Zeiss Otus Initial Impressions

[thepancakeman]

Best? So, it's the lightest? And has the greatest zoom range? Is unprecedented in it's telephoto capabilities?

People that market "the best" anything drive me nuts. Maybe it's the sharpest in the corners wide open. Maybe it has the truest color representation and saturation. Great, but that doesn't make it "best" in a million different other scenarios.

huh?

Sorry, just saying that "best" doesn't consider need. It's not the best sports lens. It's not the best travel lens. So saying it's the best lens without any qualifiers is just blatantly wrong.

Sticking with a favorite, car analogies: a McLaren might be the best car if you're going to the track, but not if you're towing your boat to the lake or picking up friends from the airport. So you can't just say a McLaren is the best car, just like it's inaccurate to say that this is the best lens.

 

[JohnDizzo15]

Best? So, it's the lightest? And has the greatest zoom range? Is unprecedented in it's telephoto capabilities?

People that market "the best" anything drive me nuts. Maybe it's the sharpest in the corners wide open. Maybe it has the truest color representation and saturation. Great, but that doesn't make it "best" in a million different other scenarios.

huh?

Sorry, just saying that "best" doesn't consider need. It's not the best sports lens. It's not the best travel lens. So saying it's the best lens without any qualifiers is just blatantly wrong.

Sticking with a favorite, car analogies: a McLaren might be the best car if you're going to the track, but not if you're towing your boat to the lake or picking up friends from the airport. So you can't just say a McLaren is the best car, just like it's inaccurate to say that this is the best lens.

I do agree with you regarding the sweeping ambiguous claim of best lens ever. That, I cannot speak to as it is more subjective than anything based on everyone's needs and perceptions. What I will say though is that it is probably OPTICALLY the best production lens in existence today for 35mm DSLRs if what everyone is saying holds true. So in that regard, it is the best.

 

[dgatwood]

Optically best, unless you count maximum aperture.

 

[RVB]

Best? So, it's the lightest? And has the greatest zoom range? Is unprecedented in it's telephoto capabilities?

People that market "the best" anything drive me nuts. Maybe it's the sharpest in the corners wide open. Maybe it has the truest color representation and saturation. Great, but that doesn't make it "best" in a million different other scenarios.

They claimed the best image quality in 35mm format and they achieved this... simples..

 

[Pi]

Optically best, unless you count maximum aperture.

Too early to say. Fast lenses are about bokeh, not sharpness only. I have not seen enough examples to convince me that it is the best. Closeups do not tell you much about bokeh - the torture test is when the blur is of smaller radius, and one of Roger's samples looks really bad in that regard.

I have seen more impressive shots with the new Nikon but maybe the reason is that the Nikon is more widely available and more affordable.

 

[MLfan3]

despite of the huge barrel size , I really seriously considering this lens.
it costs almost 4k and it is huge but considering the incredible optical quality , it is actually a big bargain lens.
I really want it but it is just a tad oversized , it won't fit into my usual small walk around camera bag.

 

[dcm]

...
I really want it but it is just a tad oversized , it won't fit into my usual small walk around camera bag.

I imagine I can afford a new bag if I can afford this lens

 

[Eldar]

;D Finally, two months and 10 days after I placed the order, I finally have the Otus 55 f1.4 in hand ;D

One day later and I would not have been able to pick it up before my Christmas vacation. Now I get ample time to play around with it.

First impression ... focal length seems to be about 55mm and focus is manual ...
But it has a look and feel like no other lens I can think of. It radiates quality from the moment you lift the box it comes in.

Now it is time to figure out if it is worthy of the hype and worth the extra hassle and all the money.

 

[Sporgon]

;D Finally, two months and 10 days after I placed the order, I finally have the Otus 55 f1.4 in hand ;D

One day later and I would not have been able to pick it up before my Christmas vacation. Now I get ample time to play around with it.

First impression ... focal length seems to be about 55mm and focus is manual ...
But it has a look and feel like no other lens I can think of. It radiates quality from the moment you lift the box it comes in.

Now it is time to figure out if it is worthy of the hype and worth the extra hassle and all the money.

I'm sure I speak for many when I say I'm looking forward to seeing some of your images taken with it, and hearing your views on how the image quality compares with other exceptional glass.

Have a great Christmas and all the best for the New Year.

 

[Eldar]

The wind is howling outside and the snow wip the skin off peoples faces, so not very tempting to shoot anything outside at the moment, so in the mean time ... f1.4, ISO100 on a 5DIII. Merry Christmas everyone

From a physical, mechanical and handling perspective, the lens is everything Zeiss said it would be. The only thing that I would have preferred differently is the positioning of the focus ring. The way I hold the camera I would have liked to have it a bit closer to the front. But I have no problem operating it the way it is. Focusing is extremely smooth and with the focus aid in the camera it works quite well. At f1.4 it is a bit difficult though, due to the very shallow DOF. But that is difficult for AF also.

I am considering buying the Ec-S focusing screen for the 1DX, to see if that helps MF further. It steals light though and it is not supported by Canon firmware.

 

[Eldar]

Here are a couple more. They are RAW straight from the camera, converted to JPEG in Lightroom. Both ISO100 f2.2

 

[Eldar]

Here´s No.2. Both with 5DIII.

 

[jrista]

Thanks for the samples, Eldar! Looks like a wicked sharp lens...blows my mind. Even at 100% zoom, I can't say I've ever seen anything quite that sharp before.

The one thing that did stand out was the boke. It looks like it is slightly spherical, but there are clearly visible concentric rings in each boke blur circle. If you downscale everything, that becomes invisible, but if you wanted to print large, might be a problem.

 

[Eldar]

Thanks for the samples, Eldar! Looks like a wicked sharp lens...blows my mind. Even at 100% zoom, I can't say I've ever seen anything quite that sharp before.

The one thing that did stand out was the boke. It looks like it is slightly spherical, but there are clearly visible concentric rings in each boke blur circle. If you downscale everything, that becomes invisible, but if you wanted to print large, might be a problem.

To show you a bit more, here is the same shot at f2.8. You can see the bokeh change. The lights in the background is a Christmas tree, so the lights are pure lights or combined light and reflection from a Christmas ball, like the two with a red shadow. There are also reflections from the glitter strings. I believe a shot with pure light sources in the background would have a more even bokeh. When I have more time I will do a bit more thorough testing.

 

[Eldar]

Here´s one at f3.5 ISO800 on 5DIII

 

[Eldar]

Here is another bokeh example, from the 7 candles on the mantlepiece. f1.4

 

[jrista]

Thanks for the samples, Eldar! Looks like a wicked sharp lens...blows my mind. Even at 100% zoom, I can't say I've ever seen anything quite that sharp before.

The one thing that did stand out was the boke. It looks like it is slightly spherical, but there are clearly visible concentric rings in each boke blur circle. If you downscale everything, that becomes invisible, but if you wanted to print large, might be a problem.

To show you a bit more, here is the same shot at f2.8. You can see the bokeh change. The lights in the background is a Christmas tree, so the lights are pure lights or combined light and reflection from a Christmas ball, like the two with a red shadow. There are also reflections from the glitter strings. I believe a shot with pure light sources in the background would have a more even bokeh. When I have more time I will do a bit more thorough testing.

It isn't the amount of boke I was referring to. I hope you don't mind me using your photo, but here is a 100% crop that demonstrates the strange concentric rings inside of each boke blur circle (are you saying that funky effect is because the light sources are christmas lights?):

 

[Eldar]

Thanks for the samples, Eldar! Looks like a wicked sharp lens...blows my mind. Even at 100% zoom, I can't say I've ever seen anything quite that sharp before.

The one thing that did stand out was the boke. It looks like it is slightly spherical, but there are clearly visible concentric rings in each boke blur circle. If you downscale everything, that becomes invisible, but if you wanted to print large, might be a problem.

To show you a bit more, here is the same shot at f2.8. You can see the bokeh change. The lights in the background is a Christmas tree, so the lights are pure lights or combined light and reflection from a Christmas ball, like the two with a red shadow. There are also reflections from the glitter strings. I believe a shot with pure light sources in the background would have a more even bokeh. When I have more time I will do a bit more thorough testing.

It isn't the amount of boke I was referring to. I hope you don't mind me using your photo, but here is a 100% crop that demonstrates the strange concentric rings inside of each boke blur circle (are you saying that funky effect is because the light sources are christmas lights?):

That particular bokeh ball is a silver Christmas ball and it may be that you will get these kind of rings in that ball´s reflection. The strong lights are electric candles and they have a reflective edge, which makes an additional shadow in the bokeh. I posted one more with pure candles. That is probably more representative.

 

[jrista]

Here is another bokeh example, from the 7 candles on the mantlepiece. f1.4

Yeah, that looks a lot cleaner!

 

[Random Orbits]

It isn't the amount of boke I was referring to. I hope you don't mind me using your photo, but here is a 100% crop that demonstrates the strange concentric rings inside of each boke blur circle (are you saying that funky effect is because the light sources are christmas lights?):

Are the concentric rings a function of the grinding process of the aspheric elements? I noticed it in the 24-70 II, and the rings go away when the blur circle is a lot brighter. It might be that the candles flames also have the same "feature" if the exposure is reduced by a few stops.