douglasf13
New member
Sample variation certainly exists, but I'm willing to bet that's not the case here. Jld posted this on two different forums, and has yet to come and answer any questions about it.
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@ Edward. I am silent observer on the forum and note that you appear to be one of the guru's. May I ask, why does your lens portfolio end at 135mm? Do you ever find the need for longer focals i.e 200, 300, 400.Well, David, if you are ok with a zoom that gives you 85mm @ f/4 and 135mm at f/4.5, then obviously the ZA primes are not for you. Moreover, it may be that your style of shooting does not benefit from the extra quality of the Zeiss primes, degrading their image in a way that makes them equal to the zoom. (not meant as criticism but a fact. Some photographers like to shoot handheld for instance at lower shutter speeds or things like that).
@Ed. In other words, you would not consider legacy Minolta Fast Primes (200/2.8 HS, 300/2.8 HS, 400, 600/4) despite thier legendary reputations.Hi Alan!
One of the gurus!?? God forbid!
To answer your question, my line up stops at 135mm because there is nothing that suits me above that in the current Sony offerings. The 70-200 is too bulky and makes my 85 and 135 redundant. Too much money for what essentially will be a 200mm. I have tried the 70-300. Not too bad, but I really couldn't like the luminosity limitations. The 300mm is way above my league both in price and size. Ideally I should add a 200mm prime and a 1.4X converter. I have done that for years before in the Canon days with excellent results. Just waiting for Sony to release its 200/2.8 that has been long overdue.
Thank you for the follow-up. Is there any possibility you may have accidentally mistaken which test files were from the CZ85 vs. the 70-400? I intend no disrespect, and I assume the EXIF was verified in sorting the results, I'm just trying to make sense of it.All,
Thank you for the comments. I'm an infrequent visitor to these forums, and travel extensively....hence the delay
On the test method: I run focus from about +15 to -15 microadjustment in increments of 3 typically, as the wall with the Imatest targets has a small but measurable amount of curvature. I plot the results by position (I test 13 points across the frame) and by microfocus to ensure that I have run through optimal focus for all 13 positions. So, focus is not an issue. What I will miss in this testing is de-centering, but I shoot brick walls from a distance to gauge de-centering. I further test lenses by shooting an outside building and then doing comparisons among lenses in LR, similar to but I'm sure not as skillfully is Lloyd Chambers.
I'm not an advocate of Zeiss, Sony, or any other lenses. I care only about results. My experience with Zooms is that they are almost always Significantly worse in sharpness than primes. I just seemed to find a champ in the 70-400 lens. The published test results that I saw for the 70-400 lens were typically pretty good - PopPhoto (best telephoto they've tested), KurtMunger, www.lemondedelaphoto.com. I probably was as surprised as anyone. I DO like the Zeiss 135 f1.8 - it has a little better color, a little better microcontrast than the 70-400 - but I did not find it to be any sharper. My subsequent shoot in Death Valley validated my test results for the 70-400. The copy of the 70-400 lens I have is truly a champ.
I'll post some examples when I can. Day job gets in the way.....