Carl Zeiss Jena

[Emma Lieghio]

Hi guys,

 

I'm new here and I would really appreciate any help you can give me.

 

I shoot on a 5D3 and I'm looking at new lenses for the future. I've been hearing a lot about Jena lenses and the kind of results you can get and I was wondering if anyone had used them and if so if they could tell me about their experiences with them.

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Emma.

Edited September 5, 2013 by Emma Lieghio

[Adam Myhi]

The CZJ lenses have a few good ones in the bunch, but you need to remember that they're 'still photography' lenses. That said, there's plenty of 'still' lenses which work well for video production with certain limitations. Typically 'still' lenses are optimized for different requirements. Most often they breathe when focusing and almost always have aperture rings which click and are difficult to mount gears to for remote aperture control.

 

The CZJ 35mm f2.4 is probably my favourite. I haven't tried them all but I can say good things about this one. It's sharp, has a useful macro feature built in, it has reasonable bokeh and doesn't 'breathe' TOO much. The focus ring has a decent feel to it. 35mm on a 5D3 is a useful focal length. WIde open it looses some sharpness and has a little chromatic aberration.

They have good value compared to current CZ lenses.

[Zac Fettig]

I have a CZJ 135mm f3.5, in M42 mount. It takes beautiful pictures, but the aperture tends to stick (usually full open). The build quality leaves a lot to be desired compared to my Pentax Takumar 135mm f3.5. It 's cheap and plastically where the Pentax is metal. But then, Carl Zeiss Jena was the East German half of Zeiss.