contax zeiss survival guide

So Contax = Western Zeiss. But on CERTAIN LENSES (with wide barrels) you def see it prominently at your SECOND and THIRD F-stop position (counting wide open as your FIRST position), For example, I notice it by far the most on my 35 1.4 and 85 1.4. But dont expect them to have the even performance of a set of Ultraprimes or Masterprimes (where many of the primes are not only similar in size and weight, but also perform similarly at matching T stops!). Its a gradual process, guys. They are made in Spain, cost about 60 euros each and you install them on the back of the lenses using the provided screws. I would take Contax Zeiss over Canon "Cine Primes," Zeiss Compact Primes, or the new "Superspeeds" any day. Check out his own blog here and Patreon here. What's the word on that lens? Its also a big change in size and weight, almost doubling its predecessor. Then I sent that to be printed at StickerYou in vinyl stickers. This turns the original C/Y mount into a solid EF mount that wont budge for nothing. Contax RTS glass can easily be adapted to EOS. That was rad :). At this point the price argument was adding a lot of weight. I met amazing businesses with folks that really know how to deal with their customers, I did try out mindblowing glass and I was humbled by all the feedback I got when asking questions about what would be my best options in the middle of the process and posting updates of what I was working on. This means that not all MM lenses are made in Japan. Happy Memorial day all. thanks Nick im building Contax set in soon :). The rubber grip on the focus ring of the lenses is awesome because it prevents the gears from sliding, but its also a pain because it makes the fitting a lot harder. This page was generated at 05:50 PM. The issue that came up from was the stickers were having a hard time sticking to the material of the lens caps and were peeling off on their own. The Fujifilm X-T5 is the company's latest classically-styled APS-C mirrorless camera. I almost went for the wrong one with my MM obsession, but I was warned by my followers on Instagram about the edge the AE had over the MM. Lastly, just for curiositys sake, Carl Zeiss has a specific nomenclature for his lens designs and you can see some of them written on the ID ring of these Contax Zeiss lenses. Having them separate also gives me versatility on pricing, since the main set can still go out without them for a more accessible price. Easy to see which one I loved the most back in 2015. B) They share very similar designs as the ZF/ZE/CP2 lenses, but for or the price. $2 each. The bokeh behaves differently than with Sonnars and Planars and I find these can give the image an interesting look. On the 918 I keep the main six lenses of the set plus variable NDs and other filters. The fastest "wide" is the 28 f2. They are made in Spain, cost about 60 euros each and you install them on the back of the lenses using the provided screws. I think its safe to say all these lenses from this era of Zeiss optics have remarkably similar coatings and magic. It offers the advantage of one of the most sophisticated fully automatic through-the-lens exposure control available during the late seventies. Contax Yashica lenses - German vs Japanese: Adapted Lens Talk Forum My MM 18 f4, 21 2.8, 35 2.8, 50 1.4, 50 1.7, 85 1.4, 135 2.8, 180 2.8, and 300 F4 are all W/OUT the Ninja-star. Im still weighing if I need it or not. After I got the five Contax I went to look for more info and found Nick Morrisons Contax Zeiss Survival Guide at REDUser. They are also a little sloppy on the mount, which can be alarming. Never been an issue for us - and truth be told, if I have a problem with a lens, Id send it to Duclos anywaybut be advised. The Contax I was Zeiss' answer to Leica's offerings in the 35mm market, one . My C/Y Zeiss lenses have been a WAY better investment than money in the bank (or the stock market). The 135 mm 2.8 MD lens can keep up with the big boys, some say it is one of the best tele lens of all time. My 21mm CP.2 is probably my favourite lens that I own, lovely, lovely piece of glass. Not saying the 135/2 isnt worth it the investment, its just much heavier and harder to carry as a walk-around lens. But if you want SPECIFIC tailored performance, than RPPs, Cookes, or Ultraprimes are probably a better choice (for many times the budget). So not everything has gotten better over time. The 15/3.5 took the cake though. These last two are challenging to adapt to EOS because of their. I met amazing businesses with folks that really know how to deal with their customers, I did try out mindblowing glass and I was humbled by all the feedback I got when asking questions about what would be my best options in the middle of the process and posting updates of what I was working on. I went for the fastest lenses and snuffed out the AEGs I had, in favor of the prettier bokeh of the MMJs. As mentioned before, the 50mm F1.7 is no slouch and it sure isn't! Distagon, Planar, Sonnar, Tessar, Biogon and Hologon. Zeisss quality control was extremely demanding. But then work started picking up and I saw that as the perfect opportunity to upgrade. . Contax I. My copy has some fungus in it and other copies might be better. Note: My hunch on the latitude/low con deal is as follows. The first one is AE and the second one is MM. As stated repeatedly, like ZF/ZEs, Contax lenses have great cinema mechanics. Contax Zeiss lenses are the gems for sharp yet vintage glass. I also added the f-stop for each lens and its minimum focus in meters and feet. The price-performance ratio of the Minolta lenses is the best in the camera world. I needed a proper case! Here are some things I got from it: Contax Zeiss lenses were designed for 35mm full frame, which means theyll cover all the way up to Vistavision sensors on modern cameras and anything smaller. I'm not that far from NYC, and head down every so often. AE lenses also show ninja-star bokeh when stopped down, which is a major turnoff for some folks. The Contax Zeiss version fetches $800 on eBay but there's a $60 wolf in sheep's clothing called the Pentax PK 28mm F2.0 which has a fascinating story behind . Under enormous pressure from the West, Eastern Zeiss eventually relinquished the naming rights to CONTAX to Western Zeiss. If you dont have a 3d-printer, Im selling all the gears I made for my set on eBay! We've been putting it through its paces. 2023 All rights reserved. I didnt think too much about them when designing, they just needed to fit around the ring, and our printer was painfully slow (M3D, Im looking at you). Now Im gonna move into streamlining it for shooting and making it the best possible lenses to handle on set. This is another trick to make lens swaps faster, since you wont need to adjust your follow focus back and forth on the rig. Zeiss AE lens information I found a link to this awesome Zeiss Contax lens brochure, dated October 1975 (12 MB). Contax Zeiss Survival Guide In reply to Giovanni_1968 9 months ago While this site is targeted to adapting Zeiss Contax lenses for video, it also seems to be the go-to guide for the rest of us with respect to these lenses. I always took the 135 with me and some of my favorite photos come from that time. Speaking of good prices, many links in this post will take you directly to eBay searches of each specific lens! AE lenses were made between 1975 and 1984. Page of 321. Its agreed that MM lenses perform better and have cleaner results than AE lenses, theyre also less prone to flaring. So far, I had no previous love for Contax and a little bit of prejudice against Zeiss for making lenses too clean. Collapse. Does not come with any adapter. The 35 f2, 25f2, 50 f2 lenses are all completely new and completely superb. When designing your focus gears, keep the number of teeth constant for all the lenses. It had five lenses: 28/2.8, 35/2.8, 50/1.4, 85/1.4 and 135/2.8. At T2 they beat out Supers and Contaxes. Whats the best camera for around $2000? adapters work fine ($15) (They are conservative and tend to overcompensate by a millimeter or two, so they can make your glass focus past infinity at the tail end, a bit annoying but nothing terrible). I didnt think too much about them when designing, they just needed to fit around the ring, and our printer was painfully slow (M3D, Im looking at you). Im still weighing if I need it or not. That meant getting a few more lenses and upgrading various aspects I had neglected so far. Germany vs Japan? To summarize, yeahthey look remarkably similar. Contax RTS Series SLR Camera Models - MIR Theyre killer tools for video, but in order to achieve maximum performance, theres a number of steps and procedures to tackle. This page was generated at 05:50 PM. Family moments are precious and sometimes you want to capture that time spent with loved ones or friends in better quality than your phone can manage. Caps & gears cool. are considered to be the best removable adapters ($90). I still dont know when to use them, though! It was the most expensive lens in the set and it shares a lot of the beautiful look of the 28/2 Hollywood. Contax Zeiss Survival Guide. It also has built-in color filters which I freaked out when I realized how to turn them. One thing that the push-pull nature of the zooms helps with, is snap-zooms. Its a gradual process, guys. In this buying guide we've rounded-up several great cameras for shooting sports and action, and recommended the best. Next came the 60mm f/2.8 Macro. So I sand the inside down a bit and try again. However, the optical quality of the Contaxs is certainly very close to ZF/ZEs and many of the designs appear to have only subtly changed over the years, in particular the 21 2.8, 34 1.4, 50 1.4, and 85 1.4. The last thing I did was add step rings to normalize all their fronts at 58mm, to make my life easier when swapping NDs and other filters or anamorphic adapters in my case. It was the most expensive lens in the set and it shares a lot of the beautiful look of the 28/2 Hollywood. http://slrlensreview.com/web/reviewszontalmenu-172, http://web.archive.org/web/200710120rode/TestZ.htm, If this is your first visit, be sure to Almost six months after I wrote this guide, I decided to update it with a quick survey of what lenses to consider - a general overview of the Contax lineup, if you will. I'm liking my 28:2.8 AE. The Contax 25mm 2.8 is good, but you may want to consider the 28mm 2.8 which is cheaper, and "technically" better. Distagon, Planar, Sonnar, Tessar, Biogon and Hologon. The tab and the last stop in green that mark MM lenses. Well done mate. People (me included) didn't like the poor performance of the Canon EF wide lenses and the 21mm and 28mm 2.8 Contax lenses filled the gap. Originally launched in 1932 as a rangefinder system to compete with - you guessed it. In my experience, the gears never fit on the first try. Landmine Media, LLC. It was, perhaps, the first standard zoom of truly decent quality throughout its range. This is a guide for people that love handling gear and tweaking little things here and there. Just to be clear (think you left that part out, haha). The wides are slow. Copyright 2007-2022. Search. https://www.reduser.net/forum/shooting-red/lens-tests/94346-contax-zeiss-survival-guide. Nick P. - lenses like your 35/2.8 and 50/1.4 with the last (largest) number on the aperture ring in green are MM lensessince made in Japan, they are called MMJs. Bill that is an insane price for the 21, it's been hovering around 2,000 for as long as I can remember. Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom impress in a lot of ways, but their noise reduction lags the competition and their lens corrections lack a real-world basis. It is smoother one direction than it is the other too which is peculiuar. Im a fan of DIY, so I decided to install the mounts by myself. If you wanna follow this path, theres no way to dodge reading the Survival Guide. Momentum picked up and I saw myself getting ready to DP a webseries pilot. This is an endeavor Ive been working on and off for the last two years and now I can see the finish line. As a reference, my main set of lenses at this time was a Soviet kit that I put together because of their imperfections and organic look. I have used the Nikon 85 1.4, Sony Carl Zeiss 85 and 135, Mino 85, Sigma 85, Canon 85 1.2 for reference. They dilate quite a bit and fit much more easily. This is my personal opinion. In my experience, Japanese and German lenses are equally good. comments sorted by Best Top New Controversial Q&A Add a Comment . The Contax dont look vintage to me, but they also dont look modern. Wide open these are more likely to deliver a strong image that is consistent up and down the aperture. These terms refer to all lenses 45mm and up (to 500mm). DPReview TV: Nikon 58mm F0.95 Noct Review! This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. The 21/2.8 was a must. The Canon EOS R10 is compact, mid-level 24MP APS-C mirrorless camera built around Canon's RF mount. I needed the one extra stop of light though, for consistent f/2 or faster through the main set. For that reason I had to make a super tall focus gear that would not slip off when travelling from infinity to minimum focus. I had a feeling Nick was up to making a guide like this. AE lenses also show ninja-star bokeh when stopped down, which is a major turnoff for some folks. $60 Pentax that's actually a $800 Zeiss by designer of Stanley Kubrick Luckily for me, out of the five lenses I only messed up really bad on one (the 85mm, which was also the first one I tried). To check if I did it, just follow me on Instagram as I post all my lens experiments there! For further details, see our Privacy Policy. Im gonna stop saying these lenses are sharp, because at this point its just standard! The AE's are no longer serviced by Zeiss, keep that in mind. 80mm is the outside diameter of the rings, and that number is so specific because its a standard size for clip-on matteboxes. These lenses thread the fine line between organic and sharp, a line as thin as depth of field on an 85/1.2 wide open, only second to Leica. They dilate quite a bit and fit much more easily. Contax Zeiss lenses are the gems for sharp yet vintage glass. Zeiss has their own language, their own nomenclature, for lens designs that is very useful to be familiar with as you start hunting for lenses. In fact, i'm almost considering selling my 85mm f1.4 for that reason. Time. But Zeiss was so precious about these lenses that some of them were only made in Japan and others in Germany. Reduserforum "Contax Survival Guide" says is a good one. Wide open it's one of the sharpest F2.0 wide angle lenses available and it has very little distortion. You can also tell their place of manufacture based on whats written on the lens! There are a lot of photo/video cameras that have found a role as B-cameras on professional film productions or even A-cameras for amateur and independent productions. Be patient, use heat and sandpaper, and youll get there. After I read stellar reviews about the 28mm f/2.0 Hollywood, I went looking for one. Collapse. I prefer the C/Ys but since I already own 3 FDs (cheap ones: 28 2.8, 50 1.8 and 135 2.8), I'm leaning towards the latter, although still undecided. (Nick hope you don't mind my piggy-back!). X. X. I already talked about the mount replacements and focus gears, so Im left with standard fronts and de-clicking. If youre not a DIY spirited person or you dont like getting things from a million different places -, I worked with Ron at SIMMOD so he can provide caps with stickers already on them. I say that because Ive encountered many people who get confused and think Contax is weird Japanese junk. Look for an MM with serials in the 8's. Total newbie question about connecting Zeiss Contax lenses to BMPCC When the AE's flare, they generally flare white, evenly, and when overwhelmed by a direct source, can reveal a touch of green ghosting. Its also a big change in size and weight, almost doubling its predecessor. These capable cameras should be solid and well-built, have both speed and focus for capturing fast action and offer professional-level image quality. Learned a ton. All times are GMT-8. I shipped all of them to SIMMOD for declicking and a quick checkup. Im from Bangladesh. Lucky for me my 50 and 85/1.4 were already MMJ. Its been there for quite a while and I have checked up on it countless times to help me make decisions. The more opinions you have, the less you see. When the MM's flare, they control it much better (you have to force it more), but when they do, and the coating is overwhelmed by a direct source, the coating will break out into more distinct, tight Zeiss purple flare marks. This website or its third-party tools use cookies, which are necessary to its functioning and required to achieve the purposes illustrated in the cookie policy. First I measured the slip-on caps I got from SIMMOD and created a Photoshop template with that size. I started with the 28mm. Stay current with regular CineD updates about news, reviews, how-tos and more. Last point on the focus gears: the same way you always want to have a constant outside diameter, you want to place them on the lenses at the same distance from the mount. Give the AC a good follow focus and a . You can either build a $1500 set or a $10000 set and youll always impress with the results. The one main difference I can see isas stated aboveI think the Contaxes cinemod slightly BETTER than ZF/ZEs (because they ALL focus the right way, and ALL have an aperture ring), and also ALL they have that wonderful older T* coating that I believe looks better on digital than the newer T* coating (renders more organically). Landmine Media, LLC. Zeiss and Yashica lenses are all in all rumored to be better, but are much more expensive. It's starting to become not much of a secret anymore (you can tell by the rising prices). It was intended to be a cheaper alternative. Contax Zeiss Survival Guide - REDUSER.net As they were designed for photography, they have clicked stops, which has to be dealt with, but they all feature non-rotating front elements, which is a very valuable feature these days with vari NDs. Im one of the blowhards (haha) that has routinely made this claim that Contax glass shares a lot of the same pedigree as its medium format and cinema cousins.Standards, Supers and Hasselblads, respectively. Check it out: Copyright 2007-2022. This page was generated at 05:50 PM. These have even less elements (5?). Pm for pics. The original CONTAX RTS was introduced in ,highly advanced electronic SLR system camera developed by mutual cooperation of Carl Zeiss, West Germany, and Yashica, Japan. I know a bunch of photo magazines back in the 90's and early 2000's did comprehensive tests and reviews of Contax, I wonder if they lifted the numbers from one of those? To fit the barrel of the lens, use a caliper and be precise about it. I won't bore you with the history lesson, but Pentax worked with Zeiss when the Contax series was developed and they came out with a suspiciously similar multi-coated lens at the same time. I got all my standard 80mm fronts from him, as well as slip-on lens caps. After that, B&H and ADORAMA are great choices. DaVinci Resolve Quick Tip What Are Power Bins and Why Are They So Useful? Generally speaking, these fall into 3 lens types, categorized by how fast and complex they are. I remember someone doing a test a when the epic first came with stills lenses and noticed it too. http://www.ebay.com/itm/EX-Modified-item3a8193c812, If this is your first visit, be sure to to use on my Komodo. That information was usually written in the lens case, and the focal length was on a sticker attached to the lens cap. That was probably one of the most stressful experiences of my life with lenses. Contax Zeiss Survival Guide: Adapted Lens Talk Forum: Digital Contax have a bit less contrast, and flare more. length (call Peter at RP lens, he can help), but if you can get them on your RED, they are also fantastic budget options. If you're reeeaaaally on a budget and don't mind a very low contrast look, Zeiss Jena's are a guilty pleasure of mine.

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