Who would dump money into new lens b/c of the very important fact that sensor crops directly effect lens refinement limits for image quality?

I'm not exactly replacing Nikon AF-D glass with the rollout of "tuned" Dx lenses (of which I own two zooms), but I'd give a serious look to unbelievably high fidelity (I'm judging by their binoculars) Zeiss glass in the Dx and full 35mm AF formats.

I have yet to see a discussion of "personality" in glass and preferences associated with it.  I have an old AI-class Tokina 135mm/2.8, which I regard as a pretty good portrait lens and partially for its lack of coating (no warmth added; I am uncertain about its use on the D2x re. optical characteristics, but that may be getting too minute for informal discussion).

--Jim

ADGibson wrote:
If they can get as good as the high end nikkor/canon L at a lower price I'm all for it. Maybe it would drive the price down on some of this glass. 1700.00 on a 70-200mm 2.8 IS L is just insane.

Honestly, I'd expect Zeiss lenses to potentially be HIGHER quality and HIGHER price than the lenses you're comparing them to.  Look at their offerings for Hasselblad or Contax systems, for instance, and you'll see some of the sharpest and crispest lenses around that come at a premium price.

Assuming AF quality was in the same ballpark, I'd have no reservations about using Zeiss lenses on a Nikon body in the studio for fashion or portraiture, but I'd probably stick with Nikon glass for times where maintaining full in-camera metering compatibility and the fastest AF available were bigger selling points.

ADGibson wrote:
If they can get as good as the high end nikkor/canon L at a lower price I'm all for it. Maybe it would drive the price down on some of this glass. 1700.00 on a 70-200mm 2.8 IS L is just insane.

Have you looked at the costs of Zeiss glass? Look at the cost of Hassy lenses..if anything they will make Nikon glass look like a bargain. Either that or they will be just off brand lenses trading on the name like in the Sony PS cameras

open aperture wrote:
...
how do we know this isnt just clever marketing on ziess' part?
...

Go on a pro photographer forum and wait to hear praise or profanity...

That, or rent one for a day and test it out yourself.

so I think digital lenses don't have to be as good as lenses for film

I am so not sure about this, but I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that individual sensors, however microscopic, exist in three dimensions (they have height), that there's a color filter on top through which light passes to process into intensity (number of photons) plus color data, that the physics involved in managing light from the center of the whole sensor unit to its outer edge differs quite from film, and, finally, the electro-chemical response to light has also been engineered differently from film's sensitive salts.  Chromatic abberation may be an issue in transitioning an old lense like my Tokina AI (manual/non-cpu) 135mm/2.8 to a packed digital platform like the D2x. 

In the end, "digital lenses" need to be evaluated in terms of their integration with specific digital imaging processes, and for that probably have to have outstanding traditional characteristics where clarity, contrast, and resolution are concerned as well as meet standards for comparatively arcane variables or interpretations of traditional ones.

commart wrote:

so I think digital lenses don't have to be as good as lenses for film

You need to reverse that statement

open aperture wrote:
for the record i know that lots of glass on the market (every sony product that has "ziess glass") is actually made by tamron. how do we know this isnt just clever marketing on ziess' part? they could be selling rebranded tamron lenses which we can already get at a very good price.

This is a valid point.  The Ziess lenses on the Sony cameras don't correspond with the Ziess reputation.  The Lieca lens on my Panasonic is actually made in Japan to Lieca specs, so it's not a true Lieca either.

D. Brian Nelson wrote:
Got a Carl Zeiss 100mm for my Horseman VH-R and the first images seem critically sharp with resolution equal to grain size or better, but with the Sheimpfluging, my first time under a hood in a long time, and it being stopped to f22, it's hard to tell.  Covers 6x9 with room for movements.

But I know what you're saying about bitty sensors using only part of the coverage.  I'm not sure that's exactly right though.  The sensors on the chip cover less area, but the effective granularity isn't as fine as slow film resolution either, so I think digital lenses don't have to be as good as lenses for film.

When you get right down to it, lens resolution isn't as important as lens contrast in determining the subjective qualities of an image.

-Don

Now there are the Zeiss, Jena, lenses that were made in East Germany after the war, and I'm not sure how their quality rates.  Do I have that right?  Jena?

Yep. From the same original Carl Zeiss, what was left of it behind the Iron Curtain. In addition to all the usual optical stuff (camera lenses, glasses, binoculars, etc) they were the ones the Soviet Army turned to for precision military optical stuff. If I remember correctly (this is an aside) it was the Carl Zeiss company that innovated optical coatings in the 1930s for the German military, specifically for airplane gunsights to increase accuracy in hazy European weather. It was top-secret technology until after the war.

If I remember correctly (it's been a while since I held a Kiev) the lenses for the Kiev were Carl Zeiss Jena using the same lens formulae (80mm f2.8 Planar, 150mm f4Sonnar, etc) as the Zeiss lenses for Hasselblad, albeit with different coatings and construction.

KM von Seidl wrote:
If I could use that zeiss lens on both a nikon digital and a nikon F4 or 5 or 6 or etc....then I would absolutely consider using Nikon once my minolta film cameras bit the big bucket.   I like the retro workings of minolta 5d 7d...but I also like being able to use the same glass on film cameras. 

I really like both leica and zeiss glass.

Ditto. I don't own any Leica glass (though it's superb, with a different, "brighter" but less "lush" feel), but I love it. I have lots of Zeiss glass, for 3 different Contax systems and Hasselblad, and I love every single one of them. The 45mm f2 Planar for the Contax G system is probably the single best camera lens I've ever used, in my case mounted on a camera body that's simultaneously great and highly flawed (the G1).

Regarding the point another poster made, Zeiss is now selling their brand name and putting it on a lot of consumer products (even phone cams), and the quality is generally not the Carl Zeiss I know and love. I just bought my wife a digital camcorder by Sony with a Zeiss lens, which was clearly inferior in every image quality category to a competitive Canon product (though that's not exclusively due to the lens) but a bit cheaper and my wife liked the design, ergo it's sitting underneath our Christmas tree as we speak. And I've neither owned nor used a single Canon lens that's as good as any of my Zeiss lenses for Contax or Hasselblad. Not one.

ADGibson wrote:
If they can get as good as the high end nikkor/canon L at a lower price I'm all for it. Maybe it would drive the price down on some of this glass. 1700.00 on a 70-200mm 2.8 IS L is just insane.

There's hardly a 35mm Zeiss lens that doesn't blow most L glass out of the water. By lens standards (which are generally close enough to split hairs, technically) it's not even that close. And yes, Canon L glass is rediculously overpriced. I shoot Zeiss in several formats (35mm on Contax cameras, both SLR and rangefinder, 645, and 6x6 on Hasselblad), and there's very little in the world that compares. There's also not only a technical MTF curve difference, there's also an aesthetic difference to the feel of a Zeiss rendering, most especially with the Zeiss Planar and Makro-Planar lenses.

The problem is that using an adaptor is problematic. Each lens is calibrated for a specific mount, for the lens flange to sit a precise distance from the film/sensor plane, and using an adaptor on another body kinda throws that out the window. When I get a 5D I will very likely get myself a Contax MM adaptor so I can throw my Zeiss glass for my Contax 35mm on there, but that's not to say that those lenses made for Contax MM mount will outperform the Canons on a Canon EF mount. It's sad, but the best quality possible on the lens mount is to buy a few more Canon primes.

Then again, with Kyocera/Yashica giving up on Contax, and Zeiss not having found a suitor as yet (we'll see about how things work out with Sony but I'm not terribly optimistic), Zeiss just might start making Planars and Sonnars etc for Canon and Nikon mounts eventually.