Carl Zeiss lenses

macvisual

macvisual

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Peter
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Recently bought a Canon 5D MkI, mainly looking at Canon lenses for it etc.

Does anyone here have experience with using Carl Zeiss lenses with Canon 5D? Would love to hear any thoughts/views/advice, thanks!


I've heard great things about Carl Zeiss glass.
 
Are you referring to the newer ZE lenses? They are superbly built and can produce lovely colours, but like any lens, its the photographer that makes the shot. They have the convenience of not needing an adaptor and have electronically linked AF confirmation and auto aperture.
The older lenses are still excellent optically and some can be bought quite cheaply. You would need an adaptor ring (Ebay) and have to manually stop down to the working aperture.
ffordes often have a good selection of used Zeiss lenses http://www.ffordes.com/
 
If you are talking the legacy CZ lens...

I have 5D mark 1 before (now upgraded to mk2). I have been playing a few cz lens as well, so maybe can offer you some help.

Recent acquired by Jing Photography, on Flickr

I have got CZ planar 1.4/50, distagon 2.8/28, distagon 1.4/35, planar 2/100

First of all, you need an adapter ring.
Not all adapter ring the same. Some are very difficult to get off lens with sharp edge - particular those high polished stainlessness steel ones.
Some adapter ring comes with in focus confirmation chip.
This is handy - to know in focus on dim view finder takes good practices, I will come to this next. But there are other solution.
And certain adapter doesn't work - as far as I know, a chipped version doesn't go with planar 1.4/80.

Compatible issue, all above lens except d2.8/28 works fine with 5D. d2.8/28 can hit the mirror, you need to filter the element down.

Manual focusing, you need to wide open the lens, focusing and set back to correct focusing to take the shoot.
Use chipped version can take away this pain, but not all chipped adapter work, it is a hit and miss IMO since there are so many unbranded ones on the bay.
Alternatively, you can swap the focus screen to split image type. I opt for this approach. It works for me.
Light metering will not work since the camera do not know what f-stop the lens is on.

Which one?

IMO, 1.4/35 is the best ever lens for street and social documentary. You can always set to 5.6 and guess the distance to do hip shoot.

then 2/100 is a very good portrait lens for models can sit still.
 
The older Contax AE/MM Carl Zeiss lenses are absolutely brilliant, and are now my main weapons of choice.

With a 5D, it is vital to get a high quality adapter. When I'm home tonight I will link to a known high quality adapter. Many are slightly too thin, meaning most lenses focus past infinity (annoying), but worse still, they move the lens closer to the 5D's mirror which has nasty implications!!

I've used the following:

Distagon 28/2.8 (MM version is slightly sharper - look for a green smallest aperture number). This is a great normal lens on crop, and a cracking wide angle on full frame. Very high contrast and an ability to render 3D like images.

Distagon 35/2.8 - also very nice, but I don't like the focal length so much.

Planar 50/1.4 - stunning. My main lens on the 5D. Fantastic subject "pop" with people literally popping out of the frame at you. Fantastic!

Planar 50/1.7 - also excellent, and sharper at f1.7 than the 50/1.4 is at f1.4. Smaller than the 50/1.4 but slightly longer minimum focusing distance.

Sonnar 85/2.8 - A really small and light portrait lens. Very sharp from wide open and bucket loads of pop.

Planar 85/1.4 - Massive lump of glass which also produces wonderful pop...it's a bigger version of the 50/1.4

Makro-Planar 100/2.8 - Brilliant for macro but also excellent for portraits.

Vario-Sonnar 35-70/3.4 - Very, very sharp zoom lens with useful macro function. This lens is excellent for landscapes on the 5D.

Vario-Sonnar 80-200/4 - Wonderful zoom with loads of pop, but suffers some loCA.

Vario-Sonnar 100-300/4.5-5.6 - I haven't seen another zoom that can compete with this wonderful lens. Hardly any CA, extremely sharp and loads of pop.

All the Contax CZ lenses I've tried have had exceptional character with buckets of micro contrast and image pop. They won't win many wall chart tests though as they are almost all sharpest at infinty (28/2 has a floating element, so is exceptional all round).
 
I've had great results with the Planar 50/1.4 and Sonnar 135/2.8 - both contax mount - on my 5d2. Both capable of superb results but I have found focusing to be a bit hit and miss probably down to my rubbish eyesight.

Having tried a few different adaptors I settled on this rather costly but very good one.
 
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