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Good News for Architectural photographers

aboudd

New member
Schneider had a shift lens before, somewhere under the $2,000 range but surprisingly, it was not a great lens. I had one. The Nikon 28MM PC is superior to that first shift lens. This is a tilt and shift design, but it is not chipped as the Zeiss ZF.2 lenses. This is a full manual lens, manual focus of course, manual exposure without a pre-set diaphragm, which means you view open and then stop down to meter and shoot. No communication with the camera, so you must use the non-cpu settings on your Nikon. Finally, the lens is very slow, a 4.5 maximum aperture. That will make it difficult to view through in low light circumstances. To me, this lens is a throwback. An auto diaphragm is not a big deal, and at $3,000 this lens should offer more. At the minimum it had better be a stellar performer, far superior to Nikon and Canon offerings.

Full info (less the new 28MM) is available here in English. PC-Tilt/Shift lenses, Jos. Schneider Optische Werke GmbH
 
Aboudd, I've come to some different conclusions. I've used both the Nikkor and Schneider PC lenses (28 and 24mm). The Nikkor went back to the rental house and I bought the Schneider. There may be sample variation involved, and there are definitely a lot of variables to deal with in a shift lens ... more than in ordinary lenses. I found that the weaknesses of the Schneider were worse than those of the Nikkor, but that its strengths were dramatically more impressive ... and with the work I do, I can avoid the weaknesses.

The Schneider is the sharpest lens I've used on a small format camera—unshifted. The performance declines toward unuseability at maximum shift, but at the halfway point it's respectable enough that I'm happy. Its ideal aperture range also changes significantly with shifting. It takes some work to get the best out of this lens. The Nikkor was a bit more consistent over a wide range of shifts, but its performance was no more than very good in any area. I found it highly competent, but for that kind of money I want to be excited.

I'm very interested in the new Schneider, because unlike some of their lenses (my 28 PC and the newer 50 PC) it does not appear to be an older, recycled optical design. When Schneider does its best work, I believe they outdo any other lens company (not counting Rodenstock, who seems to be their equal).

Unless Schneider really pooped the bed with this new lens, I would expect it to outperform my 28 and anything by Nikon or Canon. And probably also Zeiss. I've played the internet parlor game of Zeiss vs. Schneider many times over on Rollei websites, and the boys of Kreutznach won my vote about 9 times out of 10. And this was mostly with pre-digitar technology.

I do most of my work in fairly low light and don't think f4.5 is an issue at all. I will gladly trade a big maximum aperture for performance at the apertures I actually use.
 

aboudd

New member
Hi Paul,

I've had two of the Nikon 24MM PC-E lenses, one fell apart at the edges too early in the shift, mostly in vertical position, the second was a stellar lens. I don't know what came over me but I ended up selling it. The Schneider shift 28 I had, like the first Nikon 24, blew it on edge resolution way too early in the shift. Some of the images were terrible. I do not get the whole thought behind making a lens that isn't consistently sharp through the whole shift range. What good is a 12mm shift if the resolution falls off at 7 or 8MM. As to the maximum aperture, I could live with the 4.5, but a 3.5 should be doable at 28MM. To me, Schneider's approach of not having an auto diaphragm is simply inane. 35MM DSLR is not a view camera, and the lens shouldn't function as one. All that said, if you get one and it knocks your socks off, let me know!
 
Well, it's a bit much to say it's insane to make a lens that isn't consistently sharp throughout the entire shift range, because no one's come close to accomplishing this. Even the near legendary Canon TSE-II shift lenses lose a lot of sharpness by the edge of the image circle. My pride and joy Schneider large format lenses are soft at the edges of the image circle. So it goes.

I understand that if a lens is unuseably sharp in a shift range that you need, then it's no good for you. The Schneider fails this test for a lot of people. But if you don't need more than 5 or 6mm of shift, or if you frequently have subject matter devoid of details in the upper corners, then you can reap its fantastic center performance.

It makes sense to me that for some people the (slightly) more consistent off-axis performance of the Nikkor would make it a better choice. It comes down to your needs.

It's worth keeping in mind that the Schneider is an optical design that's over ten years older than the Nikkor's, and was repurposed from a medium format design that predated Schneider's current über-performance digital designs, and wasn't even state of the art in its time. It still demolished the Nikon and Canon offerings of its day, and I prefer it (for reasons stated) to Nikon's current best effort. Based on this I have high hopes for a current generation Schneider purpose-built for 35mm.

I don't care about the lack of auto-diaphragm. Whatever. But I fear the price tag!
 

D&A

Well-known member
I know I'm not adding much to this discussion, but I too used the Schneider 28mm shift lens for many years primarily with film and in the early days of digital. Up to approx 7 degrees of shift, it was impressively good, far better than the Nikon's but shifting any further the image quickly deteriorated. I had heard there was considerable sample to sample variation and some were downright mediocre at best. If I'm not msitaken, Leica chose to use Schneider shift lenses for their R system.

Dave (D&A)

Dave (D&A)
 
If I'm not msitaken, Leica chose to use Schneider shift lenses for their R system.
Yes, they commissioned the lens from schneider. It was later made available in a bunch of other mounts.

It's the same optics as the 28mm f2.8 digitar, but with a floating element added for consistent performance at close focussing distances.
 
Here's an ugly and unverifiable rumor. Someon on another site spoke with a Schneider rep at Photokina who said the 28 tilt/shift would debut in late 2013 at "less that 6000 Euros."

I fear that "less than" won't mean "80% less than."

The same source put the 85mm macro at early 2013 and less than 2000 Euros, which sounds a little more terrestrial.
 
Here's an ugly and unverifiable rumor. Someon on another site spoke with a Schneider rep at Photokina who said the 28 tilt/shift would debut in late 2013 at "less that 6000 Euros."

I fear that "less than" won't mean "80% less than."

The same source put the 85mm macro at early 2013 and less than 2000 Euros, which sounds a little more terrestrial.
Wow with that price, 6000 Euros, the title of this thread should be change to, Bad News for Architectural Photographers. :ROTFL:
 
I saw another report from someone at Photokina of 3000 Euros, which is closer to what I'd expected. But still bad news. We'll have to wait and see what reality brings.
 
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