Will Canon step up to Zeiss with a 55mm 1.4L?

[Daniel Flather]

I'd like to know what conventional lens they used in the video.

[Ewinter]

I'd like to know what conventional lens they used in the video.

probably the Nikon 50 1.4. I hear it's not so good.

I'm looking forward to Sigma's next salvo in the Art series. If they remake their 50 and 85 like they did the 35, I think Zeiss, Sony, Nikon and Canon should be worried about their prime sales

[Zlatko]

I tried a 50 1.4 Zeiss, canon 1.4 and Canon 50 1.2. In my opinion the Zeiss was BY FAR the sharpest wide open and had the best IQ overall.

I presume the lens you tried was the Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 Planar T* ZE (as the new 55/1.4 isn't yet available).  I'm surprised to hear it is by far the sharpest because it looks less than sharp in the ISO12233 chart at The Digital Picture:
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample-Crops.aspx?Lens=709&Camera=453&Sample=0&FLI=0&API=0&LensComp=115&CameraComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=0

[RMC33]

I tried a 50 1.4 Zeiss, canon 1.4 and Canon 50 1.2. In my opinion the Zeiss was BY FAR the sharpest wide open and had the best IQ overall.

I presume the lens you tried was the Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 Planar T* ZE (as the new 55/1.4 isn't yet available).  I'm surprised to hear it is by far the sharpest because it looks less than sharp in the ISO12233 chart at The Digital Picture:
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample-Crops.aspx?Lens=709&Camera=453&Sample=0&FLI=0&API=0&LensComp=115&CameraComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=0

Yup. Thats what I saw from a week of shooting all 3 on the street. Charts are good for arguments and AFMA... thats about it.

[Viggo]

What more could you want?

Cut the price a little?

Yeah, well, but good stuff has to cost a little If it was cheaper it wouldn't be what it is. But because of the bad reputation it has, buying it used is a great deal...

[Zlatko]

Yup. Thats what I saw from a week of shooting all 3 on the street. Charts are good for arguments and AFMA... thats about it.

Wow, that is surprising ... and good to hear.  I would like to try the 50/1.4 ZE.  Some of the customer reviews at the B&H web site really rave about it.  The new 55/1.4 is going to be too pricey (and big!).  The 50/1.4 ZE has a nicer price and size.

[distant.star]

.
That's a lens you rent when the circumstances both allow and demand it.

I look forward to renting it one day. Interested to see what the LensRental price will be.

[Rienzphotoz]

I'd like to know what conventional lens they used in the video.

+1
My thoughts exactly, when I heard him say that ... the word "conventional" sounds dubious, maybe he was talking about 50 f/1.8

[sandymandy]

. Tracking my kids at f1.8 results in some great captures at 12 fps. It's small light, built like a tank and sealed. What more could you want?

Well this topic is about wide open aperture. Why buy a 1.2 lens if not using it at 1.2..... ?

[Viggo]

. Tracking my kids at f1.8 results in some great captures at 12 fps. It's small light, built like a tank and sealed. What more could you want?

Well this topic is about wide open aperture. Why buy a 1.2 lens if not using it at 1.2..... ?

Because it's MUCH better at 1.8, a tad more dof to help the hitrate and I had enough light ? And just because I don't shoot EVERY picture all year around @1.2 doesn't mean it was a waste. And if your're thinking, well just get the 1.4 then, I'm not even gonna comment on that 

The topic is about wide open aperture, yes, and exactly why I want the Zeiss 55, then I could use it f1.4 instead of stopping down and have the IQ at 1.4 I would have to go to 2.8 with the 50 L to get. BEsides, I dont't need help to nail tracking with an MF lens, I would use it for other stuff.

Using the 50 L at f1.8 isn't the same thing as never leaving first gear of an Enzo or swear in church or whatever, it's simply stopping down to f1.8.

[Stephen Melvin]

So Zeiss has cracked the high quality normal prime mystery that has eluded all other manufactures for decades.

The question is, now that the cat's out of the bag, will Canon fire back with a 55mm 1.4L?

One thing you may not be aware of is that 55mm and 58mm lenses used to be quite common. Why? On an SLR, they were the shortest focal length that could be built without going to a retrofocus design. That's a big part of why the Zeiss performs so well: it's a relatively easy lens to design and build.

But photographers hated them. A "normal" on 35mm should be 45mm, not 55mm. 50mm became acceptable enough, and they sold much better than the 55's.

Another thing to keep in mind is that most of the 50's are older designs.

[jrista]

It seems Zeiss's new 55mm f/1.4 lens which promises to be as sharp as current Canon 50mm lenses are at f/5.6 wide open is making a lot of news (50mm lenses tend to fall far behind other primes for image quality, delivering what 24mm and 85mm primes deliver wide open at f/4.0). In my own quest for a great 50mm prime I've looked at every 50mm prime thats ef compatible or ef adaptable made since 1970 and all deliever this mediocre image quality (though being 55mm is likely key in allowing the iq).

So Zeiss has cracked the high quality normal prime mystery that has eluded all other manufactures for decades.

Well, I'm not sure it is as astounding as it may sound. A diffraction-limited lens at f/5.6 pumps out 123lp/mm of spatial resolution at the sensor. Theoretically, a diffraction-limited f/1.4 lens could pump out 494lp/mm of spatial resolution at the sensor! That is a monster difference, and indicates that even Zeiss' 55mm f/1.4 lens is extremely aberration-limited wide open.

There is also the difference in goals. Canon's 50mm primes, particularly the EF 50mm f/1.2 L, are designed to produce softer focus. The 50/1.2 is explicitly designed to retain a certain amount of spherical aberration as it produces very nice boke blur circles and a soft glow around OOF elements near the plane of focus when the lens is used wide open. People who are looking for a lens like that buy the Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 explicitly for that purpose...pixel-level sharpness isn't a concern in such a context.

If you want extreme sharpness, you would probably be better served stopping any one of these lenses, Canon or Zeiss, down to f/2.8, where spatial resolution should be approaching it's highest, and DOF will still be fairly thin (and more manageable, allowing you to get your whole subject in focus and nicely sharp...which is kind of the antithesis of why you would use an ultra-fast lens in the first place). If you stop down like that, you might as well look into the new EF 24-70 f/2.8 L II, and use it at 50/2.8. It sports an MTF that neither the EF 50/1.2 nor the Distagon T 55/1.4 can touch, and would pound out far better sharpness wide open than you would know what to do with.