DPR Forum

Welcome to the Friendly Aisles!
DPRF is a photography forum with people from all over the world freely sharing their knowledge and love of photography. Everybody is welcome, from beginners to the experienced professional. Whether it is Medium Format, fullframe, APS-C, MFT or smaller formats. Digital or film. DPRF is a forum for everybody and for every format.
Enjoy this modern, easy to use software. Look also at our Reviews & Gallery!

Something is going on with Zeiss

wink.gif
Sure, you can take equally shitty pictures with either a Pentax or a Contax. However, you most certainly can make better images with Zeiss optics any day of the week. It's not all just marketing. What do you think the Japanese camera companies have been trying to imitate for all these years and why? What do art directors know? Why would they care? Of course your Bronica can make a big print... it's a big neg. Here's the difference; less light loss through transmission of lens elements is what makes T* coating so special and so expensive. Not to mention superior optical glass, polymers, design, etc. If Cartier-Bresson had shot with a Bell & Howell he would not have been Cartier-Bresson. Any good photographer knows that his camera is a tool. Sure, he could get by with a lesser instrument in a pinch, but he wouldn't want to if he had the choice. I'm sure Kubrick could have used a 16mm camera instead of an Arri 70mm with Schneider-Kreuschnach lenses for his films, but would they really have reached their full potential? I don't mean to be brand whore, but we are really comparing propellers to jet turbines... there simply is no comparison. Photography and technology have always been tied together. If progress and better design and engineering aren't important to you then you are not interested in improving your images and your technique. Obviously, if all cameras and lenses were created equal we would all be shooting with the same equipment. Even the Soviets knew a good thing when they saw it, so they took the entire Zeiss Jena factory and shipped it to Kiev. I have shot with just about everthing (I even own a lomo LC-A thank you very much), but nothing comes close to the color, clarity, and contrast that I have achieved with my Zeiss lenses...period.
 
Dermot, I won't go quite as far as Lytton in counter point, after all there are many ex&les of renowned works done with modest equipment. Duane Michaels for one (old Minolta manual 35mm), and even HCB's glass used in the 30's is no match even for some of today's cheap lenses based purely on bench tests.

As far as Art Directors and their discrimination as the benchmark of quality, now you're on my turf. That's what I do for a living as an Ad Agency Creative Director. ADs are less worried about how you get there as much as what it is when it's done. It's much more about the vision they chose you for than how you realize your vision of their ad concept ... as long as the format and film used will meet their technical needs for size and/or cropping.

If it WAS about gear, I would've shot my latest national ad c&aign myself instead of spending $50,000. for a one day shoot with a top NYC photographer. I chose him for his vision. But, when we did the job I have to admit being pleased to see ALL of his gear was Contax and Leica using some pretty exotic glass like the the Leica 180/2 and Contax 85/1.2 & 70-210/3.5 Zoom. (I was like a kid in a candy factory ; -)

The end of any commercial job always ends up in the Production Department of an Ad Agency, and it is there that any technical deficiencies must be corrected and the images prepped for press. My Production Manager on the above job told me that the images were some of the most tonally beautiful and easy to reproduce he'd ever worked with. That's not theory, conjecture, or brand slavery, but instead pure field experience.

I did ask the photographer why he favored the stuff he was using, and he said because he needed every edge and every subtlety available to him to realize his vision and separate his work from all of his competitors. He even goes as far as carefully selecting a specific lens of a type from many that most people would not be unable to tell one from the other. Like testing 3 Leica Notilux lenses to determine which one of the 3 was the best to his eye. His opinion was that it shows up in how clients FEEL about his work rather than all the technical mumbo jumbo.

Those three full page spreads are running in national consumer magazines right now, and our Chairman told me it was the best, most beautiful work the Agency has ever produced. Yes, he used the word "beautiful" which I had never heard from him before.
 
Just a few point I would like to make them clear with Lytton. There is no doubt that T Star coating of Zeiss is the most resistant to flare. It is even more resistant to flare than the coating of my aspherical Summicrons. However,as you all know,Zeiss glasses are not expensive. My G 45 lens is only a small fraction of the price of my 50 2 Summicron with performance better than Sum. from 2.8 onwards but not quite make it at 2. Zeiss has a very good performance to price ratio.
Zeiss has been consistently lagged behind Leica in two areas. Leica is well known for its dimensionality and its outstanding performance in large apertures. I studied the photos made by these brands carefully and discovered one point which is rarely mentioned. Leica glass is better than Zeiss in the preservation of darkness in photos. Dark areas in photos look darker if you use Leica instead of Zeiss. If dark area looks darker,subject stands out with a better dimensional feel. If darker area looks darker,subject looks sharper in large apertures. This is how I FEEL when not going into the technical mumbo jumbo.
For those who would like to go into the technical mumbo jumbo,the explanation could be Zeiss glass in general has more optical unwanted lights in its background affecting the low fs performance and its ability to preserve darkness.
These optical unwanted lights are like background noise in the perception of sound. The higher the noise, the worse you can hear. The optical unwanted lights affect Zeiss lenses in particular at 5 lp/mm and 10 lp/mm,less so in 20 and 40 lp/mm. This is why Zeiss perform less well than Leica in the preservation of large scale contrast.
Zeiss ,in turn, perform better than Leica in wide angles,colour contrast...
These are my feelings so far,it might change if I can use the 85 f2 of the new Zeiss M mount.
 
For Lytton let me preface by saying I've worked for the past twenty five years in the photo business, by the time I was 18yrs old I had assisted on over 100 weddings (by then I knew it was not for me). I've worked in Dublin, London, New York and Boston as both a photographer and as a photo technician in commercial labs. I've also spent the last four winters working in the imaging dept of a top newspaper to get my feet wet in the digital arena, I consider myself a very critical photograher, I'm hard on myself and my gear....so my background is steeped in camera's, lenses and technology. I could put a set of prints in front of you from a Hassey, a Bronica a Mamiya and a Pentax and you couldn't pick the Hassey image, that i'm pretty sure of. Try pointing a Contax/Zeiss28-85mm or a 100-300mm lens anywhere near the sun...want to see flare these two star lenses are so flare prone it's a joke. Have you used any of the Bronica cameras or the wonderful Pentax 645 or 67 line? I have. I own one of the best lenses Zeiss ever made according to Zeiss, a CF250mm Superachromat...
Marc, now that's a budget...hey if I was doing that type of work would I be driving a Honda Accord or a BMW..both get me from A to B one looks beter and when I bring the BMW in for service I pay through the nose....
 
Some people can see it and some can't no matter how hard they look. An interesting phenomenon I've experienced is that my wife can pick out a Leica shot from a pile of photos just about every time. I shoot with different cameras at the same event, but she zeros in on the M shots as my best work every stinking time. It's irritating actually.
 
Apples and Oranges... Regarding Chi Yuan Joseph's post, I said the Zeiss T* coating is expensive, but not the MOST expensive. Leica will always take that cake. Leicas are commodities that collectors buy, sell, and trade. There are a few purists out there that still use them for their original intended use. Being more expensive does not necessarily mean better either. If Zeiss wanted to make faster G series lenses it would go against their design philosophy of delivering consistently superior performance at ALL apertures. Faster F stops are great for low light shooting and delivering very intentional effects, but a shallow depth of field rarely produces sharp images (in terms of focus). They may appear to pop out from the background and I should hope so at F/1.4. As far as contrast is concerned, there is such a thing as too much contrast. Unfortunately, it sounds like your blocked out low lights are already suffering.

Dermot, you too are comparing Apples to Oranges...
I'm not sure it's fair to compare an older Zeiss zoom with twenty odd-some lens elements to a Medium Format prime lens with far fewer elements (regardless of manufacturer) for flare problems. My lens hood has always served me well in those adverse situations. That brings me to another point. Medium Format cameras on the whole are produced for a smaller market of "professional" photographers. Of course we will see much better performance from all the Manufacturer's products in the professional arena because they have to live up to certain "standards". I still don't think a K-1000 and a lens will hold up against a Contax S2 with the same focal length lens. It's all about the glass in front of the shutter.

Marc, my apologies to you and any other ADs on the site. I made a blanket statement based on bad experiences from a few ADs I have dealt with in the past. If only I could have worked for a few more like yourself with a little more vision and comprehension of photography in general. Also, nice post; well put.
Cheers,
-Lytton
 
No it's appples and more apples that's my point...there are slight differences between lenses most people canmnot detect. I say I can produce as good an image with a Pentax 50 as you can with a Contax 50. Now some companies excel with certain lenses, Contax 35mm long lenses are poor while their 28 through 100 are excellent. Hasseys long lense on the other hand are thieir forte. Canon's wide zooms are poor but their telephotos are stunning. If I mention Zeiss and medium format then I'm refering to a Hasselblad body and Zeiss lenses when I talk about Contax here I'm talking 35mm each of which I've used.
I've had the oppertunity to work with both and I'll state it again clearly..noone can pick my Hassey images' from my Mamiya images or my Pentax image's (yeah I've used them all).
 
Marc, I second that... My 11-year-old daughter, without knowing what Zeiss is, immediately picks a print from Contax out of ten that are shot with Canon.
 
"Some people can see it and some can't no matter how hard they look."

I totally agree! I took over 200 shots with my Canon at the San Francisco Bridal show Sunday, and about 20 shot with my ND + 80mm/f2. At the end of the day, I mix the pictures up and pick two, I would pick the ones taken from the Contax. I don't know why, it happens to me almost every time. The Zeiss glass has certain color, tonality, clarity that attracts me. I am sure it is personal taste.

Off coure, if the image is shitty, it does not matter what gear is used. But this is a different topic. :)
 
Back
Top