Contax zeiss vs nikon zeiss zf

[jaffa_777]

You peoples have been helping me with film and rangefinders over the past month and I thankyou. So I have some more quetions.

I need some help building my film camera kit for travel. My Mamiya 6 is on the way from ebay, but now I am looking at a 35mm system to compliment.

I want to shoot zeiss glass because I can see the beautifull differences in rounded contrast, tonality and color. I have been looking and reading about the stunning results from the contax g2 system and zeiss lenses, and from the pics, I am very impressed. It almost looks like medium format stuff.

My question is though, Iam already invested in a nikon setup, and buying zf lenses would mean I could use these in the future on my digital bodies as well as the FM3a body which I would travel with. Does anyone know how these lenses perform on slrs compared to the contax rangefinder? I hear because the lens is so close to the film on the g2 enables it to get amazing contrast and sharpness. Would this change on the slr? Zeiss are claiming that the zf lenses are the sharpest to date, but there isn't much image wise on the net to show the charachterisitics of these new lenses.

I guess I should also be looking at contax slr's too.

Andrew

 

[Socke]

High Adnrew,

ich you look over to the sister site http://www.dslrexchange.com you should find some older threads about using Zeiss lenses in Contax/Yashica mount on Canon dSLRs because the lenses are better than there Canon counterparts.

The Zeiss ZF lenses are improved over there Contax relatives and mount on Nikons without the need of adapters and you still have automated aperture and metering on higher end Nikon bodies from D200 up.

So if you have Nikon gear you probably want a Nikon dSLR and with AiS glass you would need a D200 or D2 anyways.
OTOH I doubt anybody can see a difference between a Zeiss ZF Planar 50 and a Nikon AiS 50 in a picture taken with a1:1.5 crop dSLR picture.

 

[beethamd]

Andrew,
I have one ZF lens, the 50mm f/1.4, and a Contax 50mm f/1.4. They share the same optical design but I think that the ZF has better internal baffling, say Zeiss. The Contax version is a wonderful lens with superb resolution that requires a tripod, a really good tripod, with spiked feet - and also using the self timer etc to get the very best from it.

You could get an Aria and the 50mm Contax for £300 in MINT condition if you shop about a bit. The ZF lenses are expensive so it may be more cost effective to use the Contax mount versions instead - even if you use a Yashica body, like the absolutely delightful FX-3.

The 45mm Tessar is great too - small and light - giving a really good combo with the Aria or FX-3 for very little bulk.

The Contax series lenses are all well proven, and available at little cost.

If you want to stay with your Nikon, don't forget the Voigtlander F mount lenses - the 40mm Ultron is rather nice and doesn't cost too much either.

 

[beethamd]

Andrew,
You have some -great- photos on flickr!

 

[telenous]

Hi Andrew,

I have used both Planar 50 Zm and Planar 50 ZF. The ZM is supposadly a near identical optical recipe to the one used for the Contax G series (I am saying this because you mention being impressed by photos from the Contax G system). The two lenses (ZM-ZF) are very similar. In particular colour rendition and flare resistance seemed identical to me (both were superb). The kind of tonality which is characteristic of the ZM lenses was also present in the ZF lens.

Having said that, the ZM gave me many more keepers than the ZF. Why is that? Perhaps the fact that the SLR has a mirror slap means that you need a tripod to milk the potential of the ZF lens (BTW I use an FM3a, like you do). In practice I also found focusing in low light much harder with an SLR than a rangefinder, so I had many out of focus photos with the ZF.

One last thing: I felt the ZF lens was going a bit soft at closest focusing range (45cm); not so with the ZM lens. Mind you I didn't do any scientific tests. That's just my impression.

I have since sold both. Sometimes I miss the ZM lens. I cannot say the same about the ZF one.

 

[Issy]

ZF versus the G 45 Planar (been there)

ZF versus the G 45 Planar (been there)

I bought the ZF 50 (one of the first in the US to get one from Cameraquest) with the hope of matching the look and feel of the images from the Planar 45 on my G system.

Short answer: it did not.

It's no slouch. It is AIS equivalent (no AF, no CPU), and has a nice solid feel to it, smooth focus, knurled metal grip, and optically I would agree with Sean Reid's take on it (vs the Nikon AF 50 1.4): better wide open (in sharpness and deeper blacks), but similar to the Nikon at 5.6 and beyond. But up against the Planar in the rangefinder format, the Planar still has the edge. I know nothing of lens design, so I can't speculate why (design?, mirror slap?).... I just know it didn't meet my hopes.

Considering the price, and the fact that I work from a fixed camera hobby budget (and you can get the Planar and a G2 body for the price of this lens), and that I already had the Nikon AF 50 f1.4, and AIS f1.2, I eventually sold it.

I would encourage you to borrow one if you can and try for yourself. I, personally, see/shoot better through SLRs, and was hoping to get some of that G2 Contax "3D" look from my SLRs, but it my case it did not meet my admittedly high expectations.

 

[Mazurka]

If you don't want to cough up for a D200, Canon has cheaper alternatives to use with your manual focus F-mount lenses: http://kenrockwell.com/tech/nikcan.htm

 

[jaffa_777]

Yeah, I already have a d200 and will soon have a mint f3, with some fine af and mf nikon lenses. And yes they are sharp, (stopped down a bit) but sharpness isn't everything to me anymore. Zeiss lenses whether they are on contax, ikon, canon, hasselblad, xpan, from what I see just seem to have something magical which I don't know what it is, but I do really like. Especially on chrome film.

Since I am invested in Nikon it would be nice to buy a couple of zf lenses and hope they would perform with similar characteristics as on the other bodies. This would enable me to use them on all my nikon bodies and especially when nikon gets off there butt and decides to go full frame as well.

 

[Nachkebia]

I own ZF 50mm, I have used it on D200 and on FM3a, I can not say I particulary like it 🙂 for manual lens it is very big, open wide it is not as sharp as lenses on rangefinder and it is very very hard to focus, so why bother? get rangefinder 😀