Hi all, I have fun using my 35 years old 50 mm 1.4 Zeiss (all manual ofc) adapted on my Canon 40D.

The lack of AF is strange for new generations used to it and the viewfinders are not good for manual focus, anyway these lenses remain exceptional in quality.

Below you will find two examples:

Holy kitty that's a funny picture.

my old zeiss 135mm 3.5 beats up my 24-105mm L and 50mm 1.4 in sharpness(and its as sharp wide open as stopped down(actually sharper wide open than stopped over f/8) ), it also has way better wide open bokeh, but when its stopped down bokeh isnt as pleasing anymore as it is in my other two lenses. also colors and contrast in it are in same level as other lenses(if not slightly better), but it starts to lack contrast easily if there is light shining on the front element because coatings arent that good in it.

yea zeiss 50mm 1.4 is good lens even compared to 50mm 1.4 lenses nowadays, but lenses that old lack descent coatings. if you are serious about manual focus lenses, get adapter with af confirmation and split image viewfinder

what comes to those examples, its pretty impossible to judge a lens from pics so small

Well adapters with confirmation are expansive for what they offer and in many cases not enough precise. I prefer to post small images so that people can see them entire and they are not too heavy.

Anyway I agree with your comments.

they dont cost much more than non af confirm adapers. like 20 euros more if i remember right and af confirm is quite a must especially if you dont have camera with good viewfinder(like 1d series) or atleast a split screen viewfinder

here is a straight out of camera jpg sample from my zeiss, i think it was at f/5.6



and a 100% crop



i made the crop from the grass because focus is slightly off from those people. also i shot it accidentally at 1600 iso, thats why its bit grainy

colors look bit dull on web browser, but they look really good on photoshop

This post was edited by Antichrist- on Sep 13 2010 02:03pm

Mmm serious adapters are 1xx dollars, the really precise once. Anyway with the live view for example u can have precise results.

Gozu resolution, GZ! I love Zeiss lenses!

Zeiss factory in Jena only 30km from me