The CZJ Triotar 4/135 arrived

vilva · Expire: 2015-05-27

The Triotar arrived yesterday, and I had hoped I'd would be able to test it properly to-day, but the day has been totally cloudy - there might be some sunshine next Wednesday. However, I did a round with the Triotar mounted on my 350D, just to get at least some idea of the performance. The Triotar is a slender, rather long and heavy lens, about 630g, chrome plated brass, and it looks a little bit strange on the 350D:

The aperture is fully manual and rather stiff, there are 15 rounded blades, which form an almost perfect circle at all settings. Focusing is so stiff that it usually doesn't travel at all when changing the aperture setting, which makes life a little bit easier if one focuses at the full aperture and then wants to stop down. However, the day was rather dark so I shot at the full f/4 aperture and a bit noisy ISO400 -- the results wouldn't be very spectacular with any lens.

There are good news, mostly, and some bad news. The lens seems to be sharp, and the bokeh is pretty good. However, there is some CA but perhaps generally less than with most modern lenses, more, however, than with the original Cooke. Here are some test shots, first the obligatory one:

and a crop thereof exhibiting some CA, not bad, but it's there (I know, in this case I'm perhaps nitpicking) :

Another shot:

and a crop:

A bokeh example:

Another shot with CA:

The crop showing the harsh reality:

And a rather spectacular bokeh example, the Orthodox Cathedral in the background and OOF twigs breaking up the softness:

A different kind of CA in the rigging:

And a final bokeh example, the highlightsoften have a bright edge, but it is usually quite benign:

Finally, crops from f/8 bookshelf shots with the Cooke, the Triotar and the CZ Sonnar 2.8/135, shot in fluorescent light, which makes color reproduction comparisons rather pointless so I've adjusted the white-balance and also compensated for the extra transmission losses of the uncoated Cooke. The diameter of the circle is 10.5 mm.

The Cooke:

The Triotar:

The Sonnar:

At this level of sharpness, even very minimal focusing errors will affect the result, even at f/8.

Now I'm just waiting for some sunshine and a slightly warmer weather.

Veijo