Agreed with everything you said. Most people will go for Canon FD or Zeiss Contax when talking about vintage lenses but you should try Pentax too. Very affordable and almost as good as the former two. But the less people know about Pentax the better as we don’t want influencers to inflate their pricing 😂
Check the even earlier Zeis lenses. I had a zebra 50mm f2.8 (Carl Zeiss Jena) sitting on my shelf for about 10 years and tried it on my P4K (I usually use Zeiss Milvus f1.4 lenses. Man, I couldnt' beleive how close the old zebra lense (about 1970!) was to the modern equivelent. Beautiful bokeh, great flares, just as sharp as my 50mm Milvus and just as great colour and contrast. I was shocked! Obviously here are still benefits to the modern milvus lenses - but for the money (I think I paid £25 for this lens!) it's incredible value. I could definitely use this on professional work and it would look beautiful!
I also love my Contax lenses. I have the 25,35,50 and 85. I moded them with an EF Mount and focus gears. I absolutely love the organic look and I dig the ninja bokeh
See if you can spot the 'dreaded' Ninja Star bokeh from my Contax 180mm F/2.8 AEG in this clip I shot a few years ago in Japan & Taiwan: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-QiYgG2SiTDc.html
The last four scenes in this clip were captured with my FS5 and the Contax Distagon 21mm F/2.8 mated via a C/Y > E-Mount Speed Booster. The Distagon's iris was set to F/11 with the FS5's' floating' electronic ND doing all the exposure work. The 21mm really is the lens to die for! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mpSxryeMQe4.html
I shoot stills only, but I definitely agree with you on these CZ lenses. The 35mm especially is so underrated! Regarding their extra special image quality, the most interesting ones of the lineup are the 21/2.8 and the 100/2. They just blew me away but I couldn't afford them at the time. Mind you, for video, that 100 is a bit long and it has a super long focus throw, so maybe not ideal for video. Pity my CZ glass is gathering dust these days because I mostly need Af for my work.
I would described the image these lenses produce as well detailed than sharp, and I love it in vintage and cinema lenses against modern photo lenses. Great video, really enjoy watching as always!
FINALLY found the time to come watch this gem! Thanks for sharing Mac, I’ve been curious for a while and this answers some questions and I think we can agree that if Roge likes em, they’re probably rad!
I have the 50 MMJ that I use on my Fuji XT-4. Got it off ebay, claimed to be outstanding condition. Well, it has a yellow tint, which is annoying but I get around it by using a gray card to set my white balance or edit it in post. I love it even with it's flaws.
I use a C70 and I ended up buying 5 Zeiss Classics in a bundle off eBay, you know how those things can happen, ha. 21mm, 28mm, 35mm, 50mm and 85mm, I believe they're not miles off the contax range in terms of glass. I agree that it's a subtle difference but somehow makes all the difference at times. Compared to my canon glass I love the way the edges of the frame distort ever so slightly and soften off, it is just enough to make things look interesting and poppy. The out of focus areas just seem smoother as well. Now when I am tempted to just run around with a zoom I end up just finding the images boring and flat by comparison.
Great!! You got the point. I have the same feeling after photographing and comparing to my excellent modern optics for Sony Alpha full-frame. As an many years "analogue" Contax photographer, I have a bunch of these lenses. Now working on Sony Alpha 7IV, have experienced the magnificent beauty of these lenses. I frequently pack ONLY some of these Contax-Zeiss lenses and go out to take photos only with them. I am going to keep my 2.8/28, 1.4/50 and 2.8/135 and will sell 2.8/25 and 3.5/200. The only point with my 1.4/50 AE is the high chromatic aberration fully opened. I wonder if the MM version deals better wich CA. Couldn't find any info/comparison in the internet. Maybe someone could give me a hint?
Dang, I might need to check those out. I've got the Helios 44-2 and I've used it a little bit, but these look nice and little less "dirty" than the Helios.
That Helios is a magical lens for sure. I've used it alongside these for certain shots and they actually cut together really well. Definitely think you'd like the Contax lenses.
Sharp? Of course they are sharp. People forget these lenses were designed in the era when photographers shot on Kodachrome 25 and other high resolution reversal stocks. Images were the projected on a Kodak Carousel to a large screen in the living room where resolutions exceeding 4K were common. One of the great advantages of the Zeiss Contax today, (I regularly employ my Distagon 21mm F/2.8 and Distagon 18mm F/4.0 on my Sony FS7 via a focal reducer) is these lenses offer relatively low contrast so are the perfect choice for shooting with Log gamma curves.
Sharp but very organic and life-like rendering that I would say for Zeiss classic lineup. In another 10 years, I could see classic lineup price would rise in 2nd hand price. In age where every craze over sharpness, everyone would eventually come back to natural rendering. 🤷♂️ it’s cycle.
