Review of Carl Zeiss 21mm f/2.8 ZF & 100mm f/2 ZF

[albertdarmali]

<p>Reviews of both lenses and also some other lenses as well, it's written on a blogspot:<br>

http://lenses-review.blogspot.com/</p>

<p> </p>

[dbcooper]

<p>You might want to have a look at item #2 here: http://www.photo.net/info/guidelines/</p>

[albertdarmali]

<p>I posted this to share experience with fellow members here, that's all.</p>

<p>Well if the mods think that the members won't be able to benefit from it, feel free to delete it because I got no "self benefit" from it. (it's not my personal website anyway, it's blogspot and it's not a commercial website)</p>

<p>I thought it might be useful for those who's thinking to get it because when I was in that situation, boy I wish I could read thorough reviews of the lenses like this because not many people seem to write about them. Ciao.</p>

[leicaglow]

<p>Personally, I appreciate the heads up. I like reading about people's experience with equipment, especially when they take the time to present it in a thoughtful forum/format. Thanks Albert.</p>

[martha_benedict]

<p>I savor all of Albert's reviews. They are informative, descriptive, utterly honest and highly entertaining. There is no one else like Albert. I hope he can buy many more lenses and writes about them all.</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Photo.net's guidelines are very clear that you are not supposed to post links to your web site for self-promotion purposes. If someone else askes a question and you happen to have the answer on your web site, it is fine to post an appropriate link, but if you start a thread to promote your web site, usually we consider that spamming.</p>

<p>I suppose Albert does not intend to spam, so I won't do anything to this thread, but if another moderator feels differently, it'll be up to him/her. However, I would apprecaite that everybody observes our guidelines in the future or you are putting Lex and me in a difficult position.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance for your cooperation.</p>

[Matthew Brennan]

<p>Excellent review, great illustrated presentation. I like the thought process in building your reviews, subjective is good so long as this is pointed out clearly which you do very well. I'd also like to know how it performs on FX......... mmm.......</p>

[albertdarmali]

<p>Thanks Shun, glad that you actually understood it. Like I said, I was really interested with Zeiss (if you remember, I actually posted a thread asking about why CZ was expensive) and after reading all the comments, I decided to try and get one.</p>

<p>And it turned out I totally loved it, hence the second lens. So this review was sort of answering my own question from my old thread about what makes the CZ worth it. If I had this review back then, it would be very helpful for me in deciding whether or not to get the lens.</p>

<p>Anyway, I agree, the lenses would be lovely to use with FX, but I am still waiting for what the successor of D700 brings and still very happy with my S5 at the moment. but one obvious advantage of using FX is the much larger viewfinder, making it much easier to manual focus with the lens.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<blockquote>

<p>"...I got no "self benefit" from it. (it's not my personal website anyway, it's blogspot and it's not a commercial website)..."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Not entirely accurate. Photo.net is among the most heavily Googled websites on the entire web, and probably <em>the</em> most heavily Googled of all photography websites. All members benefit in ways that may not be readily apparent.</p>

<p>For example, let's say for the sake of argument Albert also has a photography business related website. By posting a URL to a personal blog on photo.net, the associated Google ranking will also draw attention to a business related website. And if the blog also contains links to vendor or manufacturer affiliates, or a PayPal donation option, there's a gray line effect to consider.</p>

<p>Google Albert's name. If your results match mine, his photo.net account will be at the top of the page of hits, well above his own blog. When I checked just now his photo.net account even ranked just above his Facebook account.</p>

<p>That's one reason photo.net is so heavily targeted by spammers, both spammers in the photo industry and those completely unrelated ranging from general electronics to athletic shoes. It's another reason why so many photographers join photo.net purely for self promotion. Their first posts are usually to hype their business websites or personal blogs and they rarely, if ever, participate on photo.net in any other way and add no value to the site.</p>

<p>Obviously this is not the case with Albert, whose participation on photo.net has otherwise been constructive and typical of any valued member. But as moderators we do have to carefully scrutinize every post that appears to promote a personal or business website or blog. Because even blogs can add real value to a person's name if they're savvy enough to understand how to translate Google ranking into cash.</p>

<p>We make allowances for members who participate constructively but it puts us in a difficult position of seeming to be inconsistent, when on the other hand we expect other folks to pay for advertising rather than use the discussion forums and article comment sections on photo.net to boost the Google rankings of their websites and blogs through casual URL-dropping.</p>

<p>My personal opinion? It's okay to refer to articles you've written or blog entries on your personal, non-business related site in response to a question someone else has asked, or to an ongoing discussion. But starting a thread for the purpose of drawing attention to one's own blog is pushing the line, even for a valued member, for reasons Shun and I have described. It puts us in the uncomfortable position of having to minutely parse motivations and values, while also having to consider the feelings of those members who promote their blogs with good intentions.</p>

<p>Instead of directing traffic outward away from photo.net, why not consider also writing an article as static content for photo.net? And I use the term "traffic" very deliberately here, because marketing considerations are undeniable for reasons I've explained. A lot of folks are still mired in old school, old web thinking. They mistakenly think that it's a one-way street and only photo.net benefits from the information posts and articles submitted by members. Wrong. The members benefit tremendously because photo.net does some very savvy stuff behind the scenes to ensure its members enjoy a very high Google prominence. You can hardly buy this type of prominence with your own website or blog, no matter how much you pay a consultant... including a perpendicularity consultant, altho' in this case it happens to be true. And this time, it's free.</p>

[albertdarmali]

<p>Hi Lex, I got what you mean, and also thank you for the detailed explanation. If you look at my photo.net account profile, I don't even link my personal blog under my profile, so I don't really mean to promote anything. I was actually thinking to submit the reviews on photo.net, but as you can see my reviews are very informal and I don't know how those sit among other photo.net lens reviews.</p>

<p>If you think they are okay enough and you prefer my reviews to be submitted and put directly as photo.net lenses reviews, I'm all fine with that and then we can just cut and paste them and put them there. But then again as I said, my reviews are very informal, not sure how you guys can tolerate them, haha...</p>