Finally an excellent wide angle lens?

[BernardLanguillier]

Over approximately a five day time period, what caused your opinion of a 28mm focal length to change from boring to not boring?

Rob,

Not much to add really... but let me spell it out for you one last time:
- 28mm is a focal length that is interesting for street but not wide enough for my liking for landscape,
- perfect corner image quality is less important for street photography than bokeh and AF and I suspect that the bokeh of the Otus 28mm will not be superior to that of the excellent Nikon 28mm f1.8,
-> I would not spend 4,000 US$ for an Otus to do street photography and do therefore find a 28mm Otus boring.

Cheers,
Bernard

[AreBee]

Bernard,

Thank you for clarifying.

...28mm is a focal length that is interesting for street but not wide enough for my liking for landscape...

Single-shot landscape?

[shadowblade]

Bernard,

Thank you for clarifying.

Single-shot landscape?

28mm isn't wide enough for most wide single-shot landscapes (and generally not long enough for the not-so-wide ones) but is too wide to be worth stitching with in most situations (35mm or 50mm being much better for stitching wide panoramas - at 28mm the gain in resolution over a single shot with a wider lens often isn't worth it).

[Michael Erlewine]

What’s funny to me is all this talk about how 28mm is not what we want. Then, Zeiss will come out with the Otus 28mm APO f/1.4 lens. It will be remarkable, of course, and, despite our protests, many of us will all want one. And I have the experience. I have the Otus 55mm and 85mm Otus and the previous Zeiss 135mm APO… and I am a close-up photographer. It doesn’t make sense, but I do it anyway.

I find myself adding the least extension (5.8mm) to the 55mm Otus, just to get closer. So, I imagine I will be doing the same with the Otus  28mm, doing whatever I can to use this lens because… it is so damn good.

[brandon]

Rob,

Not much to add really... but let me spell it out for you one last time:
- 28mm is a focal length that is interesting for street but not wide enough for my liking for landscape,
- perfect corner image quality is less important for street photography than bokeh and AF and I suspect that the bokeh of the Otus 28mm will not be superior to that of the excellent Nikon 28mm f1.8,
-> I would not spend 4,000 US$ for an Otus to do street photography and do therefore find a 28mm Otus boring.

Cheers,
Bernard

Each focal length presents its own perspective of course by how close it encourages us to confront our subject in its environment.
There are some excellent WA in my opinion. I personally find the Leica Elmarit R 28mm (later type), the Zuiko 24 2.8, and the Leica 28-90 Elmarit all superb. The Sigma Art 35 1.4 Ive recently got is pretty amazing, all on EOS FF.

[synn]

The Otus 28mm has been announced, the samples are out and they are... meh.

Here's the official sample from the Zeiss Flickr page.



(Right click, view image to see at 100%)

Here's an old sample of mine from the Credo 40 and my USD 500 used Mamiya 35mm AF.


(Right click, view image to see at 100%)

I am sorry, I don't see this whole "MF rivaling" quality that one is supposed to get at USD 5k (Or whatever they will price it at). Plus, mine autofocuses.

[Torbjörn Tapani]

Synn, one is shot at f/1.4 at infinity and the other f/11. Your point being? I see pretty sharp stars out there in the corner. Foreground out of focus.

[synn]

My mistake for not noticing that the Otus was wide open. Either way, I wasn't talking about the foreground, but the mid and background.
Fair enough, here is the Otus at f/10



Nope, still not seeing it.

[ACH DIGITAL]

Those photos are taken by non professionals and usually shoot jpg out of the camera. See the halation's at edges. I've never seen any good sample images coming from manufactures.

[synn]

That's a fair point, but the Zeiss Flickr has some very high quality samples, usually. The Batis 85 and the Otus 55 are two that come to my mind.
One thing I will give to the Otus 28 sample is that corner sharpness does seem to be consistent with the center.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Those photos are taken by non professionals and usually shoot jpg out of the camera. See the halation's at edges. I've never seen any good sample images coming from manufactures.

Indeed, the sharpening is rather sub-par. There seems to be better quality hidden in that file, waiting to be unleashed.

Cheers,
Bart

[BernardLanguillier]

Unfortunately the rumors were true about the focal length.

On a different note, I am a bit sad to see Zeiss join the paper launch trend. Com'on, more than 6 months to availability... that's Leica 007 class.

Cheers,
Bernard

[RobertJ]

Come on, image samples are usually not worth looking at.  Was it RAW?  Which program was used to process?  What kind of sharpening?  Image taken with a tripod?  Hand held?  Who the hell knows! lol

Only judge stuff you have in your hands. 

[kers]

On a different note, I am a bit sad to see Zeiss join the paper launch trend. Com'on, more than 6 months to availability... that's Leica 007 class.

The first Otus was introduced about a year before hitting the shops...

The 28mm will be the most difficult lens they had to make so far- i had suspected it would be a 35mm and that it would stop there.
What i don't understand is that they did not make the Otus range perfectly fit for video. They are optically ideal for it.
(Or maybe they were afraid it would hurt their even more expensive line of cinelenses)

[StephenOzcomert]

You may wish to look at the newly announced Loxia 21/2.8.  Its MTF is quite impressive.  I also use the WATE, and for now I am trying to resist ordering the Loxia despite its MTF besting the WATE at 21 because of the flexibility and not wanting to carry 2 primes as the WATE is very good indeed.  Still, tempted....

[Paulo Bizarro]

You may wish to look at the newly announced Loxia 21/2.8.  Its MTF is quite impressive.  I also use the WATE, and for now I am trying to resist ordering the Loxia despite its MTF besting the WATE at 21 because of the flexibility and not wanting to carry 2 primes as the WATE is very good indeed.  Still, tempted....

Yup, I started a thread a few days ago on the relevant forum, but it seems no one is interested in the Loxia 21:)

Well, I know I am, as the lens, at least on paper, seems to be a winner. Unfortunately, taking as exemples the existing Loxias and Batis lenses, they take a really long time to become available, even at oficial Zeiss country dealers (talking about Portugal here). I have yet to see or handle such a lens in the flesh...

[synn]

Also, the new Sigma 20 f/1.4.
I had the old 1.8 version from Sigma and apart from the ho hum build quality (Horrible, flaking rubberized coating)and the poor extreme corners, this lens was actually quite good.

If they have managed to improve the corners (We know they are doing much better in terms of build), this would be the WA lens many were waiting for.

20mm sits nicely between not so wide and stupidly wide as well.

[BernardLanguillier]

If they have managed to improve the corners (We know they are doing much better in terms of build), this would be the WA lens many were waiting for.

I believe that the nikon 20mm f1.8 has been that lens for more than a year.

Cheers,
Bernard

[synn]

Will be interesting to see a comparison between the Nikon and the Sigma for sure. The extra brightness of the latter is certainly interesting for some applications.

[BernardLanguillier]

Will be interesting to see a comparison between the Nikon and the Sigma for sure. The extra brightness of the latter is certainly interesting for some applications.

Indeed, bokeh will be the deciding factor as far as I am concerned.

Cheers,
Bernard