Zeiss Otus Initial Impressions

[Dylan777]

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.

Beautiful shot Eldar

 

[Eldar]

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.

You may be right. Looking at several of these lower light bokeh elements, they have the same concentric rings. I´ll have to check it out some more.

The lens is great though. All the images you I have posted are RAW to JPEG straight from the camera, only reduced in size to fit the posting requirements. To be more conclusive about how good the optical performance is, I need to run some parallel testing with other lenses. But so far it looks very good and the hype seem to be well deserved.

The challenge is the manual focusing. Shot wide open, the extreme sharpness exposes mistakes brutally. My capabilities in this department is not what it used to be, probably a combination of lack of practice and fading eyesight, so to get the best from it I need to practice quite a bit.

 

[Sporgon]

The challenge is the manual focusing. Shot wide open, the extreme sharpness exposes mistakes brutally. My capabilities in this department is not what it used to be, probably a combination of lack of practice and fading eyesight, so to get the best from it I need to practice quite a bit.

You may find you need to pair the lens with a 6D fitted with the 's' screen to enable you to see the true dof. However you might find the controls annoyingly soft after using the 1Dx and 5DmkIII.

 

[Eldar]

The challenge is the manual focusing. Shot wide open, the extreme sharpness exposes mistakes brutally. My capabilities in this department is not what it used to be, probably a combination of lack of practice and fading eyesight, so to get the best from it I need to practice quite a bit.

You may find you need to pair the lens with a 6D fitted with the 's' screen to enable you to see the true dof. However you might find the controls annoyingly soft after using the 1Dx and 5DmkIII.

The Ec-S screen works on the 1DX also, but with the need for exposure compensation. I will order one and see how it works.

 

[Quasimodo]

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?):

Julepynten ga noen indikasjoner om at du var norsk

 

[Quasimodo]

BTW. congrats on a great new lens

 

[Eldar]

BTW. congrats on a great new lens

Takk for det According to the distributor I got the first Canon mount they delivered in Scandinavia, so I guess I was lucky

 

[Eldar]

I did a quick test with the 85mm 1.2L II at f1.4 and the 24-70 f2.8L II at app. 55mm and f2.8, with the same setup. On the 85mm I could not see any concentric rings at all. On the 24-70 there were signs of rings, but much less than the Zeiss. I also tried the Zeiss on other sparkling reflections, but have not been able to recreate it on anything else yet.

To be continued ...

 

[Eldar]

Weather permitted a walk outside for a couple of hours today. Here is with the 1DX outside my cabin. f11, 1/500s, ISO100

 

[Eldar]

And here is one where there still was some snow on the branches. f11, 1/125s, ISO100 on the 1DX

 

[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?):

Julepynten ga noen indikasjoner om at du var norsk

--> "Christmas flower gave some indications about you being Norwegian "

LOL...eh?

 

[jrista]

Weather permitted a walk outside for a couple of hours today. Here is with the 1DX outside my cabin. f11, 1/500s, ISO100

WOW! Beautiful view you have there, my friend! I would LOVE to be there right now...despite the snow!

 

[Eldar]

Julepynten ga noen indikasjoner om at du var norsk

--> "Christmas flower gave some indications about you being Norwegian "

LOL...eh?

He, he, You´re close, but "Julepynten" translates to Christmas decorations. And yes, it is beautiful here and we are here Because of the snow, not despite it

 

[slclick]

Thanks for the outdoor shots. I liked seeing those (the red in the previous images was soooo saturated it made my eyes bleed) It didn't do a thing for helping me see the worth of that lens.

 

[jrista]

Julepynten ga noen indikasjoner om at du var norsk

--> "Christmas flower gave some indications about you being Norwegian "

LOL...eh?

He, he, You´re close, but "Julepynten" translates to Christmas decorations. And yes, it is beautiful here and we are here Because of the snow, not despite it

We need smarter internet translators. ;P

I am guessing that comment was meant for you, not me, given the proper translation. ;D

Do you guys get aurora often up there? I'd LOVE to see how that lens does with a nice aruora. If there is anything I would love to see and photograph, in person, before I die is an aurora. I have intentions to retire in Alaska for that very reason, but God only knows if I'll (or even the world...) will live long enough to reach retirement.

 

[Eldar]

Thanks for the outdoor shots. I liked seeing those (the red in the previous images was soooo saturated it made my eyes bleed) It didn't do a thing for helping me see the worth of that lens.

You´re welcome! The red is how it came out of the camera ...

 

[slclick]

Thanks for the outdoor shots. I liked seeing those (the red in the previous images was soooo saturated it made my eyes bleed) It didn't do a thing for helping me see the worth of that lens.

You´re welcome! The red is how it came out of the camera ...

Is your color space Adobe RGB or sRGB?

 

[Eldar]

Thanks for the outdoor shots. I liked seeing those (the red in the previous images was soooo saturated it made my eyes bleed) It didn't do a thing for helping me see the worth of that lens.

You´re welcome! The red is how it came out of the camera ...

Is your color space Adobe RGB or sRGB?

Adobe RGB. If anything I could have chosen a slightly colder WB. It´s set at 3150, which is pretty correct to what it looks like, but for someone just looking at the images, about 3000 could have been less Christmas red.

 

[Quasimodo]

Julepynten ga noen indikasjoner om at du var norsk

--> "Christmas flower gave some indications about you being Norwegian "

LOL...eh?

He, he, You´re close, but "Julepynten" translates to Christmas decorations. And yes, it is beautiful here and we are here Because of the snow, not despite it

We need smarter internet translators. ;P

I am guessing that comment was meant for you, not me, given the proper translation. ;D

Do you guys get aurora often up there?

It was not meant to be exclusive either, just when norwegians recognize other norwegians

We do not get the Aurora down here. Both he and I live in the Oslo region, and you have to travel further up in the country to see it. I once witnessed it up in the mountains near Trondheim (halfway up). I has been a few times when they announced that we in Oslo would see them, but as sure as the bank, it has been cloudy each time

 

[Eldar]

Here is one of Junior (with no red in it). This one is with 5DIII, ISO2000 and f1.4.

All the images I have posted on this and the 1DX thread are only converted to JPEG and downsized to fit posting requirements. Some of them would clearly look better with some post processing, but now you can judge for yourselves.

In general, after a couple of days with the manual focusing, the hitrate is going up and the lens is pure joy to work with. And as I, along with quite a few other posters here, have stated a few times on other threads, I find that there is something about primes that a zoom don´t have, which makes photography both more challenging and more fun.