ZI digital

[x-ray]

The Canon people are, obviously, feeling a lot of 'asian loss of face' when Zeiss claim they can deliver better lenes to Canon's cameras. With good reason. Because Canon is getting a lot of undeserved pepper on their alledged lack of optical quality these days. Much of this critique is amateurish bull... with fine little understanding of what kind of optics it takes to make a FF sensor with 16 million pixels shine. And shine even at 1250 ASA mind you. Match that, anyone in the business! And with fine little credit left for all the fine glas that Canon do indeed make.

So. If anyone of you wants to buy the best digital camera in the business; buy a Canon EOS 1Ds II. What is obvious is that Leica M8 will not even be close.

I fully agree regarding Canon. How many companies even have a 16-35 f2.8 or 24mm f1.4. I primarily use L primes but have a set of L zooms including the 16-35, 24-70 f2.8 and the 70-200 f2.8. The 16-36 is not bad particularly stopped down a stop but the others are excellent. I have the primes from the 24 f1.4 up to the 400 L. Absolutely no other maker has finer lenses or that can equal the 85 f1.2, 135 f2, 200 f1.8, 400 f2.8 and 600 f4. The place Canon lacks is in the super wides from 20mm down to 14mm. I also regularly use the 24mm tse and 90mm tse. Other than Nikon who even has anything like this and nikon only has a 85mm.

Unfortunately i don't thing followers of leica or any other camera maker will learn a lasting lesson here. No maker is perfect and every digital maker has had major problems including Zeiss. Virtually every wide angle has chromatic aberations to some degree, even Leica asph lenses. Digital just gives us the ability to greatly magnify the image and see it. It's always been there but how many times have we looked at a 40x60 inch print at four inches.

 

[sebastel]

Zeiss lenses are mostly retrofocal if my info is correct,

sorry, it's not.
all biogon lens are not retrofocal ... by the way, that is a big part of their appeal!

cheers,
sebastian

 

[Mazurka]

all biogon lens are not retrofocal ... by the way, that is a big part of their appeal!

Surely not on a digital body.

 

[Toby]

I have been saying that Sony will want to compete with Canon so they will be making a full frame sensor. Zeiss is in pretty tight with Sony so you can figure the rest. Zeiss lenses are mostly retrofocal if my info is correct, so they don't have the issues that Leica did when designing a sensor. A Zeiss digital camera with Zeiss lenses should be quite a camera. I don't have that much interest in the M8 because I use Canon gear for digital (like x-ray), but the ZI digital would definitely get my attention.

If I remember correctly all ZM lenses were designed with digital in mind, eventhough the official line is a digital Ikon is not pending.

 

[Mazurka]

The recent Leica ASPH wideangles are all retrofocal, and all have more even illumination across the frame than their predecessors.

I don't have the time to compare graphs now (available on the official sites), but I strongly suspect that those Leica ASPH models also have less light fall-off than their ZM Biogon counterparts.

OTOH, any FF Sony will most certainly be an SLR anyway, on which Biogons cannot be used.

 

[sebastel]

Surely not on a digital body.

no probs with the 25mm biogon on my R-D1. so?

 

[Mazurka]

I thought people in this thread have been talking about a 24x36mm sensor. Did your R-D1 have a transplant?😕

 

[sebastel]

zeiss stated, they'll only offer a digital RF camera once the sensor technology is advanced enough for this use. this implicates (as far as i understand) that exactly the angular dependency of sensitivity is remedied, which up to now makes telecentric constructions necessary.

until then, we can only talk of existing cameras, and there are only two of them available that accept M-mount lens ... guess which ones they are?

 

[Mazurka]

until then, we can only talk of existing cameras

Show us the page where this particular forum rule is written, and we'll all shut up per your order. 🙄

 

[sebastel]

i got no reason to avoid talking of hypothetical cameras, but why on earth do you mix the limitation we experience with what already exists with what has not been developed far enough that even the boldest marketing cavalry dares not to mention?

if you want to dream, well, just go ahead. still in _my_ dream, zeiss' 24x36 sized sensor no longer needs telecentric lenses.

 

[Mazurka]

if you want to dream, well, just go ahead. still in _my_ dream, zeiss' 24x36 sized sensor no longer needs telecentric lenses.

I'm afraid you are the only one who has been dreaming. Never realized Zeiss marketing was so hypnotic. 🙄

Even Leica themselves no longer hold on to the obsolete notion of "retrofocus inferiority." Why else would they abandon the Biogon/Super Angulon designs for retrofocus construction for all their 21, 24, and 28mm lenses,
all of which are designed for film that vignettes a lot less than digital sensors? I don't think it's a coincidence that the ASPH models offer putatively superior performance than their predecessors, either.

Unless, of course, Zeiss can invent AND produce a cost-effective 24x36mm digital sensor that vignettes even less than film. Nice dream indeed!