Zeiss ZF 50/1.4 Nikon Lenses On the Way!

CameraQuest

CameraQuest

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I lucked out to get a small shipment of the new Zeiss ZF 50/1.4's in Nikon AIS mount. They should arrive early next week. Caps and the lens shade are included. Most are sold, but a few are still available. $500 + shipping.

A 50/1.4 lens does not sound too exciting, but the highest resolution SLR lens ever tested by Zeiss turns it into quite a different matter!

Stephen
 
I'm in agreement with you about the 50mm focal length. While many photographers choose the 50mm lens as a standard lens, I prefer the 35mm focal length. Perhaps Zeiss will produce a 35mm lens in its ZF series. A 35mm f/2 lens would suit me perfectly.
 
Yeah, I read Rockwell's opinions, but I disagree with him on couple of things:
- Just cause the lens design is old, doesn't mean it's bad. Heck, the leica MP's design is old, and it's the best around! So yeah, the Zeiss design is old, and that can be a good thing. Don't fix it if it ain't broke. I would use the word "classic" instead of "old."
- Rockwell really comes out against 35mm in general, saying that you can get the same or better results with digital or medium format, if you insist on using film. To him, there's not valid reason to use the format. To me, there are still reasons to love 35mm, the main one being that you can get a lot of shots on a single roll of film, cameras are cheaper and easier to get, and lenses are generally much much faster. I think no digital will ever compare to the beauty that a well taken, developed and printed photo on Hp5 is going to have. So I say, 35mm still is the best for me. I have a Nikon, and would personally love to have a Zeiss 50mm on it.
 
billwheeler said:
I'm in agreement with you about the 50mm focal length. While many photographers choose the 50mm lens as a standard lens, I prefer the 35mm focal length. Perhaps Zeiss will produce a 35mm lens in its ZF series. A 35mm f/2 lens would suit me perfectly.
Click to expand...

I also agree with you on the focal length choice ... and speaking of a wishlist, I'd like to see a PC Distagon 2.8/35 and Nikon simply has nothing in this department for now.
 
The Zeiss Camera Lens web site has a download web page with specifications of the camera lenses they have made for Hasselblad, Contax-Yashica, and other cameras. You can view the cross sections, MTF charts, distortion, and relative luminance, and compare the data between the new ZF 50mm f/1.4 and the Contax-Yashica 50mm f/1.4. Calling the Planar an old design is true, of course! It was first designed by Paul Rudolph of Carl Zeiss over 100 years ago, and has been constantly improved since then. The new ZF lens is an improved version of the Contax-Yashica lens.
 
Can I make a few observations?

1) There are a ton of very fine Nikkor 50mm (and other focal length) primes out there going for beggar's prices (pre and post-AI plus AIS). What did Gene W. say about a pocket full of "walnuts"?

2) The market for film SLR cameras is DEAD. I have a very fine condition Nikkormat EL up on eBay right now and after 3 days it has not gotten any bids! (No, I do not sell under the copake_ham name - so it's not THAT reason!). So who is going to buy these ZF lenses?

3) Who actually does these "tests"? AFAIK it's "CZ says CZ's ZF 50mm is the "sharpest ever"...."

At the end of it all, I just do not see what the heck CZ is trying to accomplish with these ZF lenses! [Oh, and let's not forget that most of them are actually being made for CZ by Cosina - yes, uncer CZ supervision etc. etc.]

Can someone enlighten me on why I would spend $500 for a 50mm/1.4 ZF lens in 2006? 😕 😕
 
Why would anyone buy this or that, ever?

For me, it's all just messing around with cameras and photographs. My stuff goes nowhere, really: in boxes, albums, portfolios lying around the darkroom; on walls at home or in the homes of friends; in weekly envelopes to a photo buddy. I just bought a forty year-old camera. What the hell for? I have to say it's a pretty cool camera, and because it has no meter I can practice estimating the correct exposure. None of it--equipment or materials--justifies the expenditure. For me, it's just messing around.

What about others?
 
My thought on Zeiss, based largely on the insight brought by insomnia, and nothing more ...

1. Nikon isn't paying much attention to its primes anymore, pushing the kit zooms instead.

2. Whatever market in film SLRs that remains is going to be the high-end boutique segment.

3. The Zeiss primes would work just fine on a digital SLR.

4. The designs have probably existed for a long, long time ... even if they're updated, the "tweaks" had a minimal R&D cost in the computer age (probably just a few all-nighters for a dedicated wonk, if you're starting with excellent designs anyway). So there's very little R&D to amortize.

5. Zeiss name has always had cachet.

6. What's to lose? You sell several thousand lenses to die-hards, keep the Zeiss name alive, let the lens designers have some fun and pocket a quarter-million dollars in profits ($100 profit per lens, sales of 2,500 lenses).

7. As a user, I'm in total agreement with George Copake_Ham's assessment ... you can get a full assortment of outstanding Nikkor prime lenses for the price of a single Zeiss 50, and if you're cagey, you can even get an F body to go mount the lenses on.
 
The 50mm would make a great portrait lens on my D200 - and you get matrix metering. But it too bad Zeiss didn't come out with chipped AF lenses. Something similar to the Contax N1 lenses with seamless AF/MF would have been really nice. As it is, I'll keep my $96 AF Nikon 50/1.8 for portraits. And I'll keep shooting film when I'm not shooting sports.
 
I had some experience with the NC-2000 a decade ago ... a 1.3 MB digital with 1.5 crop that accepted manual F-mount Nikkors. I really enjoyed using an AI'd 50 f/1.4 as a short telephoto, 75mm equivalent. I took some of my favorite portraits with it.
 

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