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Author Topic: Contax 35mm PC vs. Pentax FA 35mm + Zörk  (Read 8911 times)

Mark_Seng

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Contax 35mm PC vs. Pentax FA 35mm + Zörk
« on: August 28, 2014, 04:50:31 am »

I`m looking for a 35mm shift lens for my canon full frame body.
Has anyone experience with both options: Contax 35mm pc & Pentax FA 35mm with Zörk Adapter?
I wonder which is better in terms of sharpness, chromatic aberration and distortions.
Any advices?
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Paul2660

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Re: Contax 35mm PC vs. Pentax FA 35mm + Zörk
« Reply #1 on: August 28, 2014, 08:11:18 am »

Mark:

I think you will find both solutions will give you excellent results, I have used both.

Contax 35mm:
Is a bit heavy, and requires a separate piece to use a filter.  If you find the lens and use filters, attempt to find the adapter ring that allows you to use filters.  Sometimes they are sold as a pair, other times not.  The actual lens, has no tilt, only shift.  I used it on my various Canon's up to the 5D MKII.  The CA is nominal even on full shifts.  You should have good image quality at full shifts from around f8 out.  Wide open (my lens) was a bit soft on full shift.  I used this over the Canon 24 TS-E since the Contax had better image quality of full shifts and was better on CA. 

Zork and Pentax 35mm FA:
I quickly moved to this from the Contax, as you can shift up to 18mm.  Zork is a good quality piece of gear, and you can adapt it so that you shift the camera body not the lens.  This take a bit of doing, however it's possible.  I was able to use a standard L bracket and the foot that comes with the Zork.  The Zork I used was only shift, no tilt, they may now have one that offers both.  If so I would try for the adapter that has both shift and tilt.

I started using the Mamiya 35mm manual focus lenses, and quickly moved to the Pentax 645 35mm FA, you can use it since it has a manual aperture ring (something you don't see much of anymore).  With my 35mm FA, I was able to get to 18mm of full shift and still have excellent details, however this was mostly on a 1ds MKII and 1ds.  So 16mp was most of my use.  When I purchased the 5D MKII, I tried the Zork, but I found that 18mm of shift was not quite a sharp and for some reason I was not able to manually focus as well.  Not sure if the 1ds MKII just had a better optical viewfinder or not.  However with Live View on the 5d MKII, this quickly became a non issue for me. 

The Zork and 35mm FA gave me acceptable shifts from F8 to F16.  The best were in the F11 range.  The 35mm FA was not that good wide open like the newer Canon 24mm TS-E lens is.

BTW.
I would strongly consider the 24mm TS-E since it's such a perfect fit for Canon cameras.  You can shift it to 12mm and get excellent results, it's setup to allow tilt and shift in the same axis, (which is really what you want).  No CA, and very good from F5.6 on out.  Takes filters with no issues and allows you to stack to filters (thin) without vignetting. 

I switched to Nikon 2.5 years ago, and held on to my 24mm until recently, as I just hated to let it go and Nikon's wide PC-E solutions are just not that good IMO on the 36MP cameras.

Paul
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Paul Caldwell
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rainer_v

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Re: Contax 35mm PC vs. Pentax FA 35mm + Zörk
« Reply #2 on: August 29, 2014, 11:06:04 pm »

i agree on pauls findings, i had used all of this lenses as well. i.m.o. the best is the contax 35mm by a good margin, but u can shift more with the zoerk and pentax. i love the 35 contax ...
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rainer viertlböck
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Mark_Seng

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Re: Contax 35mm PC vs. Pentax FA 35mm + Zörk
« Reply #3 on: August 30, 2014, 03:42:53 am »

Paul & Rainer, thank you. I guess I`ll order the zörk adapter so I can also use some normal and tele lenses with it.
Btw. Do you know if the "fa" lenses are optically better than the older "a" lenses?

« Last Edit: August 30, 2014, 03:47:02 am by Mark_Seng »
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tsjanik

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Re: Contax 35mm PC vs. Pentax FA 35mm + Zörk
« Reply #4 on: August 30, 2014, 11:05:15 am »

Mark:

I sent you a pm; I have a Zörk adapter I wish to sell.

Tom
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Mark_Seng

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Re: Contax 35mm PC vs. Pentax FA 35mm + Zörk
« Reply #5 on: September 01, 2014, 05:21:37 am »

tom, thank you for the offer but I`m no longer interested in the Zörk adapter. I finally went for the Zeiss 35mm PC.
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Paul2660

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Re: Contax 35mm PC vs. Pentax FA 35mm + Zörk
« Reply #6 on: September 01, 2014, 04:56:00 pm »

Mark, congratulations.  The 35mm Contax (it's been a while since I used this lens, as I remember mine was Contax but made by Zeiss) is a great lens.  Enjoy it.  Hope you found the filter adapter as it adds value to the lens and is a must have if you want to use filters.

Paul
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Paul Caldwell
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Josef Isayo

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Re: Contax 35mm PC vs. Pentax FA 35mm + Zörk
« Reply #7 on: September 01, 2014, 07:23:26 pm »

How good is the Canon FD 35 T&S? Anyone use one?

Mark_Seng

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Re: Contax 35mm PC vs. Pentax FA 35mm + Zörk
« Reply #8 on: September 02, 2014, 04:06:58 am »

thanks, from time to time i use a polarizer and a gray filter, but they are size 82.
Do you know if it is possible to use this size of filters with contax lens? a 82-70mm step down ring should work, or am i wrong?
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marc aurel

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Re: Contax 35mm PC vs. Pentax FA 35mm + Zörk
« Reply #9 on: September 02, 2014, 09:35:57 am »

thanks, from time to time i use a polarizer and a gray filter, but they are size 82.
Do you know if it is possible to use this size of filters with contax lens? a 82-70mm step down ring should work, or am i wrong?

I use my 82mm filters (which i bought for use on the TS-E 24mm) on the PC-Distagon. They work fine. But I would not use a step-up ring from the 70mm filter thread of the lens itself.
With my PC-Distagon there came a lens hood with a filter thread with 86mm diameter. So I bought an 86mm to 82mm step-down ring. There is no vignetting which could happen with the other solution (although I am not sure, you could try).

I agree with others here that the PC-Distagon is a great lens - I love it as much as the TS-E 24mm. It's not as sharp wide open, but at f8 or f11 it's as good as the TS-E in the centre and even better in the shifted corners. There is some distortion which should be corrected for architectural use. But you can use the free Alpa Plugin for Photoshop - they have a profile that works perfect (if you have noted or can reconstruct how much shift in which direction you used).
Marc
« Last Edit: September 02, 2014, 09:46:45 am by marc aurel »
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Mark_Seng

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Re: Contax 35mm PC vs. Pentax FA 35mm + Zörk
« Reply #10 on: September 02, 2014, 11:38:52 am »

I use my 82mm filters (which i bought for use on the TS-E 24mm) on the PC-Distagon. They work fine. But I would not use a step-up ring from the 70mm filter thread of the lens itself.
With my PC-Distagon there came a lens hood with a filter thread with 86mm diameter. So I bought an 86mm to 82mm step-down ring. There is no vignetting which could happen with the other solution (although I am not sure, you could try).

I agree with others here that the PC-Distagon is a great lens - I love it as much as the TS-E 24mm. It's not as sharp wide open, but at f8 or f11 it's as good as the TS-E in the centre and even better in the shifted corners. There is some distortion which should be corrected for architectural use. But you can use the free Alpa Plugin for Photoshop - they have a profile that works perfect (if you have noted or can reconstruct how much shift in which direction you used).
Marc

thank you, thats very useful information.
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NancyP

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Re: Contax 35mm PC vs. Pentax FA 35mm + Zörk
« Reply #11 on: September 03, 2014, 01:17:35 pm »

FD lenses won't focus to infinity on EOS/EF cameras. Flange-to-sensor distance for FD is 42mm, for EOS/EF is 44mm. A few FD lenses can be adapted, google "Ed Mika adapters" for details. Mostly the manual-focus supertelephotos are worth adapting, these are constructed so they can be re-adjusted to get infinity focus.
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Paul2660

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Re: Contax 35mm PC vs. Pentax FA 35mm + Zörk
« Reply #12 on: September 03, 2014, 01:29:02 pm »

The only real catch to owning the Contax 35mm PC lens is that it has no filter threads. Instead Contax sold a slip on filter adapter which snug fit around the lens barrel. This part is very hard to find. Most of the lenses I see for sale don't have it.

Somewhere else in this  thread it's mentioned.

Also SK Grimes Used to do the mount conversions on the older FD Canon 35 shift. Not sure it they do. As Nancy  P mentioned without having this done you lose infinity focus as Canon did not change the flange focal distance between the mounts.

Paul
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Paul Caldwell
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mcbroomf

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Re: Contax 35mm PC vs. Pentax FA 35mm + Zörk
« Reply #13 on: September 08, 2014, 01:40:12 pm »

FD lenses won't focus to infinity on EOS/EF cameras. Flange-to-sensor distance for FD is 42mm, for EOS/EF is 44mm. A few FD lenses can be adapted, google "Ed Mika adapters" for details. Mostly the manual-focus supertelephotos are worth adapting, these are constructed so they can be re-adjusted to get infinity focus.

These lenses can be converted to EOS (not adapted due to the flange distance as Nancy says), I've had 2 of them done, and I can see an Ed Mika version specifically for this lens on ebay now.  It's a great lens and I now prefer using it over my Pentax FA 35mm + Mirex on my A7r as it's much easier to handle.  I guess one day I should do a direct comparison between them ... I've never tried the Distagon
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marc aurel

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Re: Contax 35mm PC vs. Pentax FA 35mm + Zörk
« Reply #14 on: September 08, 2014, 03:09:06 pm »

I just a posted a comparison of shift lenses in the medium format forum. There you can find examples of the image quality of the PC-Distagon 35mm on 36MP.
Marc
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Mark_Seng

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Re: Contax 35mm PC vs. Pentax FA 35mm + Zörk
« Reply #15 on: September 14, 2014, 11:15:39 am »

I use my 82mm filters (which i bought for use on the TS-E 24mm) on the PC-Distagon. They work fine. But I would not use a step-up ring from the 70mm filter thread of the lens itself.
With my PC-Distagon there came a lens hood with a filter thread with 86mm diameter. So I bought an 86mm to 82mm step-down ring. There is no vignetting which could happen with the other solution (although I am not sure, you could try).

Unfortunately mine came without a lens hood. Do you know if a proper lens hood is still available?
I guess using a lenshood is the only way to use filters with this lens. With the exception of buying the original contax slip on filter adapter, which seems very hard to find.
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Paul2660

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Re: Contax 35mm PC vs. Pentax FA 35mm + Zörk
« Reply #16 on: September 14, 2014, 11:44:52 am »

Marc:

As the front of the 35mm is not threaded, I don't believe any standard hood could work.  Lee still requires a wide or standard ring that is threaded.  Most hoods I have seen are threaded or permanent.  As you have discovered, the 35mm needs the slip on adapter and they are hard to find.  Lee makes a slip over adapter that takes you from 95mm to 105mm, hold 2 filters and it could also be mounted to the wide angle hood.  You would need to build up the area on the lens to allow the 95mm adapter would fit.  This would be very easy to do with minicell type foam.  The foam would slip over the lens and the adapter over the foam. 

You could possibly have a company like SK Grimes easily make a similar slip over holder like the original.  I don't know if you are in the U.S or not, but SK Grimes does this type of thing.  I can't remember if the contax/zeiss adapter went to 82 or 86mm.  Sadly I had both the lens and adapter at one time, and could most definitely use it now as Nikon's PC-E wide 24mm is just not up to the task. 

The filter adapters come up on ebay every once and while, but they are priced high.

Paul
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Paul Caldwell
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Mark_Seng

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Re: Contax 35mm PC vs. Pentax FA 35mm + Zörk
« Reply #17 on: September 23, 2014, 01:18:43 pm »

Finally i found a simple diy solution to use 82mm (or other sizes) filters with the Contax 35mm pc.
Maybe someone else can find this useful:

You just need a 70mm push on lens cap and a 82/67mm step down ring.
>> Cut a 67mm hole (ideally with a circle cutter) in the lenscap, put some glue on the thread of the step down ring and put the two parts together.
The edge of the lens barrel still touches the lenscap, not the step down ring.
I used the original contax lenscap and a heliopan step down ring.




« Last Edit: September 23, 2014, 01:38:37 pm by Mark_Seng »
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