Alan Gales
Allowing Ads
Thanks Leigh. I just remember back in the 80's Zeiss included this in their literature like it was real important. I know. That's called advertising.
That's true of good lenses from any major manufacturer, for the reason stated.
That's been true for decades (probably since transparencies became popular).
- Leigh
From what I was told back in the day, German lens designers wanted sharpness from center to the corners. Japanese designers concentrated on center sharpness. A Japanese lens may be sharper in the center than a Zeiss but the Zeiss lens would be sharper to the corners. I don't know if this is true or not but it is what I was told.
Were Kyocera making Zeiss lenses at that point? I forget. Yashica ML may be worth a try. Even the DSB range is very good and gives a kind of old school rendering.One day I may have a Contax RTS III with a few Zeiss lenses though.
Were Kyocera making Zeiss lenses at that point? I forget. Yashica ML may be worth a try. Even the DSB range is very good and gives a kind of old school rendering.
As many people have stated, there is not a substantial or obvious performance difference between professional grade lenses from most manufacturers. They are often using very similar lens designs (unless they are very exotic).
So, why is Zeiss more expensive?
1) Zeiss does indeed have very high build quality and QC. I've not experienced a dud lens from Zeiss (but most of my experience has been with the Hasselblad line).
2) Zeiss originally developed and manufactured many of the 'classic' lens designs which other companies copied (such as the 4-element Tessar and the 6-element Planar). So if you are obsessed with having 'the original' of a design, they are often the source.
3) German-made lenses are almost always more expensive than lenses manufactured in other countries(see prices on Schneider and Leica lenses as well). Even German NAMED lenses are more expensive (See: some contax zeiss lenses, rollei made-in-singapore lenses, leica made-in-canada lenses, all cosina-zeiss and cosnia-voigtlander lenses).
4) In side-by-side tests, Zeiss very often (not always) bests all other brands for optimal resolution. However, if you are outside of a lab, it is debatable how much this matters. If you want to be absolutely sure you are getting every drop of resolution possible it is occasionally advisable to purchase a Zeiss lens. This is not true of all focal lengths or makes of course, and many vary sample to sample (although, again, Zeiss has a reputation for good QC and less sample variation).
TLR - Fancy-name brand lenses are like fancy name-brand anything (cars, audio equipment, tools, etc.): possibly technically better, but the difference probably doesn't matter in use.
...my issues with your tests are: 1. done on a crop camera with Fuji sensor; 2. F11; 3. adapters.
were these actual color prints that you had&uplinked us to? i have found ts so hard to determine anything
from scans because scanners like to make things so tidy and nice, and in real life, things are kind of messy...
As a lens designer, I can say that this makes complete sense and correlates with what I know from inside the optical design community.
Zeiss as a German company likely had tighter fabrication and assembly tolerances in the past, but I wouldn't say that holds true anymore. Most other companies in this market have caught up. By "caught up" I mean the modeling capability necessary is widely disseminated now, and the tolerances necessary for consistent quality can be readily achieved with CNC machines that are available throughout the world.
The Zeiss lenses for the Contax SLR's were made in Japan, but by who I'm not entirely sure.
wasn't it Schott Glass that made the Tessar? in 1898 or sometime around there . . . something better than a triplet. . . . I think Zeiss gots its acuetrama then, and it stuck. Over all, for basic/scenic photography it is difficult to tell the difference. zeiss does have excellent quality control and plenty of sharp lenses, to choose from,.
What seems to be the problem/problems with Leica made-in-Canada lenses? I've not been able to tell the difference between those and Leica lenses made at the same time in Wetzlar. E. Leitz-Canada made lenses for our U2 and other spy planes and you could read auto license plates from extreme altitudes. Leica sent people to Canada from Wetzlar and they trained Canadian workers to work the "Leitz" way. The Leica lens that I have long wanted is the 90mm f:2 Summicron, made either in Wetzlar or Canada. I wouldn't care which. As to "quality" lenses by Zeiss or Leitz, the quality of the mount has a lot to do with the over-all quality of any lens.....Regards!
Schott glass works were/are subsidiary of Zeiss.
The images I posted were not scans from color prints. That would have been too expensive. The images were taken directly from the camera and down-sized to meet the image display requirements of Flickr and APUG. I posted the images not to give the viewers something to analyze but to give the viewers an idea of how I performed my lens comparison tests.
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