Avotius
Some guy
Saw a 35 and a 50 in a camera shop today. They are very solid feeling, dont know about that silver color though, not my cup of tea, think the black looks better despite the front chrome mount. Not too keen on the lens shades I guess, they look a little "thick" I guess but the plus side is when mounted they wont come off when you dont want them to.
Saw the Zeiss Ikon body in the shop too. Thank goodness, its about time they arrived in China. It was a chrome body, I dont like that chrome at all, the black looks better to me but they didnt have one. I dont know what everyone is on about with the light flimsy feel, it feels a hell of a lot more solid then my canon eos 30v or old ae1. I like how you can see which film is in the camera, im the kinda dolt who changes film types a lot just for fun, somtimes I forget whats in the camera. As for the viewfinder I only have a mamiya 6 and an old contessamat to compare it to but its a big difference. Very bright, very nice I thought. While I like the bigger focus patch on the mamiya 6 over the ZI, the veiwfinder in the ZI seems more contrasty and just better somehow, and that said, the mamiya 6's veiwfinder already seems pretty good to me. The shutter noise seems fine to me, its not as intrusive as my contessamat thank goodness and its probably a wee bit quieter then the mamiya's. When I stuck the 35mm lens on the camera and the framelines popped up I was quite pleased with how easy it was to see them while wearing my glasses, I could even see the shutter speed tree on the side fine, its similar to my mamiya's display (in fact almost exactly the same) but in the frame rather then outside of it where you cant see it most of the time, although I can see where in an odd bright situation where this would become difficult to see since its hanging in frame. In my hands the camera seemed ok but I wouldnt want to be changing shutter speeds in a hurry while looking through the veiwfinder, that front opening for changing shutter speeds is awfully small for me, probably leave the camera on auto anyway though. The bottom winder seems ok to me although I can see a lot of crap getting stuck in it after a while. Overall I had a good feeling about the body, its very tempting to get one rather then save for a M7 and use the money on good glass.
About photos ive seen taken with the lenses:
On the whole I see that the black and white photos are pretty dark and pretty grey, this could be a editing thing but just about the only bright proper shots ive seen have been a few on here by Jano and still a couple of them are a wee dark still. A japanese site which I cant seem to find again has a bunch of bw shots on it and they are all dark and very grey as if thats all there was...
While searching pbase I found this fella http://www.pbase.com/photochoi/planar&page=all and his photos. These shots remind me a bit of the photos on the ZI website, the sky blues are kinda anemic looking and the skin tones are not so great. For the most part the colors are just sorta dull compared to other zeiss lenses and the leicas. Look at the shot that guy took planar-28 I have seen these plants all over china and I know they are a very bright and rich yellow color but in the photos they look just....icky. Even a good number of the photos on Mike Elek's site look kinda dull in the color area to me...
While im sure that a good amount of photoshop tweeking would make them stand out more it just seems weird...Am I the only one who sees the photos like this or what?
Anyho, in closing, the body looks like a winner to me, love that glasses friendly peep hole. The lenses look to be build well but I would want to see more shots from people using them or try them out for myself before I bought one. My impressions at the end are if I got a ZI body (black obviously) which im kinda leaning more over to, then I would want to stick some leica glass in front of it like the 35 cron asph ive been lusting after.
Saw the Zeiss Ikon body in the shop too. Thank goodness, its about time they arrived in China. It was a chrome body, I dont like that chrome at all, the black looks better to me but they didnt have one. I dont know what everyone is on about with the light flimsy feel, it feels a hell of a lot more solid then my canon eos 30v or old ae1. I like how you can see which film is in the camera, im the kinda dolt who changes film types a lot just for fun, somtimes I forget whats in the camera. As for the viewfinder I only have a mamiya 6 and an old contessamat to compare it to but its a big difference. Very bright, very nice I thought. While I like the bigger focus patch on the mamiya 6 over the ZI, the veiwfinder in the ZI seems more contrasty and just better somehow, and that said, the mamiya 6's veiwfinder already seems pretty good to me. The shutter noise seems fine to me, its not as intrusive as my contessamat thank goodness and its probably a wee bit quieter then the mamiya's. When I stuck the 35mm lens on the camera and the framelines popped up I was quite pleased with how easy it was to see them while wearing my glasses, I could even see the shutter speed tree on the side fine, its similar to my mamiya's display (in fact almost exactly the same) but in the frame rather then outside of it where you cant see it most of the time, although I can see where in an odd bright situation where this would become difficult to see since its hanging in frame. In my hands the camera seemed ok but I wouldnt want to be changing shutter speeds in a hurry while looking through the veiwfinder, that front opening for changing shutter speeds is awfully small for me, probably leave the camera on auto anyway though. The bottom winder seems ok to me although I can see a lot of crap getting stuck in it after a while. Overall I had a good feeling about the body, its very tempting to get one rather then save for a M7 and use the money on good glass.
About photos ive seen taken with the lenses:
On the whole I see that the black and white photos are pretty dark and pretty grey, this could be a editing thing but just about the only bright proper shots ive seen have been a few on here by Jano and still a couple of them are a wee dark still. A japanese site which I cant seem to find again has a bunch of bw shots on it and they are all dark and very grey as if thats all there was...
While searching pbase I found this fella http://www.pbase.com/photochoi/planar&page=all and his photos. These shots remind me a bit of the photos on the ZI website, the sky blues are kinda anemic looking and the skin tones are not so great. For the most part the colors are just sorta dull compared to other zeiss lenses and the leicas. Look at the shot that guy took planar-28 I have seen these plants all over china and I know they are a very bright and rich yellow color but in the photos they look just....icky. Even a good number of the photos on Mike Elek's site look kinda dull in the color area to me...
While im sure that a good amount of photoshop tweeking would make them stand out more it just seems weird...Am I the only one who sees the photos like this or what?
Anyho, in closing, the body looks like a winner to me, love that glasses friendly peep hole. The lenses look to be build well but I would want to see more shots from people using them or try them out for myself before I bought one. My impressions at the end are if I got a ZI body (black obviously) which im kinda leaning more over to, then I would want to stick some leica glass in front of it like the 35 cron asph ive been lusting after.
SDK
Exposing since 1969.
ZM and color images
ZM and color images
As someone who prints his own color negatives, I can't agree that the Zeiss ZM lenses have poor color reproduction. Quite the contrary, the lenses I've printed from (21mm, 25mm, 28mm and 50mm) all have extraordinarily good color rendition and excellent tonality. They are as good in color reproduction as the Leica aspheric lenses that I also use. I got the Biogon 35mm recently, but have not printed any images yet. The contact sheets look good though.
ZM and color images
As someone who prints his own color negatives, I can't agree that the Zeiss ZM lenses have poor color reproduction. Quite the contrary, the lenses I've printed from (21mm, 25mm, 28mm and 50mm) all have extraordinarily good color rendition and excellent tonality. They are as good in color reproduction as the Leica aspheric lenses that I also use. I got the Biogon 35mm recently, but have not printed any images yet. The contact sheets look good though.
Avotius
Some guy
SDK said:
Great, I and I bet others would love to see some of the shots from you have done.
jano
Evil Bokeh
I haven't done much color yet, I'm still trying to get a grasp on what color film to use, and just haven't been able to get any consistent results.
I agree with your assesment of the "flimsy body" thing. Doesn't feel that way, at all. Yes, the camera is very light, and you probably couldn't beat an attacker to a bloody pulp with it, but it is solidly put together. I like to think of it as nimble.
However, I must disagree on one point with you, I don't like the black color, it looks cheap, the silver does it more for me
I agree with your assesment of the "flimsy body" thing. Doesn't feel that way, at all. Yes, the camera is very light, and you probably couldn't beat an attacker to a bloody pulp with it, but it is solidly put together. I like to think of it as nimble.
However, I must disagree on one point with you, I don't like the black color, it looks cheap, the silver does it more for me
grantray
Established
Zeiss color shot? Go here:
http://bedetermined.com/lightbox/night017.html
1600 E pushed to 3200. 50/2 ZM
http://bedetermined.com/lightbox/night017.html
1600 E pushed to 3200. 50/2 ZM
arthury
Arthur Y
There are more color samples in My Gallery ...
EmilGil
Well-known
Just out of curiosity, how much is the ZI in Chongqing?
I didn't find imported camera gear very cheap in China last year, especially not compared to living costs.
I didn't find imported camera gear very cheap in China last year, especially not compared to living costs.
Avotius
Some guy
EmilGil said:
thats ususaly how things are here, you will find some deals on gear and the rest of the time you are stuck with the normal prices or even more then other places.
At the moment the ZI here is listed for 11,500 RMB ($1419 USD) but as ususal with all these places if you spend the time you could probably get it for 10,000 ($1234 USD) or less. The lenses on the other hand are expensive, the 50 is 5600 RMB ($691 USD) and the 35 is 7200 RMB ($888 USD). But on the other hand that 15mm Distagon is about 900 dollars cheaper here then what most places are listing it for at 25200 ($3111 USD) so hows that for funky strange?
Taipei-metro
Veteran
At this moment, 1 US dollar is 8 rmb(people's money), US gov is telling the Chinese gov to raise the rmb value, China refused.Avotius said:thats ususaly how things are here, you will find some deals on gear and the rest of the time you are stuck with the normal prices or even more then other places.
At the moment the ZI here is listed for 11,500 RMB ($1419 USD) but as ususal with all these places if you spend the time you could probably get it for 10,000 ($1234 USD) or less. The lenses on the other hand are expensive, the 50 is 5600 RMB ($691 USD) and the 35 is 7200 RMB ($888 USD). But on the other hand that 15mm Distagon is about 900 dollars cheaper here then what most places are listing it for at 25200 ($3111 USD) so hows that for funky strange?
In 'Not One Less', the Zhang Yi-moe movie(an outstanding film by the way), 14 year old girl was to be a substitute teacher for a month for a 3rd, 4th graders class. She was promised to be paid Rmb $60 for the one month work only if no one drop out of the class.
If she wants to buy the Chrome ZI plus a 35/2 Zeiss, it would take her 25.97 years.
One kid did drop out of the class, went to the city, the unnamed city looks like around Chungking area...? It's in some north-central province, maybe Jiang-Shi or Sang-shi province.
Could the ZI and lens not be good stuff?