Can I make a point off tangent a bit here.
I tried out a couple of Zeiss Otus lenses on my D800 this past week, and compared them too my "regular" Zeiss ZF2 lenses on my D800. Came home, pulled them up on screen, looked at them closely. No math or other technical points, just my gut feeling reaction here:
1) Pros
- build quality is second to none;
- optically, yes, I think better then the "regular" Zeiss lenses;
2) Cons
- while optically better than "regular" Zeiss lenses, that is like saying brand A of sports car is better than brand B because brand A does the quarter mile a tenth of a second faster than brand B. IMO, the regular Zeiss lenses are in most cases so far ahead of many other lenses, well, it depends on what you are looking for;
- while the build quality is better, they are huge and heavy lenses compared to the "regular" Zeiss lenses. I mean, in real world use, if I am going for a 2 or 4 hour hike in the bush, hauling around a lens that is twice the weight (or more) of it's closest equivalent - I dunno. I mean, it is not money alone, as there is a reason i now use carbon fibre tripods and monopods as opposed to aluminium ones, I am just saying, do people think about these situations outside the lab?
- cost. I can almost buy three ZF lenses for the price of one Otus. I just don't have those kind of dollars.
so my apologies if I have offended anyone, especially those who own or plan to own an Otus. Wonderful lens, I am very impressed by it. All I am saying is no matter how good it is, think about real world use, not just charts and diagrams.
One more weird thing. i was testing these lenses at the big camera show in Toronto this past weekend, hosted and put on by Henrys. The main "theme" of this years expo was improving your smart phone photography. Even the local media was in on it. New software for your iphone, new lens adaptors for both telephoto and macro shots on your iphone, etc, etc. Everything was about how good, how high the quality of the iPhone and other smart phones were.
The Zeiss both, where I was playing with the Otus lenses, was right beside the area promoting "the art of phonography" as they were calling it.
Irony, eh?