Carl Zeiss lenses

StuartH

StuartH

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Anyone here use them with a nikon? Toying with the idea of getting one..
 
A good friend of mine has an APO lanthar 125mm, and a Planar 50mm and they are both absolutely fantastic. I have a voigtlander (nokton/cosina) 58mm and that is again, brilliant. They just ooze character, and despite having to focus manually (and meter on my D80) they're so enjoyable to use and produce results that just make other lenses I have look so plain by contrast - even the 70-200 f/2.8VR.

We've noticed between us that zeiss seem to have the edge when it comes to sharpness and voigtlander appear to have a smoother bokeh but both are excellent in both regards and we only have a few to make our judgements from.

I'm not that excited by 'standard' lenses anymore and really just want more optics such as these. Actually I bought a lensbaby recently (which doesn't compare with anything zeiss make quality wise) which provides a lot of fun and character.... Just a shame they have such a 'novelty' way of focusing, but cheap and capable of getting nice results.

Buying a zeiss lens is money well spent imo.
 
Buying a zeiss lens is money well spent imo
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Not the other halfs eyes it isn't..:lol: Just curious as to wether or not its worth 3 times the price of the nikon equivalent..
 
StuartH said:
Not the other halfs eyes it isn't..:lol: Just curious as to wether or not its worth 3 times the price of the nikon equivalent..
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haha good point!

If I didn't have many lenses I'd probably want the coverage of a load of cheaper glass, but zeiss optics are really nice and very flattering to any photographer so not so good for the wallet but does wonders for the ego :)

I guess you've trawled through flickr and the likes, but if not then do. Another option might be trying to hire some out?
 
TBH can't find many sample images taken with the zeiss 35mm f2:|..have looked but only managed to find a few.
 
Does anyone know of any suppliers in UK of zeiss?...I found Robert Whites but thats the only one so far!
 
Cheers les..wish they had a zeiss 35mm shoot out with a nikon!
 
StuartH said:
Cheers les..wish they had a zeiss 35mm shoot out with a nikon!
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You should note that most of the lenses Mark tests on 16-9 are the older Contax Yoshica Zeiss lenses, and not the newer ones that come in Nikon mount. The only Zeiss I have at the moment is a 50 F1.7 planar, mounted on EOS.

The colour and rendition of the image is quite distinctive, at least to my eyes. If you were to buy the lenses new, then I would probably go via B&H.
 
Good pound/dollar conversion though and if you can get them to package things descretely then you might be able to avoid import duty... they are quite hot on imports right now though and can pretty much charge whatever they feel like.

I'm sure you already know about photozone.de anyway but their zeiss glass is ZF AI-S mount :)
 
;) Yep,looking at the 35mm f2 distagon...pricey at £463 plus vat but seems that its an awesome lens! and had a good week at work..:woot:
 
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