke point of view. Naturally quantity of boke has big effect, if shooting at minimum focus distance and background is far away the quantity of boke hides most of the boke quality issues and it's likely that f/2.5 becomes usable aperture. Sometimes boke contrast makes big difference, e.g. using polarizer on backlight forest scene can cut the highlights (=rough reflections from undergrowth etc.) and this makes it possible to use larger aperture without distracting subject with busy boke. And when boke gets ugly with ZM2/35 it tends to be really ugly. I would assume Loxia 35 behavior is similar.
Samuli
Thanks, Samuli -- Your explanation may well have something to do with the negativity I've read or heard about.
My approach is probably a little different from many users buying somewhat "exotic" equipment, and in this case lenses. I can see why some might be disappointed if their paradigm for a Zeiss lens is bokeh related (not that I've found this an issue with the Loxia 35, but some might). I'm more interested in finding the f-stop range for best overall sharpness, color, and contrast, and that is usually outside the "Bokeh Zone" of close focus and wide open aperture. Nothing wrong with people enjoying blowing out backgrounds (I love what Bob and Helena are doing with unusual lenses and directing the view through softness to a central subject or design), I've used that technique and have a few lenses for it, but it's not my usual approach (and honestly, I'm not as good at pre-visualizing as some of these brilliant folks!).
I'm curious what other photographer on the forum would adopt as their mission catch-phrase. I'm mostly in the "f/8, and be there" camp, with a leaning toward the "f/64" club in a moderately casual way. And maybe that is the simplest way to describe why these lenses appeal so much to me.
Greetings.
I'm also from the "F8.0 and be there" school but perhaps will graduate from it one day.
This thread has simply opened my eyes to new techniques, experimentation with different lenses, and so on.
Gentle suggestions and criticisms has also helped. Will old dog learn new tricks? Possibly one or two.
However, when I see some of the shots from Venice (you know by whom) or Iceland or Norway (you know by whom),
I know that there are not-far-off limits for me. Actually, this helps me enjoy seeing and studying those great photos.
But I also like seeing not-so-great shots when I feel my take of a particular scene could have been better.
So thank you all for having created such a great thread.
Henryk
May 01, 2017 at 11:05 PM
Previous versions of Kierzkow's message #14022644 « Sony FE Images Thread »
