Birth of the Zeiss Ikon 85mm f/2.0 Sonnar?

I am really curious how this 85 Sonnar will fare in real life, also in terms of handling. I got recently the Makro Planar 100/2 for my FM3A, and from the first roll shot on SCALA pushed to 400, I can already see that this lens is beyond anything I've had in this FL range, and this includes the 85/1.4 Planar as well. In comparison the 135/2 Nikkor or the 90/2.8 Elmarit M, make you laugh. This is already true at full aperture, and includes incredibly "personal" OOF rendition. The only problem I have encountered, is that having made some test shots for focusing accuracy, I have found it back focuses by about 1 cm from 1 m distance on my Nikon, and this is a problem, since makro capabilities are very much a part of the game. Just to show you the effect, here's a handheld shot at f2.0:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59177039@N00/1558957503/
and here another handheld at f 2.8:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59177039@N00/1558660052/
if you enlarge a bit, you can read the announcement on the door.
The point of writing this, is that the 85/2 Sonnar is, at least on paper, the only Zeiss lens with MTF graphs better than these of the Makro Planar 100/2, it should be more compact, and hopefully on the ZI with the 1.35 magnifier, it will focus with maximum precision. So I am eagerly waiting for the comments of the users from first real life tests.
 
mfogiel said:
I have found it back focuses by about 1 cm from 1 m distance on my Nikon
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Back focusing on SLRs does not have the same sources as on a rangefinder. On a manual focus camera, it's normally not the fault of the lens; you focus through the lens, so you see what you focus at. The light path through the lens stays the same, regardless of whether the mirror in the camera is up or down, so if results on film differ from those in the viewfinder there is a problem with the camera. Maybe the bayonet-screen distance is not identical to the bayonet-film distance, or focusing was imprecise - not uncommon with macro lenses.

Philipp
 
Philipp, you probably are right, in the sense that there must be a fault with the calibration of my FM3A, I will repeat the test on the Fuji S3 to see if it is the same. I focused using the 1.35 magnifier, so it really was accurate.
 
rxmd said:
Back focusing on SLRs does not have the same sources as on a rangefinder. On a manual focus camera, it's normally not the fault of the lens; you focus through the lens, so you see what you focus at. The light path through the lens stays the same, regardless of whether the mirror in the camera is up or down, so if results on film differ from those in the viewfinder there is a problem with the camera. Maybe the bayonet-screen distance is not identical to the bayonet-film distance, or focusing was imprecise - not uncommon with macro lenses.

Philipp
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That could apply, but it is as likely to be focus shift - if you're viewing with the aperture fully open on an SLR, then shoot at a smaller aperture, it's possible the plane of focus can change.
 
Paul T. said:
That could apply, but it is as likely to be focus shift - if you're viewing with the aperture fully open on an SLR, then shoot at a smaller aperture, it's possible the plane of focus can change.
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It's possible theoretically if the lens has undercorrected spherical aberrations, but on a Makro-Planar I wouldn't expect this to be the case, firstly because it's a macro lens that tend to be heavily corrected especially for the close focus range, secondly because it's a Planar. It's not as if this is a specialty lens like the ZM Sonnar 50/f1.5, which deliberately uses a lens formula with undercorrected aberrations to recreate a certain "look".

Philipp
 
mfogiel said:
The only problem I have encountered, is that having made some test shots for focusing accuracy, I have found it back focuses by about 1 cm from 1 m distance on my Nikon
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I once had focusing problem with my Olympus OM2n with all lenses. The problem was mirror position. The mirror didn't return to the right angle after shot. From viewfinder all looked fine, but on film the shots were not correctly focused. My problem was solved after changing the mirror return spring (or some other part?) in reapair shop. Anyway, this can't be your problem. 🙂
 
rxmd said:
It's possible theoretically if the lens has undercorrected spherical aberrations, but on a Makro-Planar I wouldn't expect this to be the case, firstly because it's a macro lens that tend to be heavily corrected especially for the close focus range,Philipp
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This argument is based on the premise that under-corrected spherical aberration is the only possible cause of focus shift when the lens is stopped down. Can anyone give a reference that this is in fact the case?

OTOH, I doubt that lens registration has anything to do with the 2/100 Makro-Planar mis-focusing at 1m. After all it's an SLR lens. Errors at such distances only matter on the distance scale because they are automatically compensated by the TTL finder.

I strongly suspect that this lens has the largest physical aperture among mfogiel's F-mount lenses, so that any focus error (caused by either user or camera) is going to be the least masked by DOF.
 
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Bryan Lee said:
No offense to the forum but there are way to many great and cheep SLRs and long lenses on the market right now. What is crazy marketing here is you can buy a Zeiss ZF 85 1.4 and put it on about anything for under a grand.

ZF%20lenses4.jpg
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Well said.

In addition, if RF is compactness in sake of reportage and street photography, they are tons of smaller 85/2 lenses out there, even SLR lenses. Obviously it isn't even a telephoto design like i.e. Canons 85/1.8 45 years ago, but a long Gaussian design.

I understand that Biogon designs have to be badly long for performance reasons, but not a 85/2.
 
Mazurka, I also use the 85/1.4 Planar, but since it is softer, (especially at F1.4) than the Makro Planar, it is more difficult to see a small misfocus problem. I agree with Bryan Lee, that in general it makes more sense to buy an $900 Planar 85/1.4 ZF, or even use one of the great 85 lenses made for Contax, or other brands, rather than pay $2500 for the 85 Sonnar ZM, but believe it or not, the absence of the mirror slap, and also, in case of an 0.85 Leica or the ZI, the very precise RF focusing, make a difference when it comes to getting a fast grab shot with a tele. To illustrate the point, here you are with a couple of shots made with the Makro Planar 100, the first one at f2.8 and about 1/2000 sec :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59177039@N00/1559821218/
and this one at f5.6 and 1/125 sec, as you can see the result sucks:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59177039@N00/1558937885/

In my perception the RF's gain in image quality over SLR's, because of:
- absence of mirror slap
- more precise and fast focusing (most of the time)
- superior lens quality (on average), especially in the wide to normal range
- all these factors result in a shorter effective shutter speed which translates directly into superior image quality

In the 85mm or longer domain the factors of superior optical quality and more precise focusing start waning, but the mirror slap absence is always present, this is why a good 85/90mm RF lens is always good to have...
 
You said it is soft at f2.0 ??? This seems strange to me, my Makro Planar is bitingly sharp at f2.0, and is diffraction limited at f4.0, I think. From MTF charts your 85/2 should probably peak at f4.0 too, if not at f2.8 in the center... Sometimes Zeiss makes the widest aperture soft to facilitate flattering portraits, it would be nice to know what they were after...
 
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maybe you are right - just had a look at the wide open shots - it seems that I did not focus very properly. For portraits I am used to the C-Sonnar and focus on the ear to correct the front focus. And the 85 mm appears to have no front-focus issue. And of course the DOF is really small.
 
When I was saying, I was anxious to see some shots from the Sonnar 85/2 ZM, because it was the only Zeiss lens capable on paper (MTF) of more sharpness than the Makro Planar 100/2 ZF, it was because the MP 100/2 is probably the best short tele lens I've ever seen. My 90/2.8 Elmarit M in comparison performs like a bottom of a jelly jar. To show you what I mean, here's a shot made handheld at f2.8 on Delta 400:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59177039@N00/1794817250/

So, I would welcome some B&W shots from the early owners to make myself an idea...
 
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