Distagon T* 2.8/35

[Orio]

Here's what it means to shoot with a Distagon:



Distortion = virtually zero.
The only little slant you may notice, is due to me shooting freehand. If I used a tripod with air bubble alignment, you wouldn't even see that little.

If you are really and seriously into architecture photography, you deserve one of these.

[LucisPictor]

This is a very modern kind of photography.
Exposure very slightly on the light side and the colour saturation a little reduced. If you skim through today's photo magazines, you will see many shots of a similar style by young acknowledged professional.

The more I see this kind of photography, the more I like it.

The location you chose, Orio, I like anyway!

So, really a good shot (and apparently really a good lens)!

Carsten

[Orio]

The color is due to the lens model. The Distagon 35mm has a less saturated color than the other Contax lenses in the same price range (such as the 28mm or the 50mm).

See review here:

http://www.nadir.it/ob-fot/contax_eyes.htm

I prefer the saturation in the other Zeiss lenses of the Contax line. But the 35mm has this fantastic quality of not distorting the lines. I do a lot of building photography. For me a lens like this is precious like gold. Maybe for people who don't shoot much architecture, other 35mm are preferable.
My Elmarit 35mm is much better than the Distagon for sharpness and color (but not for bokeh!), but it is not as distortion free as the Distagon. This is the reason why I have decided to keep the Distagon, even if this will be a sacrifice financially.

The overexposure is my damnation with the 5D. It constantly overexpose the photos I take with the manual lenses. This does NOT happen with the 400D and it's a big plus for the smaller machine.
I have also considered sending the camera to servicing while it's under guarantee, but I have tried it with regular Canon lenses and it does not overexpose (or at least, not more than what the 300D used to do - the 400D is the first digital reflex by Canon to fully comply to the international regulations about the exposure values).
So my concrete fear is that if I send the camera to servicing, it will come back after maybe two months and without a change, because they will test it with the canon AF lenses and find it normal.

[Orio]

For those not much used to evaluate architecture photograph, I want to point out that the subject I have chosen, from the angle I have chosen, is one of the most challenging for a wide angle lens. You have all kind of lines: horizontal, vertical, and oblique. And more: you have a perspective point of escape that is not centred in the image and that is determined by a row of columns - therefore extremely noticeable.
All geometrical qualities of a lens are called to duty here: it must be able to serve without neither barrel nor cushion distortions, and it also must be able to keep constant the diagonal lines.
If you considered what i wrote in the first message (that is, that I shoot freehand and without the aid of a bubble level), you will see that the result delivered by the Distagon is perfect: there is no other words other than that. Kudos to Zeiss engineering.

This is really, really an amazing lens.
Try and shoot this subject with a Canon wide-angle, ROTFL !

[Orio]

Another example from this very fine lens, showing what it's capable of in terms of bokeh:



direct link:
http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/2424/distagon35bwfn9.jpg

(B&W conversion with Photoshop)

[Orio]

And this example, to show the much talked-about "three-dimensionality" of Carl Zeiss lenses, which I think, this picture shows, it's not a myth!



direct link:
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/7105/distagon35bad1.jpg

Both this picture, and the previous, were taken at full aperture.
Note:
A) light falloff in the corners wide open is near to nothing
B) the focus point is very sharp also wide open
C) the narrow focus and bokeh transition of this lens are more like a 50mm than they are the typical 35mm

[Katastrofo]

I like the B&W shot! The other pic, is this building abandoned, someone
forgot to pay the maintenance contract?

Bill

[Katastrofo]

Yeah, the last one is quite spiffy and I like the color def, too.

[Orio]

[Orio]

[Katastrofo]

just here to help, Orio!

[Orio]

Bokeh wide open...:



Direct link:
http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/2135/distagon35bokwokl3.jpg

And bokeh at f/8 :



Direct link:
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/1916/distagon35bokf8qi7.jpg

Note how in spite of the closed iris, the bokeh still remains smooth.

[Katastrofo]

Yup, that's a nice lens. Good useable resolution even at f2.8, really
tightens up at f8.

Bill

[Orio]

I think it was designed this way, like practically all Carl Zeiss lenses.

They wanted (want?) a lens that wide open offers the characteristics of the "classic" German lenses, that is, narrow DOF, smooth blur transition, "pictorial" quality of background but the focus point, very sharp.
The description of a portrait lens, which Zeiss wants to be at all focal lenghts.

The same lens, stopped down, must become a faithful and detailed reproductor of nature.

I am sure this is a philosophy, because now that I have started to know a bit the Leica lenses, I can perceive a totally different philosophy: they want the maximum resolvance immediately from wide open. A "final quality" lens at all focal lenghts. Price to pay? Ugly bokeh.

They are both German, but really different concepts.
Fascinating.

[Orio]

Example of Leica's ugly bokeh:



But of course, thanks to the ugly bokeh, you can get this, WIDE OPEN:

[Orio]

I forgot to say that the above Leica examples are very pertinent, because they come from the same equivalent lens, another 2.8/35mm.

So you are comparing the same lens, same min. aperture.

Makes an interesting thread, eh?

[Katastrofo]

Even the new Zeiss T planars that are out now, get dinged for their
bokeh. At NikonCafe they did a test of the 50 prime Zeiss and the 50
Nikkor. Nikkor had bokeh in spades and was every bit as sharp as the
Zeiss, at least at most apertures. Although the Zeiss, had, a certain
indefinable something, a je ne sais quoi, the nikkor lacked, when you weren't talking about its bokeh.
Funny, I thought you meant the Zeiss has bad bokeh...compared to
nikkors, it does!
Bill

[Orio]

[Katastrofo]

Two of the top sharpness/bokeh lenses extant are the Canon 100/2.8
non-USM AF macro and 55/3.5 micro-nikkor lens.

Bill

[Orio]

[Katastrofo]

[Orio]

Again from the other day: they emptied the city park's pond for the periodical cleaning, and the poor birds always get shocked. Here, this poor goose looks completely lost (always Distagon 2.8/35):



direct:
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/4231/goosegf0.jpg

A 100% crop of the goose:

[Katastrofo]

Great shot, Orio! The goose looks perplexed and rather unhappy, indeed.