Contax Zeiss Lenses

I used to be a little bit of a lens whore with right at 75 lenses, but have cut way back over the years.

But to be honest, I wish I had never sold any of them. :)
 
David W. Jones said:
The ones that need to be are, and yes I use a follow focus with them when needed.
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hello

i wonder if u did modify the lens mount in order to use it ? what kind of adopter u use? or special lens mount? i am asking cause i got the leitax cy to ef mount and its very expansive ... i payed like 160 usd + tax.

just wonder if there are any other alternatives?

getting lenses for my C300 EF
 
I've just swapped over from a 7D to GH3 and am planning on using it with a speedbooster.

As I sold all my Canon glass as well, I am starting from a clean slate. I was planning on investing in Nikkor manual lenses to use with the Speed Booster when it is released but I now see that the M4/3 speedbooster has been released in C/Y and Leica R mounts with the Nikkor version not planned until later in the year.

I don't know much about glass in these C/Y and Leica R mounts but am looking at C/Y Zeiss lenses . Do many new lenses get released in C/Y mount? Are these a good investment in terms of future proofing or is Leica R, Nikkor or EF a smarter choice?

Primarily I'm looking for a good zoom with manual aperture control and preferably with hard focus stops. Then, I'd like a few fast primes for low light.

I see Zeiss have a 24-85 f3.5 - 4.5 which is a good range but not sold on the non constant aperture. The 35-70 3.4 looks good but not great range. Is there much between these lenses optically?

Any other lenses I should be considering?

EDIT: Sorry, lots of questions in one post!
 
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Victor Nhat Nguyen said:
Off topic: would you be disappointed if the 7d start getting raw videos through magic lantern.
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Not at all, once the hype dies down many people will learn that dealing with the RAW files that the Magic Lantern hack provides is cumbersome and most people really don't need it. The GH3 without RAW is amazingly sharp and I am loving the images I am getting out of it. It's reliable, doesn't overheat, has a great feature set that makes using it much more enjoyable than my 7D and by default produces fantastic images at 1080p50. Not only that, I am finding the 1080p25&50 50Mb MOV files are much better to grade than what I was getting out of the 7D.

There is a reason the C300 has been so widely adopted even though it doesn't shoot RAW. Reliability, ease of use and ease of workflow. If you make a living out of your camera, you can't undervalue the importance of these three features.

The main nail in the coffin for my 7D was the announcement of the Speedbooster. I can have the GH3 with Speedbooster and get the same APS-C look and DOF as the 7D but with much higher resolution. Also, if I find I really need RAW at some point, I can buy the BM Pocket Cinema Cam for $999 which has the same M43 mount meaning lens interchangeability and works in RAW and ProRes without any hacks.
 
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I recently switched back to using L lenses on my MarkIII and 6D due to getting back into photography, but before that my primary lenses were a vintage Contax Zeiss 50 1.7 and 35 2.8, both are beautiful lenses and built incredibly well. I still have my 35 2.8 for sale if you're interested.
 
anyone ever used Zeiss contax 17-35mm f/2.8 ? is it any good? i wonder if it has same issues with breathing?

regards
 
I see that this is a somewhat older thread, but thought I'd jump in, just the same...I have a 60D that I have been using for a while. Currently using the 35-70mm f3.4, 50mm f1.7, and 100mm f2.8 Makro Planar. They are all beautiful lenses. The 35-70mm f3.4 is really quite nice! I am looking forward to picking up a few more Contax Zeiss primes, as well. Although the 21mm f2.8 Contax can be so very expensive, it is probably worth bypassing in favor of the new Zeiss ZF. I think the ZF has a real aperature ring on it, like the Contax. Don't believe the ZE does...Anyways my plan is to build a small set of Contax Zeiss primes to use on both a 5D Mark III, and / or a C100 that I plan on getting next spring.
 
sewolla said:
I see that this is a somewhat older thread, but thought I'd jump in, just the same...I have a 60D that I have been using for a while. Currently using the 35-70mm f3.4, 50mm f1.7, and 100mm f2.8 Makro Planar. They are all beautiful lenses. The 35-70mm f3.4 is really quite nice! I am looking forward to picking up a few more Contax Zeiss primes, as well. Although the 21mm f2.8 Contax can be so very expensive, it is probably worth bypassing in favor of the new Zeiss ZF. I think the ZF has a real aperature ring on it, like the Contax. Don't believe the ZE does...Anyways my plan is to build a small set of Contax Zeiss primes to use on both a 5D Mark III, and / or a C100 that I plan on getting next spring.
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Isn't 100mm f 2.8 makro also expensive? sadly it's the lens that I want :(
 
You can just get the 16mm, 28mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm, 135mm.
That's what my set will be. I just need a 50mm and a 16mm.
The 21mm is very expensive. Almost the same price if not more sometimes than the ZE lenses. Still. If you want the 21mm, might as well stick with all the same kind of lenses. Contax than ZE.

Also, If you attach an extension tube, it will become more of a macro lens.
Dont know how much they cost, but it could save you money instead of buying more lenses or macro filters, or whatever they are.
 
Victor Nhat Nguyen said:
Isn't 100mm f 2.8 makro also expensive? sadly it's the lens that I want :(
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Yeah, they can run about $800 to $1,000. Still, a new Zeiss 100mm f2.0 Makro runs $1,843 from B&H, so the Contax still makes economic sense. The 100mm f2.8 is a beautiful lens, I do love it.
 
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