Vintage Zeiss glass on modern cameras

Interesting article. Why is it that 'because of the huge diameter of those beasts they are almost twice as fast as the numbers suggest'? Why weren't they marked more "accurately"?
 
Actually I don´t know. I think they are marked for medium format cameras, so if you abuse them on a 35mm sensor or 35mm adapter you only use the sweet spot of the lens there may come different laws of physics in to play. The front and rear elements are twice as big as of 35 mm glass, so maybe more light hits the sensor. Just a wild unfounded guess.

But it works fine for me.

Frank
 
Also these lenses can be used with a tilt adapter or shift adapter, because of the bigger image circle.

Great for fine tuning compositions!

I have the 50mm f4 for this reason, but wasn't aware it was brighter than stated - will check that out. I think mine is a bit yellowish also, perhaps it's radioactive.

Sharpness is good with a little barrel distortion. I haven't observed its breathing behaviour as yet but will look into it.
 
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Nice article it's just that initially I find it hard to believe the F4 is almost is bright as a Nikon at F1.4

Can this be elaborated on?
 
thanks for sharing your knowledge postmaster. I am very interested in getting some of these lenses to use. I love using vintage lenses on the 5d. I had a couple of questions for you regarding using pentacon six/med format lenses on FF 35mm camera. Is the FOV equal to reg. 35mm? Is a 50mm pentacon six/med format lens considered wider than a traditional 50mm/35mm sized lens? I have noticed that in pentacon six mount zeiss there is nothing wider than 50mm. Also on your blog the photos with the comparison of nikon 50 1.8 and the zeiss 50 4 are missing could you re-upload those? thanks for your time, thanks again for your info.
 
As Gertrude Stein might have said a 50 is a 50 is a 50.
On MF it's a wide angle (How wide depends on the format) but on a 5DII it's going to be exactly the same as any other 50mm.
Not sure about the transmission, since any f/4 should have the same. My guess is that using the centre of the image circle avoids any vignetting.
Dave
 
It's 50mm on a medium format body but on a FF 35mm body the FOV is roughly the same as a 28mm lens.
 
squig said:
It's 50mm on a medium format body but on a FF 35mm body the FOV is roughly the same as a 28mm lens.
Click to expand...

The image circle may be, however the image circle is bigger than the 35mm sensor.

Its FOV is the same as any other 50 on a 35mm body. If you put it on a crop camera body it's the same as any other 50 on a crop camera body.

As has been mentioned, a 50 is a 50 is a 50.
 
You're right. So let me just clarify- a 50mm medium format lens on a medium format body has an equivalent FOV to a 28mm lens on a full frame 35mm body.
 
ok so, putting this 50 on the front of my 5d mark II will have the same FOV as my nikon AI 50? that is all I really want to know. I guess I get confused because with the newer lenses like nikons DX they just change the number to be the correct FOV for the smaller sensor.
 
Yes it will have exactly the same FOV (Give-or-take manufacturing tolerances).
Where did you get that info about Nikon DX lenses? AFAIK they've always put the real FL on all their lenses.
Dave
 
OM Zuiko 50mm f1.8 @ f4:
4497701372_bf035b8266_b.jpg


Nikon 50mm f1.8 @ f4:
4497066505_5268778966_b.jpg


CZJ Flektogon 50mm f4 @ f4:
4497701980_77efd8c804_b.jpg


What's interesting to note here is that:

1. The FOV of the Zeiss is less than the other two

2. It's about a half stop darker

3. My copy has a heavy orange cast (radioactive?)

4. Not shown here, but the Zeiss does breathe when focusing.
 
I did a search for the optical layout for the Flektogon 50 f/4. The nearest I could turn up was a 20 f/4 for 35mm, but looking at it there's an awful lot of glass in the path including a thick element. Given that a 50mm for MF is going to be seriously retrofocus, I think you are seeing transmission losses.
Dave

BTW the only non retrofocus MF W/A lenses will be eg the 65mm for the mamiya Press or the Zeiss Biogon 38mm for the W/A Haselblad, but they are rather specialised.
 
Thanks for that link Frank, the Google searches I found didn't come up with that one.
Still looks like quite a thickness of glass, as I would expect from a seriously retrofocus design.
Strictly speaking "retrofocus" is a trade mark, of, I think, Angenieux.
Dave
 
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