Zeiss ZM planar 85mm f1.4 user experience on A7R

[JohnAONeill]

I'm looking for a good 85mm option for the sony A7r and the Zeiss Planar has landed on my radar. Anyone here have any real world experience of this combo? How difficult is MF on the A7r for headshots? I am concerned with using focus magnification as this zooms in too close to see the full facial expressions while shooting. Is peaking good enough for this combo wide open?

Looking forward to hearing from pro portrait photographers with experience of this combo.

Cheers
John

[scooby70]

I use manual focus 100% of the time with my A7.

I don't have the lens you are interested in but I do have three 85mm lenses. I'd say that peaking is ok for some images although I'd say that ok or not depends upon how big you want to print and/or how close you want to look. I find that the magnified view gives very good results and that's normally what I use.

Obviously you do lose the big picture when using the magnified view but personally I haven't found this to be an issue. When I normally do is view the whole unmagnified image and then move the focus square over the area I want to magnify and then call up the magnified view. Once I've done this I regard my composition and positioning as pretty much carved in stone and if I'm tempted to move at all it'll be just by a very small amount as this is affecting the composition and if I want to do more I revert back to the full view and reposition the focus square and start again.

[Smoothjazz]

I have the A7R and the 85mm f1.4 ZA lens, and utilize the LA-EA4 adapter. I can tell you that the 85mm lens is a great performer, and this combo works fantastically. The autofocus with the adapter is fast and spot on. The autofocus is accurate enough that no manual focusing or peaking are needed. The balance and feel of the lens, adapter, and camera is very nice, and feels comfortable in your hands.
The 85mm lens is excellent for portraits, with a perspective that I really like; I personally like getting a closer portrait, without necessarily getting real close to a subject.

[Guy Mancuso]

Might want to check out this test I did awhile back on it. Great lens still use it today. At F2 it's really nice

http://www.getdpi.com/forum/sony/49983-sony-55fe-1-8-vs-sony-za-85mm-1-4-vs-zeiss-135mm-f2.html

[JohnAONeill]

Good information. Thank you for your reply. I may well go with this combo. Any chance of getting a raw file from one of your captures for comparison? I can send you my link for FTP service if this was not too much trouble?

Kind regards
John

[JohnAONeill]

Thanks for the Link Guy. I will check this out ;-)