Tell me about Zeiss Planar T* 1,4/50

[brbo]

I want a lens for Canon EF mount. It will be used on a film body. General purpose lens, casual kids/family portraits and walkabouts. I don't need macro.

At first I wanted an AF lens, but now I'm thinking maybe I should skip AF lenses. I'll mostly be shooting slow film so I want a fast lens. Canon 50/1.2 L seems attractive but quite expensive. There are not too flattering reviews of Canon 50/1.4. Is it worse than Canon FD 50/1.4? I have FD 50/1.4 and I think it's quite good. I really don't know if I would like the plastic Canon 50/1.8. Sigma 50/1.4 EX is an option (Art version is way too big for me). I had one in Nikon mount years ago and I think it's a very very good lens. I am afraid how auto focusing would work on old EOS film bodies though.

Soooo... I started looking at MF lenses. And was blown away by images that I found on flickr taken with Zeiss Planar 1,4/50. I knew that Macro Planar 2/50 was highly regarded and just about perfect, but 1,4/50 has *that* something. A hint of what my old Contax Sonnar 1,5/50 gives me. Two lenses in one. Softer and full of character wide open and then nice and sharp when stopped down.

Anyone care to share thoughts on Planar 1,4/50? Or have a suggestion on a fast 50 lens for Canon EF mount?

Thanks!

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I have 50L, which I use on film as well as on 5Dc. It just does the job as best lens.
Prior to 50L I have lens you are asking about. I sold it for two reasons.
#1. MF sucks for kids photography. Like real photography, not then they are just asked to freeze.
#2. Lens sucks at 1.4. It was hard to admit, but it really does give you crappy bokeh, it is soft and else.

The reasons why I still think it is great lens. At 5.6 it is best lens I ever seen (on digitals). Not only it is clinically sharp, it is rendering 3D in appropriate light and it gives juicy, but not over contrasty (cheap) colors. Probably best lens I ever seen for digital colors. And it is build like 50L will be never build. Hood included.

For MF on film, to be honest, it is overkill. Maybe more reasonable would be old version of this lens. It has less problem wide open, the only so-so thing is in limited blades numbers for the aperture.

If you want MF, skip EF. Get OM Oly with 1.8, 1.4 50 on it. I have tried Zuiko 50 1.8, what a lens, lots of character on BW. And even OM10 is very capable camera with really good VF, focusing screen. RF like.
Or go with Nikon F series if you need to look serious 🙂 John Free using one, with not expensive 50mm on it for decades and results are respectful.

 

[jdvf]

What about the new Sigma Art? According to PhotoZone (one of the very few sites for lens reviews I trust) it is the best fast 50 FE lens they ever tested.

Greg

 

[6x7]

Anyone care to share thoughts on Planar 1,4/50?

For my Contax I have always preferred the Planar 1.7/50 which is more compact in size, lighter in weight and provides more contrast at larger apertures.

I also like the Nokton 1.4/58 SLII which sits on my Nikon F90X permanently because of its build quality and slightly longer focal length.

On the other hand I would not hassle around with adapter solutions - and the Nokton is not available with EF mount. If 40mm is your cup of coffee the Ultron 40 SLII (EF) may be worth a consideration. It offers all: suberb image quality, very high build quality and very compact dimensions even with hood mounted. The included close-up lens is a nice extra.

I'll never ever buy Sigma again - had dozens of copies and they all had serious quality issues.

 

[brbo]

Thank you for you input.

I have a reason for Canon EF mount. I want to use my Canon FD 35/2.8 TS lens (can be adapted to EF) and have the ability to use AF lenses as well. It will be my only SLR system. It will replace my Canon F1 (old) with 17/24/35/50 lenses. I don't use 17 and rarely use 24. I could live with just 35TS and 50 for now, but I will add AF lenses at some point as I do miss having an all-auto-thing sometimes.

So, I AM looking for an auto focusing 50 lens, but I was really surprised that when I was going through flickr pictures from 50mm lenses on EF mount a large number of photos that I liked were from Zeiss Planar 1,4/50.

I've heard before that Zeiss Planar 1,4/50 was really not that great. I looked at some reviews and tests (KR has a nice head-to-head comparison with a bunch of 50mm Nikkors) and according to all this it's not really worse than Nikkor 50/1.4Ai or AF-D. I know that older Nikkors (and other MF lenses) are cheaper but I'm not interested in adapting and using stop down metering.

Sure, I'd like 50/1.2L but find it hard to justify the price. On the other hand, if this lens can be use for everything (low light, portrait, landscape...) it's really not that bad of a deal. Anyone using it as a general purpose lens? Do you find it to heavy? Some other issues?

Sigma 50 Art looks too big/heavy to have it with me all the time. I had Sigma 50 EX (on Nikon digital) and it was great but already on the large/heavy side. And I'm really not sure how good the auto-focusing would work on older film bodies. I really don't want to deal with front/back focusing issues on film bodies.

 

[oftheherd]

I have the Contax 50mm f/1.4. I cannot comment on using it on a digital, but on my Contax 167mt, and the 139Q before that, it was incredible. It has also worked well on some Yashica C/Y mount cameras. YMMV. I was always conflicted if it was better than my Fujinon 50mm f/1.4, which is also a great lens. They both made great photos. The problem with either of those lenses would be finding one that has been take care of and hasn't been knocked around before you get it.

 

[GarageBoy]

The ZE/ZF was redesigned - the Contax version is different, IIRC

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Yes, I use 50L for everything, except macro, but on DSLR.
I used 50L on EOS 3, it was incredibly fast with eye focusing, but I sold camera due to the huge size and heavy weight and using it on small and light Rebel 200, very randomly. It does have focus shift at f1.2, sometimes.

On film Sigma Art, ZE Zeiss and Canon EF L series lenses are overkill.
And even Planar isn't really small comparing to old MF lenses like OM.Zuiko.
Not to mention Canon and Sigma, where in addition to the size and weight, focus shifts might be present.
If you want only one SLR and it is EF, just get 50 1.8 OM.Zuiko with EF adapter. It is $50 lens max, with $2 for adapter. As small 50mm lens, as you could probably get for EF.

 

[6x7]

The ZE/ZF was redesigned - the Contax version is different, IIRC

You are right. I forgot that there is a new Zeiss ZF line and therefore only referred to the C/Y version.

 

[CK Dexter Haven]

The ZF Planar 50/1.4:
I wanted one, desperately, when this lens was originally announced. But, upon release, i really disliked the resulting images. Bokeh was icky. It is definitely different from the C/Y 50/1.4.

I had the Contax Zeiss 50/1.4. Loved it. I had one on a few different Contax bodies. Sold them all for various reasons, but none were related to the quality of the lens. I still want another one. I tried to adapt it to Canon, but unless you want to always shoot at 1.4-2.8, it's kind of a kludge to deal with stop-down metering all the time.

Once had the AF Zeiss 50/1.4 for the Contax AF camera (n1?). I thought it was a bit soft wide open, but it still had the lovely rendering. I believe you can still find this lens adapted (with AF) to Canon EOS mount, by a company called ConURS or some such.

So, that all said, i would say the following:

The old Canon 50/1.4 EOS mount lens is fantastic. Forget about 'reviews.' There may be sample variation. I've kept mine even while i simultaneously had 50s from Leica-R, Nikon, Contax, Pentax. I sold the others and always kept the Canon. It's got some 'halation' at 1.4, but at f2 it was equal to or better than the Leica-R 50 Summicron. The Contax 50/1.4 manual focus lens was a tiny bit better, but the AF was always sharper than my manual focus results, even in static tests. The Canon AF just nails critical focus better than i did with manual focus when shooting at wide apertures.

The old 'nifty fifty' Canon 50/1.8 should be considered. My former boss and mentor had one on an EOS7 and always got fantastically sharp, lovely images. Even though i had the supposedly 'better' 1.4 version, i kinda envied his pix with the 1.8. And, its bokeh rendering is slightly different, which might give you a kind of 'non Canon' look, just because it's a lens not as commonly used. If that makes sense. I found some pictures by a fashion photographer using the 50/1.8, and they have a vintage look that definitely seems different than what i'd expect from the 50/1.4.

The 50/1.2L. I had this lens briefly. The early version. It just never focused accurately. But, they may have fixed this. And, when i owned it, it was on the first gen 5D, which didn't have AF calibration in the body. I did try three different samples, but they were all 'off' and didn't produce critical focus or sharpness that was better than my 50/1.4. It's a big lens, as you mentioned. You really need to consider whether you will actually take it out, and any lens that might have a tiny technical advantage is not a better lens if you don't have it with you.

My advice: if you really love the Contax 50/1.4 rendering and were going to use it on a (canon) film body, just get a Contax body for it. Get an Aria if you want the smallest modern-ish body, or an RX if you want an amazing, full-sized body. I love those two cameras. The shutter impact is the smoothest, and the drive is lovely. Nice viewfinders. And you can use that lens the way it was meant to be used.

 

[brbo]

Yes, I guess you are right about the Canon's 1.4 and 1.8 50mm lenses. As I mentioned I have nFD 50/1.4 and 50/1.8 S.C. and managed with them just fine. Can the AF cousins really be that much worse than FD lenses and as bad as the Internet want me to believe or is this just digital pixel peeping?

 

[gavinlg]

The 50L is the best 50mm lens I've ever use for full frame DSLRs. Sharp at f1.2, beautiful characteristics all-round. Not too big.

I had the zeiss 50mm planar briefly and wasn't happy with it. Incredibly hard to focus through a 5d (even with an aftermarket split screen with brightening treatment), soft and glowy wide open with really distracting bokeh, Around f2 it settles down and becomes very nice, but it's just so hard to focus DSLRs manually that it wasn't worth it at all.

I also had a sigma 50mm hsm (which was the model before the 'art' one) and it was 98% as good as the 50L. I'm sure the new art one is probably the best of them all.

If you want to play with manual focus lenses I HIGHLY recommend you try the zuiko lenses as the above posters - they're better than the ZE zeiss 50mm planar IMO and 1/3 the price.