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Author Topic: Question on Zeiss Makro-Planar 100mm f2.0 ZF  (Read 29328 times)

JohnKoerner

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Question on Zeiss Makro-Planar 100mm f2.0 ZF
« Reply #20 on: January 13, 2009, 01:04:54 pm »

Ouchie-wawa!!

The 1:1 adapter cost more than my whole freakin 100mm macro lens

Somebody's proud of their equipment  

I guess the Zeiss is a steal compared to that 8^)


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ternst

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Question on Zeiss Makro-Planar 100mm f2.0 ZF
« Reply #21 on: January 13, 2009, 01:52:48 pm »

I had the Leica macro back in the film days with my R4/R5 or whatever it was - spent quite a bit of time shooting macros and I never used the lifesize adapter a single time - just did not need it. I have the Zeiss 100 macro now and don't feel the need for 1:1 either. I've got a 200 macro that does go 1:1 but never get that close. For those who do want really close macros the Canon 65mm micro is the way to go - it will do 1x - 5x lifesize and is a really good lens. (I also had a Contax RTS III and their 100mm macro too.)

Hey Jeff, I can second what Josh has said - I also use this lens for stitching with the D3X at or close to infinity - it is a sweet lens that lives up to the rep it has gained in its short life. I've shot with Zeiss on and off over the past 34 years and have always felt - and continue to do so - that there is something special about the Zeiss lenses. I like what folks are saying these days, that they "draw" differently, is a good way to describe it. Most folks don't really care about such things, and that is fine with me - leaves more lenses on the shelf for me to buy when I need one!
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JeffKohn

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Question on Zeiss Makro-Planar 100mm f2.0 ZF
« Reply #22 on: January 13, 2009, 02:52:13 pm »

Thanks Tim, appreciate the additional feedback.
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Jeff Kohn
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BernardLanguillier

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Question on Zeiss Makro-Planar 100mm f2.0 ZF
« Reply #23 on: January 15, 2009, 06:38:22 am »

The lens arrived today. It is an amazing performer.

One full size sample for pixel peeping purposes... (click on "all sizes" above the image, then select the right most option)

http://flickr.com/photos/bernardlanguillier/3198276391/

Don't know about you, but for me it is in the very same class in terms of sharpness/detail as the 22MP MFDB.

One hand held pano made from 12 D3x images (resulting image is only 80MP because of excessive overlap between the frames):



Cheers,
Bernard
« Last Edit: January 15, 2009, 06:44:16 am by BernardLanguillier »
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JeffKohn

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Question on Zeiss Makro-Planar 100mm f2.0 ZF
« Reply #24 on: January 15, 2009, 11:57:08 am »

Thanks for the full-resolution sample Bernard, impressive indeed. I think this thread is going to cost me $1500.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2009, 12:40:38 pm by JeffKohn »
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AndreG

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Question on Zeiss Makro-Planar 100mm f2.0 ZF
« Reply #25 on: January 15, 2009, 01:49:41 pm »

Hi,

One could consider a:

Contax N Carl Zeiss Makro-Sonnar T 100mm 2.8 modified by http://en.conurus.com/ to work in AF with Canon EF Mount. You have the best of both worlds: AF and 1:1 Macro and some might say a more recent technology.

I am still getting use to it. The colors are more life like and not oversaturated.  Did I mention sharpness far and beyond what I was expecting?

The results are better than the Canon 180mm and the 100mm and surpasses the Nikon 105mm. Yes, I did own these lens. In Macro, I use the Canon Angle Viewer since the DOF is razor thin.

You can find one on eBay and have it converted or purchase one for about 1500$. You can still have it serviced by Contax Japan.

You can read a review here: http://www.pebbleplace.com/Personal/Contax_100N_Makro.html

Sorry, my intentions are not to divert the conversation but rather attract your attention to an alternative...
« Last Edit: January 17, 2009, 07:33:02 am by pratic »
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JohnKoerner

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Question on Zeiss Makro-Planar 100mm f2.0 ZF
« Reply #26 on: January 15, 2009, 04:06:29 pm »

Quote from: pratic
Hi,
One could consider a:
Contax N Carl Zeiss Makro-Sonnar T 100mm F1.2 modified by http://en.conurus.com/ to work in AF with Canon EF Mount. You have the best of both worlds: AF and 1:1 Macro and some might say a more recent technology.
I am still getting use to it. The colors are more life like and not oversaturated.  Did I mention sharpness far and beyond what I was expecting?
The results are better than the Canon 180mm and the 100mm and surpasses the Nikon 105mm. Yes, I did own these lens. In Macro, I use the Canon Angle Viewer since the DOF is razor thin.
You can find one on eBay and have it converted or purchase one for about 1500$. You can still have it serviced by Contax Japan.
You can read a review here: http://www.pebbleplace.com/Personal/Contax_100N_Makro.html
Sorry, my intentions are not to divert the conversation but rather attract your attention to an alternative...


Thanks for this information. It seems like Bernard has already found his own personal Heaven and received the info he was looking for, so your diversion of topic is a welcome adjunct to the main topic. I think, as always, it boils down to the right tool for the right job. It sounds like Bernard found the perfect lens for his purposes. I did not mean to hijack this thread either, but to point out some useful information whereby some might come to realize that the Zeiss 100 macro, while considered the absolute cream of the crop in many ways, was not the perfect macro lens for certain macro functions.

As you mentioned, and I mentioned previously, the older Contax version is actually the all-around better lens, but what you just taught me was that it was AF too (I did not know this!), and that it might still be available second-hand. For documentation purposes, an AF lens on a 100 mm macro is as essential as true 1:1 magnification. One of my interests is obtaining photographic documentation of butterfly species in my area, and reporting my findings to www.ButterfliesAndMoths.org , who base much of there "range map" knowledge of butterfly geography on the submissions of registered contributors, who keep an eye (and a camera) out to record any new species they see. So while a manual focus lens of the rare quality of the Zeiss may be great for a photographer with a tripod, who has all the time in the world to compose the perfect shot, such manual efforts not only can mean a rare opportunity can be lost in the field, but that the very manual rotation of the lens creates extra movement that itself can scare-away specimens. In fact, renowned lepidopterist (butterfly expert) Dr. Jeffrey Glassberg has this to say about the perfect equipment for butterfly photography:

"(Dr. Glassberg) strongly recommends chosing a camera body that has automatic focusing and automatic shutter speed and aperture setting programs ... with manual focus/settings the requirement that your other hand must turn the barrel of the lens to focus it increases the chances of the butterfly detecting the movement and flying off ... to get consistently good shots you should use a 100mm macro lens. Make sure that you are getting a true macro lens, one that at closest range results in a life-size (1:1) image. Many lenses listed as 'macro' lenses ... do not have this feature. Without a true macro lens the butterflies will generally look small in your pictures; with such a lens the butterflies will fill the frame."

Dr. Glassberg is author to the well-known "Butterflies Through Binoculars" 3-book series, where he has photographed every species of butterfly in North America, and probably has more field experience doing so than any photographer on earth. The point of this digression is, although the Zeiss' stellar optics may be perfect for the photographer who has all the time in the world to sit there and tinker with his camera to get it perfect, it's fully-manual requirements cause a time-robbing delay in getting crucial nature shots at all, on top of which the very action of moving and rotating the lens is itself a threat to scaring-off the subject.

Thus while the Zeiss may be an unsurpassed tool for one man's job, it is a cumbersome and and inappropriate tool for another's job (both in its lack of AF as well as in its not offering true 1:1). What good is the extra resolution of a lens if you miss the shot altogether—or, even if you get the shot, if it's not a truly close 1:1 capture?

Many of the readers may not care about these matters, for 'their' purposes, and that is great. But I know when I was researching 100mm macros for my purposes, that these lacking features in the Zeiss were MAJOR drawbacks to its usefulness in the field, and so for those viewers who also might not have been aware of these particular limitations to the Zeiss, I posted these limitations on this thread, that were also considered major limitations by SLRLensReview.

So thank you for posting that link, Pratic. I did not really take the idea of getting an older lens all that seriously, but the fact that not only is the elder Contax version a true 1:1—but that it is also an AF—is wonderful to hear. I think somewhere down the road I will try to acquire this lens for myself, as it truly does appear to be the best of all possible worlds: resolution, AF, and true 1:1 macro.

Jack



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« Last Edit: January 15, 2009, 04:09:51 pm by JohnKoerner »
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jani

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Question on Zeiss Makro-Planar 100mm f2.0 ZF
« Reply #27 on: January 15, 2009, 04:58:09 pm »

Quote from: pratic
Contax N Carl Zeiss Makro-Sonnar T 100mm F1.2 modified by http://en.conurus.com/ to work in AF with Canon EF Mount. You have the best of both worlds: AF and 1:1 Macro and some might say a more recent technology.

(...)

You can read a review here: http://www.pebbleplace.com/Personal/Contax_100N_Makro.html
Those are not the same lenses; you're talking of an F1.2 lens, the review is of an F2.8 lens (which admittedly contains a confusing tidbit about an F-stop scale of F1.4 to F22 while the image clearly shows a maximum of 2.8).

Are you sure you didn't accidentally typo the name of the lens?
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AndreG

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Question on Zeiss Makro-Planar 100mm f2.0 ZF
« Reply #28 on: January 17, 2009, 07:30:04 am »

Quote from: jani
Those are not the same lenses; you're talking of an F1.2 lens, the review is of an F2.8 lens (which admittedly contains a confusing tidbit about an F-stop scale of F1.4 to F22 while the image clearly shows a maximum of 2.8).

Are you sure you didn't accidentally typo the name of the lens?

Oups! Please forgive me. Yes, it is a F2.8 to F22 lens and not an F1.2. I had my mind on another lens. I must point out that the autofocus on this lens is a bit noisy and relatively slow to focus.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2009, 07:32:29 am by pratic »
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elf

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Question on Zeiss Makro-Planar 100mm f2.0 ZF
« Reply #29 on: January 18, 2009, 03:15:36 am »

Quote from: Jost von Allmen
With the ZF 100mm, I have to move the D3x back by exactly 45mm on my Manfrotto 454 sliding plate to have no visible displacement between near and far objects (using live view with maximum magnification).

The entrance pupil can be determined by viewing the lens from the front and measuring the apparent position of the diaphram from the sensor plane.  The hard part is figuring out how to measure it accurately

Can you tell if the entrance pupil moves when you change focus distance?  My 70-300mm zoom's entrance pupil at 300mm changes from the center of the lens to 18+ inches behind the sensor when changing the focus from infinity to it's closest focus distance.  Obviously not a pano capable lens
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cecelia

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Question on Zeiss Makro-Planar 100mm f2.0 ZF
« Reply #30 on: January 18, 2009, 12:29:49 pm »

Quote from: elf
The entrance pupil can be determined by viewing the lens from the front and measuring the apparent position of the diaphram from the sensor plane.  The hard part is figuring out how to measure it accurately

Can you tell if the entrance pupil moves when you change focus distance?  My 70-300mm zoom's entrance pupil at 300mm changes from the center of the lens to 18+ inches behind the sensor when changing the focus from infinity to it's closest focus distance.  Obviously not a pano capable lens

Thanks for explaining this--it makes more sense than trying to determine the point experimentally!  Why wouldn't the location of the aperture be the location where you'd want to pivot? In other words, rather than estimate from looking at the lens, why not look at the lens-design diagram or try to measure with a ruler and place that location over the pivot point?  Shouldn't the aperture always be at the a nodal point?

Thanks,
Cecelia
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cecelia

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Question on Zeiss Makro-Planar 100mm f2.0 ZF
« Reply #31 on: January 18, 2009, 12:59:11 pm »

I've just checked 4 lens diagrams (3 Nikkors and the ZF 100 f2 makro) and am 0/4 on seeing where the diaphram is.  I guess we have to guess...which seems crazy.  
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schrodingerscat

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Question on Zeiss Makro-Planar 100mm f2.0 ZF
« Reply #32 on: January 18, 2009, 01:27:18 pm »

Quote from: JohnKoerner
LOL, well, we have something in common then: I graduated from UCLA, and lived in Westwood for 3 years back in the late 1980s, but instead of working at a camera shop I was a bouncer at a little nightclub back then called Baxter's

Jack

Baxter's eh. My, what a small world. Was Campus Camera still going when you were there?
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schrodingerscat

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Question on Zeiss Makro-Planar 100mm f2.0 ZF
« Reply #33 on: January 18, 2009, 02:01:30 pm »

Greetings all -

Just to clarify the macro discussion, I recently had a chance to talk to a Canon tech rep and he verified that the Canon Macro's were flat field lenses. Think it would be safe to say this is probably true with the other manufacturers as well.

Considering that the micro lenses on most current camera image sensors need the light to fall on them in as close to a perpendicular path as possible, it may be that modern lens design is heading towards flat field across the board by default.
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elf

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Question on Zeiss Makro-Planar 100mm f2.0 ZF
« Reply #34 on: January 19, 2009, 01:10:43 am »

Quote from: cecelia
Thanks for explaining this--it makes more sense than trying to determine the point experimentally!  Why wouldn't the location of the aperture be the location where you'd want to pivot? In other words, rather than estimate from looking at the lens, why not look at the lens-design diagram or try to measure with a ruler and place that location over the pivot point?  Shouldn't the aperture always be at the a nodal point?

It's not the physical location of the diaphram, it's the apparent location. The nodal point is not the same as the entrance pupil, but a lot of people mistakenly call it that.   Most modern zooms move the entrance pupil when focusing and zooming, which makes it rather hard to use them accurately for panos.  I don't know if modern prime lens do the same.  That's why I was asking about how the Zeiss behaved.


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