My Distagon 50 CF FLE is soft

AOCo · Jan 27, 2013

I could not believe it at first, but I have to ackownledge the obvious, my Zeiss Distagon 50mm
is soft in the corners, and even on the edges. At first I thought I'd chosen the wrong setting for
the floating lens, which can cause indeed spectacular bad sharpness, but for distant subjects
with all settings done correctly, it really is way softer than any other wide angles I have
experienced.

Anyone experienced this already ? Should I get it serviced ?

rawhead · Jan 27, 2013

YES. That looks too off. Looks like a misaligned lens during CLA (or even a reversed lens).

chriscrawfordphoto · Jan 27, 2013

I had a 50mm CF-Distagon, the non-FLE version that was like that. Replaced it with the FLE version and it is super sharp. I suspect I just had a bad copy, as do you. If you just bought it, return it and get another!

brucemuir · Jan 27, 2013

I must be slipping but I can hardly tell with this web rez sample.
Is it that obvious in your browser?

thegman · Jan 27, 2013

brucemuir said:
I must be slipping but I can hardly tell with this web rez sample.
Is it that obvious in your browser?

I can see that the right side is a little soft now that it's mentioned, but to be honest, if this was my lens and my photo, I doubt I would have noticed.

Douglas Fairbank · Jan 29, 2013

Sometimes the secondary focus group becomes loose. Get a service guy to check it.

Paul Ozzello · Jan 29, 2013

+1

What f-stop did you use ?

I have a FLE and it only shows some minor corner softness at extreme magnifications. You probably want to have yours checked out, preferably by Hasselblad (they still service their film cameras)

Paul

Douglas Fairbank said:
Sometimes the secondary focus group becomes loose. Get a service guy to check it.

Sirius Glass · Jan 29, 2013

There may be a misalignment, but first what aperture did you use. I do not have this with my 50mm CF.

AOCo · Feb 5, 2013

Picture above shot at f/5.6. I have made further attempts which confirm the problem. Lens is currently on its way back from servicing, I'll see if things get better, although the service guy did not seem to have a very definite opinion on this problem, said the lens was more or less correctly aligned... I'm very disappointed with Hasselblad gear sometimes, my Bronica GS-1 never had any issues, I start to regret it.

My Distagon 50 CF FLE is soft

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