Zeiss zf 35mm experiences..

Hi all,

I have been asked by asher to relay my recent experiences with the new zeiss zf manual focus 35mm lens.

I used the lens on a canon 1ds and have since sold it.

There was a fairly good thread about my experience on the fredmiranda site and so not wanting to rewrite it all here is a link to it..it is an archive there now so the images won't display (I think) but...

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic2/502844/0#4343572

the short story is that I loved the feel and user experience of the lens (I am brought up on manual focus medium format) and the image quality was very good..I was comparing it only to a canon 24-105 lens but I found that on the canon the image quality was not enough of a leap to make it worth while..there was also quite distinct CA and I am now using a leica 35mm elmarit 2.8 lens for interiors, exteriors, landscapes, etc. instead. which apart from being a great deal cheaper is well known for low ca, etc.

On a nikon body however I imagine it to be a top performer that will not dissapoint but I do recommend trying to test it out first in your shooting situation if you can.

hope some of this helps,

Marc

www.marcwilson.co.uk

Hi Mark,

This is really great experience. Do you have files that are not sellers but are in focus and properly exposed? We're looking for contributions to our RAWFOTOBANK for OPFers to experiemnt with even though they don't have all the lenses. The images will still need to be licensed for commercial use and cannot be posted excpet to OPF and again require your consent. All iamges will have your contact information.

I am contributing RAW files with the Zeiss lenses with the 5D and 1DII and Will Tompson and Michale Spinak nd many others are giving us files from the 1Ds MarkII covering a lot of the lenses all the way to the 200 1.8 and more. I'll be putting together a list shortly.

Your lenses we don't have, so whatever you can provide we'll bless you for! (Same if you can't join in!). Every RAW file we can have is precious and valued immensely!

We are looking for decent pictures!

There will be no charge to access except after using a certain number one will have to contribute to get more!

Back to your Leica 35mm Elmarit 2.8 lens, are you using a standard focusing screen and do you need to bracket?

Asher

Hi Asher,

Unfortunately I no longer have any of the images I shot with the zeiss zf lens.
I only really used it in testing, on the type of images I would use it or, but have since cleared out space on my mac so hence no longer having the unecesary images.

As for the leica...for the various alternative non canon lenses I have tried I have used where possible a different focussing screen..on a 5D I used to have I used the brightscreens..very good..and on the 1ds a beattie intenscreen..with grid..I found it to be about a stop brighter than the canon stanard screen but it needed no exposure adjustment..so pretty good overall.

I am now having to go back to the 5d from the 1ds due to size / weight issues so will at some point look to get another screen for that again.

Sorry not to be able to help out with the zf images.

Marc