Zeiss Contax questions

[Lliam Worthington]

Envious of those with Contax lenses. Had a kit years back when I started working at a pro lab. First roll of trannie I put through, the guys from E6 came in to ask me what I was shooting on! Hundreds of rolls whizzing past them every day, they saw mine and went, "WHOA! What's that?". Very cool.

Ha yeah thats cool :)

[David W. Jones]

FINAL THOUGHTS: If you are going to go for some Contax glass, be aware that there are some TRUE duds. Most of the glass is great, but Contax did try to appeal at times to a more pro-sumer customer, so some of THESE lenses suck, and some other designs are SO OLD/LEGACY that they aren't worth it. Some to avoid are:

28-70 Zoom - a pro-sumer zoom, probably "OK" compared to other zooms...but no where NEAR the quality of the 35-70 and 28-85 that have MTF ratings that rival primes.

70-210 Zoom - an old and VERY EXPENSIVE lens...it's arguably not worth the price ($1500). For $300 you are better served getting the much loved (but not insanely sharp) 80-200 F4 (this tiny zoom..has shit tons of 3D and is probably one of the best zoom buys of all time).

200 3.5 - People like it, but for the price you may as well get the 180 2.8.

I don't know that I would go so far as to say they are true duds, suck, or so old they aren't worth it. Most lenses stem from old designs. After all the Planar was designed by Dr Paul Rudolph in 1896, and the T* lens coating was first developed in 1935. Even the 28-70 zoom you quote as being pro-sumer with just OK quality has an advantage for video work as it is of normal zoom design as opposed to the 35-70 & 28-85 which are push/pull design zooms. I think it's easy to get caught up in the hype sometimes when looking for gear and reading blurbs on the internet. My advice is to take what you might read with a grain of salt, and do your own testing. Hey one man's turd is another man's treasure!

All the Best!

Dave

[Nick Morrison]

I don't know that I would go so far as to say they are true duds, suck, or so old they aren't worth it. Most lenses stem from old designs. After all the Planar was designed by Dr Paul Rudolph in 1896, and the T* lens coating was first developed in 1935. Even the 28-70 zoom you quote as being pro-sumer with just OK quality has an advantage for video work as it is of normal zoom design as opposed to the 35-70 & 28-85 which are push/pull design zooms. I think it's easy to get caught up in the hype sometimes when looking for gear and reading blurbs on the internet. My advice is to take what you might read with a grain of salt, and do your own testing. Hey one man's turd is another man's treasure!

All the Best!

Dave

David - well said, sir. I totally agree. And you are very right..."old" does not necessarily mean "bad"....I HATE that I even suggested that...Because I LOVE what OLD GLASS can do on digital sensors.

[David W. Jones]

I used the 35-70 f3.4 just the other day shooting a talking head green screen @ T4 around 70mm. It's a great lens but you wouldn't want to use a push/pull zoom all the time.

[Nick Morrison]

Yeah, my favorite Contax Zooms right now are the 28-85, and the 80-200. Love the 80-200 - soo small, and soo good looking. Everything that thing shoots just looks GOOD. Used the 300 F4 on a skate shoot this weekend, AND the Yashica 500 F8 mirror lens...THAT was fun!

[Nick Morrison]

As a follow up to this discussion, I tested my 50 1.7 against one of my 50 1.4...and I was shocked:

The Contax 50 1.7 is RAZOR SHARP wide open. Like...MIND BOGGELINGLY sharp. It blows away the 1.4 wide open.

And what's even more astounding is there is room for improvement:

I have an older 50 1.7 AE, but I know for a fact that the newer 50 1.7 MM's with serial codes starting with an 8 got EVEN SHARPER.

Wow.