Planar 2/100 ....My birthday lens

[Orio]

On the 11th of October, I will be one year older.
As my Birthday self-gift, I have decided to buy the " mystery" lens that I have been testing for the last few days.

It's not mine yet (I still have to pay for it, I only left a Eur 100 deposit), but the decision is taken, so here it is:



It's brand new, although it's probably been something like 20 years in stock in the shop I told you about.
The seller is the son of a person who died recently who had a photo shop in Reggio Emilia. The sons are now selling what remains of the stock of the shop. The autofocus lenses have been all sold to other shops. Only a few manual lenses remained, mostly for Rollei medium format or for Rollei 35mm, and as far as I know, these are going to be sold also soon to the local Rollei club.
There was this only Contax lens, a brand new, never touched Planar 2/100 made in Germany. It is complete with guarantee still valid and to be started, Zeiss quality certificate, lens pouch etc.
I got it for 600 Euros and no shipping expenses. On Ebay the lens is normally sold, used, from 900 to 1200 Euros.
This is one of the sharpest Zeiss lenses ever. If you look at the MTF tests of this lens and of the Planar 2/135, and compare them:

http://www.geocities.com/ilprode/135f2.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilprode/100f2.htm

You will see that the 2/100 has a consistently higher resolvance than the 2/135, at all apertures. Differences go, depending on the aperture, from +0.2 to +0.5 MTF value - which is, a lot.
Now, if you have seen the pictures taken with my 2/135, you can figure out the things.

Now the hard part will be to fork out the remaining 500... but I can not let this lens go, it is a too good bargain to let it go. This lens model is rare, even used, because it was very expensive at the time, and only few of them were sold. Few 2/100 are to be found used on Ebay, and I would bet, that this is the only one (or almost) that one can find new.
_

[Attila]

Wow! Nice start to bankruptcy Hopefully you able to take it ! I wish very much!

[Orio]

I'm afraid that at this point I will have to sell my Canon EF 2/100.
It makes no sense to keep both.

If someone is interested, let me know. I have not decided on the final price yet, but it will be around Eur 400. The lens is practically new - I used it very little, and always with the UV filter, so glass is pristine.
Comes with original box.

[Attila]

Do it! Carl Zeiss is a Carl Zeiss

[Orio]

Yep. Well, it's AF but it's very good, so I can recommend it to everyone with a Canon camera.

[Puplet]

Lovely...

[Orio]

[Orio]

I took this quick shot to show you the resolution of this lens.
It's a 1000 ISO, hand held shot at 1/50 sec, aperture wide open.
Usual warning applies, if the browser will resize the big images, make sure you click on them or do what is necessary to show them to full size.

Here's a 1152 pixels resized whole image:



And here's a 100% crop of the focused area:



The crop is NOT sharpened, so consider that what you see was antialiased by the 5D. Also, the ISO 1000 means a lot of micro detail lost. And still... you can see almost everything like if it was sharpened.

With this lens, if I shall shoot at ISO 100, and with a tripod (or very fast time) I will not have to sharpen the output at all.

Incidentally, note the very good blur in spite of the busy background, and, the depth effect which is the mark of Zorro... no, sorry of Zeiss

[patrickh]

Orio

Happy birthday and what a gift! As a nikoneer I must admit to a sincere desire to obtain Zeiss lenses, especially now they are made for our cameras. But, I canceled birthdays a long time ago out of lack of interest (and not wanting to be reminded of the passage of time - fugit too fast). You are one of the relatively few who will more than do this lens justice - take it to your carnival in Febbraio.



patrickh

[Orio]

Thank you Patrick. I always loved my birthdays, but this one will be the first without my father so it will be a sad one I hope that the lens will help a bit.
I will surely take this lens to the Carnival, but my real wish would be to make some portrait photography, which I can not do, for lack of good and willing models. I have a lot of ideas for portraits, series of portraits whose concept I have in mind, but no model to realize them with. Perhaps next time instead of buying a lens, I should hire a model or two.

[Katastrofo]

Obi-Wan, that is a most formidable lightsabre! Happy Upcoming
Birthday, Orio!

Bill

[pilant]

Very nice lens Orio, and Happy Birth Day in advance.

Your 100 Euros deposit for this lens is more than my three 135 lenses.

[Orio]

Thanks Bill and Pilant.

Pilant, I tell you a secret, but shhhh don't tell anyone: I have as much fun photographing with my 7 Euros Jupiter-37AM, as I have with my $$$ Contax lenses.

[Ballu]

wow.. So your bash has already started.... Just yesterday I was reading about this lens,
http://photo.net/equipment/contax/shea-lenses

Although not popular but got 5-star from CDI (some one should tell me about CDI)....
Its one of the best Zeiss lens ever made..
But whats the reason of going to this.. I think you already have Zeiss 85mm and 135mm?

[Orio]

Ballu, what is "my bash"? I don't understand.

I buy this lens for three reasons:

1 I can buy it for a very good price, this means that if I need to sell it I can even make a profit from it. Or, I can sell my Canon EF 2/100 or one of my Helios-40 anytime and get back some money - that's the good part of buying valuable lenses, you can also sell them, because there's always a demand for them.

2 it's true that 100mm is similar to 85mm, but, how many 85 and 100 mm I have already? I am already way past the logical photographer's border line, and well into the collectioner's territtory: it's not one lens more or less that's going to change that.

3 I love it! and this is the best, feature-wise, of the Contax lenses I have, so I wanted to see how far it pushes the limit.

That article is correct. From a production point of view, a "give-me-results" attitude, there is no sense in buying manual focus Zeiss lenses, when Canon L lenses can give professional results with less effort. But as an artist (or one who hopes to be such), I look at the character of a lens, more than to how productive it is. For my needs, a lens does not have to perform 100 impeccable pictures in one hour, because I don't shoot marriages and don't do photography for a living. For me, my lens has to deliver the most pleasing (to me! subjectively pleasing) result in those 4-5 photographs that I care about in one day.

[Katastrofo]

Orio, #3 is the only reason needed!

[Orio]

[Katastrofo]

This lens sounds like an old Bentley that can only mature like a savings
bond! I would've said a Cord LeBaron, but there's only 4 of those
in the world...

[poilu]

Wow a new shining 100:2 at 600e
I am not jealous of you, you will be afraid to touch it and will never get it outside your house

[Orio]

[poilu]

Please forgive my bad humor
Of course I am not jealous I am very happy for you. I know this is your dream lens and I hope it will help you feel a little better
sorry...

[Orio]

[Orio]

Here's two pictures I made for testing in the last days:

whole resized, should be around f/4:


100% crop (click to enlarge, then again to set 100% if necessary):


whole resized, wide open:


100% crop (click to enlarge, then again to set 100% if necessary):

_

[Orio]

[Orio]