Zeiss lenses - which are good, which are bad?

[Matt Pacini]

I've heard lots of references to "good" Zeiss glass, and "bad" Zeiss glass, with explanations ranging from "some are old lenses, therefore not as good" (which makes sense) to "some are made in Japan by other companies and resold by Zeiss, so they're not really Zeiss", "those made at the East German plant are crap", etc.

 

Does anyone here know what the true story is, and which are bad ones?

I mean, there are Jena's, Distagons, and I've heard "good" & "bad" myths about the Carl Zeiss lenses on DV cameras as well.

What's true?

 

Matt Pacini

[Adam Frisch FSF]

After the war the Zeiss factory got split in two. The Jena's became the eastern ones (and was at the original plant, if I recall correctly), the plain Zeiss the western one. The Distagon is simply a patented Zeiss design, just like the Planar and the Biogon or Cooke's Triplet.

 

I've only heard good things about the western Zeiss. The eastern Zeiss Jena had good glass, but was apparently less good mechanically. You can find some very nice Zeiss Jena glass on Ebay for much less than the western Zeiss, and yet still being exactly the same design.

 

As for DV cameras having Zeiss glass I don't know if they're made in Japan. Maybe they license away the name to trusetd manufacturers like Nikon or Canon?

 

I think the whole business of lenses is a bit a**l anyway - as long as you have a medium that can resolve much more than the lenses can, the whole point of paying extreme money for extra sharp lenses isn't very rewarding. BTW, the patents for todays lenses like the Planar, Distagon and whatnot are like 100 years old - not much in their design has changed except the coatings and the finishing, really. They are improvements, surely, but how much is open to interpretation. Considering the improvements on other things, I'm not very impressed with the evolution of lenses.

[Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith]

Well working in the photography shop there?s a few cameras that specify on the tag, "***Zeiss Lens***". So yeh they are pretty dammed good quality.

[Filip Plesha]

In still photography, Schneider lenses are even better than Zeiss, even thought

Zeiss are the symbol of lens qualitty. (Schneider lenses are less "heard-of")

Schneider lenses usually come with Rollei cameras.

[Matthew McDermott]

If you're going to start a Zeiss versus _something war in still photography lenses, I'll throw the Leica 35/2 Summicron-M (the fourth generation pre-Aspherical one) into the fight. Any of the Leica glass in the past couple of years is pretty hard to beat. Although if they made cine lenses they'd be twice as expensive as everything else...

[Filip Plesha]

Well, It's not a war, but yes, Leica definitivley comes into that game.

[Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith]

Well you?ve got to be pretty dam picky (plus rich) to start choosing lenses in the Zeiss or above range.

 

The way I see it, Zeiss are a fantastic lens manufacturer. And lenses don?t get MUCH better, they may be slightly but, you?ll probably pay twice the amount for something that barely makes a 1/500th of difference.

[Greg Gross]

As a professional phtographer I have no problem with Zeiss lenses! My most

common thought about lenses is that one may be sharper or softer than another.

Then with zooms sometimes you have to watchout around the edges at different

focal lengths. Today I held in my hand a Cooke,299mm portrait lens,f3.5 for a

4X5 still camera. This is one beautiful piece of glass. Cooke is providing these

lenses for a limited time. I would love to try out a Panavision camera with Cooke

primes!!

[Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith]

Hmm, how do the Canon EF lenses compare?

 

I'v got an old Canon T70, FD 50mm lens. Seems to take good pictures.

[Nathan Milford]

Speaking of Schneider:

 

http://www.schneider-kreuznach.com/neuheit...e_art_xxl_e.htm

 

I love the NikeID thing...

[Filip Plesha]

All modern lenses give you good pictures at normal picture sizes.

The difference in sharpness is noticed in enlargements. But I think if one wants a rally sharp picture, one should use medium or large format instead of trying to push 35mm to its limits. Even if you get exeptional sharpness from the lenses, you still have film-grain and the fall of MTF value because of the resolution limits of the emulsion. Well, if money is not the issue, that is. And, more or less It is always the issue. (unless I'ts not your personal money you are spending)

[John Pytlak RIP]

Schneider and IscoOptic are the current leaders in projection lenses:

 

http://www.schneideroptics.com/projection/cinema_projection/

 

http://www.iscooptic.com/classic_cinema_e.html

 

Some of the high-end consumer Kodak digital cameras have Schneider lenses:

 

http://www.schneider-kreuznach.com/ls443/index.htm

 

http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jht...pq-locale=en_US

[Matt Pacini]

That's interesting about the Schneiders.

 

Why are they so disrespected in the filmmaking world?

They're really cheap when sold used.

Do they still make lenses for cine work?

 

I must say, I shot some stuff using a Schneider (Nizo) UWIII wide angle adapter on my Scoopic (16mm) and it was very sharp, and I was impressed, thinking Schneider was crappy glass.

 

 

Matt Pacini

[Filip Plesha]

Well, as far as I know, Schneider's good name came from their medium and large format lenses, this is where they are considered to be almost unbeatable in sharpness.

[Nathan Milford]

I have a set of older Schneider Cine-Xenons and I think they're just swell. >8)

[Adam Frisch FSF]

Yeah, Nathan.

I tested those Xenons once and they were great! Haven't been able to convince any director that a 40 year (?) old lens is the answer yet, though. But give me time.. :P

[David Mullen ASC]

I guess Nikon hasn't been so interested in the motion picture business because they are geared towards mass-production...

 

I see companies like Optex adapting Canon's to cine use, but not Nikon lenses -- why is that? Are the Canon lenses coming from their video camera line?

[Greg Gross]

I would like to see Nikon enter the market my whole professional photography

time has been spent with Nikon lenses(have been very reliable for me). I would

love to see them make a high end pro/consumer camera and lens. I have often

wondered if they were doing this overseas(but then you would have thought we

would have heard about it). Other than Nikon I've used Bronica,Mamiya and PD-

170 for weddings. Of course Canon's EOS line can be used with XL1,XL2, I would

probably only use two or three of those lenses. I've never heard anything about

how EOS lenses pan out with XL1S. I sure wish Nikon would make a DVX-100A

type of camera with there lens(oh!, well just a personal "cooky"wish for the B&H

wish list)! I shoot weddings to make money to finance mini-dv productions. I

have shot with Nikon almost exclusively since I started taking photography ser-

iously and I guess I'm sort of Nikon obsessive. The other day I looked through

(ground glass 4X5)Cooke 299mm portrait lens, f3.5 and what a beautiful lens!

 

Greg Gross

Student Cinematographer

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> Canon's EOS line can be used with XL1,XL2

 

It can, but the focal lengths relegate it to special purpose stuff. Consider the relative size of the 35mm frame and the sensor on the XL1.

 

And, you know, there's nothing actually stopping you mounting your DV camera looking at the ground glass of that portrait camera. It's been done before, and it's an interesting look.

 

Phil

[Alvin Pingol]

And, you know, there's nothing actually stopping you mounting your DV camera looking at the ground glass of that portrait camera. It's been done before, and it's an interesting look.

Indeed. Someone on this forum did that, here is the link to the film's website.

[georg lamshöft]

I'm only a still photographer but my own experience, my knowledge about the firm philosophies, visits at Leica in Solms, the innovations... tell me that two companys build the best lenses in the world:

Leica and Carl Zeiss

That does mean that every Zeiss or Leica lens is better than every other lens but when you see pictures made with the newest Leica-asphericals or Zeiss Superachromats you see what I mean.

Everybody has to decide for himself if he wants to pay these high prices and he really needs that quality. Also you cannot compare older Zeiss/Leica-constructions with the newest Schneider/Nikon..., espeacially many Zeiss-Lenses for Hasselblad are very old (not bad, but they might be better if they would be new) constructions.

You also have to differ betwenn "real" Zeiss/Leica-lenses and the Jena-lenses (eastern Germany had not as much modern technology, exotic glasses etc. were not avaible) and many Zeiss/Leica-Lenses are not build from Zeiss/Leica itself. All Lenses used in Sony/Panasonic-Cameras (and nearly all Kyocera) are only constructed by the german companys and build in Japan, sometimes with special "economic differences" (you think you get the Quality of a 3200? Leica R28-90 with a 7-22,5mm Leica-Lens from the Digilux 2 for together 1800?? Panasonic and Sony have a complete different view of quality).

 

Prooves needed?

http://www.leica-camera.com/imperia/md/con...bjektive/37.pdf

http://www.zeiss.de/C12567A8003B58B9?Open

http://www.zeiss.de/C12567A8003B8B6F/Embed...P_Artikel_e.pdf

 

What do the cinematographers think about that? :

http://www.arri.com/entry/products/mp.htm

 

My English... It must be hurt in your ears, I'm sorry B)