Zeiss 100m Milvus manual focus

[orc73]

Hello

The focus mechanism on most of the Zeiss lenses is very tough, not so easy to turn - yes it is smooth.
Not so on the Otus, they are much lighter and quicker to focus. It's a day/night difference, who tried it knows what I'm talking about.
You may say you get what you pay for 
Is there a chance the Milvus lenses "loosen up" over time?
I understand that with a Macro lense like the 100mm a tight focus mechanism may be of benefit. I use it for portrait though, and when trying with the Milvus 85 I found that one is even tougher. Also the older ZF/ZE lenses have the same "problem"/feature.

Another thing is the focus confirmation beep on the Canon is not always showing. Is this because the high amount of CA from the 100mm lense is giving the confirmation a hard time? Digloyd mentioned that focus on the 100mm can be difficult because of CA, I did not quite understand.

best regards

[Conner999]

old topic, but I recently received an 85 Milvus and it's going back. The focus is smooth and not tough from 10' to infinity & MFD to say 5', BUT between 5' - 10' it suddenly becomes an unusable bear. Shame as the image quality is sublime.

Some lenses can loosen over time as grease moves around and parts wear-in, but no assurances.  Always better to start off with mechanics you like because if it doesn't, resale could be an issue.

I use Nikon now and with nikon the beep only works in manual focus mode with AF lenses set to AF-S. With chipped MF it does not. I THINK older Canon bodies did (It's been some years), but they may have changed that.

Higher CA and lower sharpness wide open can make focus by eye tougher and focus confirmation a bit more erratic, but once in focus, IF a camera body can beep with a manual focus lens it should.