stephen_jones4

Godfrey - that's a very nice image - got any more to show from the DS?

Rich Silfver - thanks for the valuable link - much appreciated.

Fair enough - I'm just a bit "over-excited" at the prospect of being able to get the kind of flattering portraits that I used to snap up with my Contax 85 and 50 Planars, except this time with the focusing-ease of an M body. It's probably all a red-herring. Ho hum.

Trevor - if the stand-out for you was, as you say, the 50 1.4 planar, then this is almost the opposite of a "cold, clinical lens" - on the contrary, it is the very exemplar of a lens that poofters/wafflers like me would claim to have very fine bokeh/tonality and all that other nonsense.

Andrew - why so upset? Have a look again and see if they're scanned.

BTW, the images from the zm do not look like colour equivalents of the (very promising) b+w image that Lutz Konermann kindly posted from a ZM 50 - one of these lenses, therefore, may be a deviant! (or perhaps Zeiss/Cosina have instituted a randomized quality control procedure to keep punters on their toes... or perhaps this is a lens that only gives nice bokeh when used in conjunction with certain silver halide emulsions)

Oh dear. I consitently prefer the cheapo voigtlander 50 2.5 - it seems to me that it's got better tones/sense of depth and nicer bokeh. I can see that it's not as sharp as the other two especially the Zeiss one when they can get it in focus.

That all sounds uncannily like what I'd expect - which either means the reviewer was prejudiced or that he wasn't and that was just what he found. Well that clears things up nicely.

Please sir, what does it all mean?

Marc - a v.beautiful picture - beautiful, painterly colours (notwithstanding the "noise").

I have not owned the 100 f2 or the Makro, both of which are reputed to be spectacularly fine lenses. I believe that the 100 f2 is quite a recent design and, therefore, a little sharper still than the 85. I owned the 85 1.4 ae (german) version. It was the earlier version (the newer one in MM is sharper at 1.4) and produced wonderful results (albeit not nearly as sharp at f1.4/2.0 as the 80 1.4 R lens I own). It is a fabulous lens for portraiture especially since it is so gently and flattering whilst retaining detail (perhaps even better than the summilux and certainly much better than the 85 nikkor afd I owned). I imagine the 85 1.4 MM would be perfect as a one lens portrait-taker so long as you don't need close ups.

The RX2 has a brighter/superior focusing screen to the RX. It lacks the focus-confirmation of the original RX but that worked only very poorly when I had one. If I were to buy a Contax MM camera, it would certainly be the RX2 for just that reason - it has the best focusing screen - better than the vacuum-cleaner RTS-3 which I also had (and on which the vacuum back hummed and eventually broke down).

I'd be interested to know what you do - I'm forever tempted to buy a similar set up - especially because of the fine ergonomics and smooth built in motor (easy to hand hold) of the Contax cameras.

 

BTW, have you seen Tom Shea's review of Contax lenses - quite on the ball, imo: http://www.photo.net/equipment/contax/shea-lenses

 

Good luck.

Stephen

The trees shot is lovely!

Derek - point taken: I mis-read what you'd posted.

I used one a while ago. My problem with the system is the lack of certainty re: Contax in the market place. After the abortive N1D (which, apparently was actually pretty good), they've gone very quiet as far as the N line is concerned. I think that the Zeiss cooperation with Cosina over their M mount camera is hardly a vote of confidence (it was hinted to me 3/4 years ago that Contax would bring out an M-mount range of lenses). Also, as written above, Contax UK weren't a great company to deal with efficiency-wise. Finally, I had bad luck with a Contax RTS3 and with a Contax RX which makes me nervous.

FWIW, I didn't think that the 24-85 performed in the same league as my 85 1.4 MM or 50 1.4 MM did - I'm sure the primes would be pretty marvellous tho'.

 

OK, so I haven't answered the question - exposure v.good/excellent. AF - good (not a problem). Something I hated - the 24-85 at full extension "sagged" i.e. had play in it - arguably not really acceptable in a ?1000 lens. Something I loved - as usual from Contax - excellent ergonomics.

Simon - I particularly like the colour image. I've used both the chromogenic B+W's quite extensively and would say there's not much in it. The latest Kodak film is better than their now superceded T400CN but perhaps xp2 remains sharper, if a bit grainier. The Portra B+W (also now defunct as I understand) prints poorly on real B+W paper (needs grade 4 to get decent contrast). None of them deals with underexposure at all well - over exposure gives finer grain but more softness (or at least did this with T400CN).

Glad your enjoying the lenses. I imagine people will soon chip in to rain on your parade. Ho Hum!

Very nearly everything he takes is on an m6/ttl? with 35 1.4 asph and Velvia. He uses a crappy Vivitar 2800 (which beeps and then turns itself off after a few minutes).

The first one and the last three strike me as very fine images. Nice work.

Jeff - Sorry, I meant "hard" in the sense of "harsh" - I think "flat" and "harsh" are absolutely compatible. Hope that's clearer now.

Hurrah! Donald - somebody who sees what I see!

To continue from the above - Jeff's picture has a totally different quality to the pictures from David and Richard - it looks quite hard and 2-dimensional to me.

I must say, they've always been ok with me - Good service and helpful too. According to the falsten partnership website - http://www.falsten.com - the price per single issue is indeed ?12 (plus p&p). Perhaps there's been a recent price hike?

I don't think he used Leica cameras. I have the book in question - it's one of the few books that I own that I would hate to part with. He is a wonderful story teller - the image of the young boy lying down in a garage with a bicycle behind (the front wheel of which is turned against itself) is an astonishing picture. I saw an exhibition of his work, paired with an Ansel Adams retrospective: it took my breath away. Supposedly, some people don't understand his work at all: I don't really believe that they can be trying very hard. (ho ho)

Larry - That's beautiful.

Donald

I think you've achieved what you intended to do very well.

To make a very long story very short, Nikon is much faster than Minolta: Minolta gives slightly better results. Minolta is quite a bit cheaper (shop around).