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Carl Zeiss ZM for Image Connoisseurs. Part I
By Irakly Shanidze
It would be safe to say that Carl Zeiss is the first name that I associate with photography. Moreover, my photographic life started with it.
When I was younger, I wanted to be a competitive cyclist, a career choice that did not sit well with my family. My parents tried different
approaches to get me to change careers, and none of them worked. That is until one day my grandfather come to visit. He brought, completely
unintentionally of course, a device that immediately made me forget about bicycles: a pre-World War II German Reflex-Korella camera. Everything
about that camera was murderously awesome: huge size, real leather coating, chrome accents, and, above all, a lens with "Carl Zeiss Tessar" on it.
My bicycling career was quickly forgotten, and my life turned into an endless series of 120 rolls further fractioned into dozens of 2¼" negatives.
The fact that the camera was heavy and cumbersome did not bother me a bit. In fact, with four pounds of metal and glass in my hands, I felt like a
real photographer, unlike those bloody amateurs with boring little 35mm SLRs.
My first fling with the 35mm format occurred seven years later. Serving my military duty as an embedded photographer for the Soviet Army, I was given
a rangefinder camera: a shiny chrome Kiev IV with a 1.5/50 lens. First, I was completely put off. In my mind, something like this could not possibly
produce any meaningful results. Seriously, that puny excuse of a viewfinder, a lens that is barely visible, the miniscule negatives...
Well, since the Army does not exactly ask your opinion on things, I had to comply. My frustration, however, turned into sheer amazement when I saw my
first print. Later I learned that the camera was a clone of Contax III, and the lens was actually Zeiss 1.5/50 Sonnar assembled in Ukraine with
original German parts. That's how it all started for me. I had only two lenses: Jupiter 3 1.5/50 and Jupiter 12 2.8/35 (incidentally, of Zeiss Biogon design),
and they were such a delight to shoot with. They produced, incredible rendition of tones, three-dimensionality of shapes, high contrast, and something that
I could not quite describe at the time, which now I know to be called "plasticity".
When my civilian life resumed, I bought a used Leica M3 with 2/50 Summicron. I soon realized that despite the shorter rangefinder base, the M3 was more
convenient, but I really missed my Zeiss lenses. I shot with Leica for a few years until I learned that Contax rangefinders were resurrected in a new
G1/G2 line. I immediately bought the whole system, except Hologon. The lenses were exceptional. Admittedly, they were all at least one stop slower than
available Leica counterparts, but the results made me ignore this petty fact. The only thing that I really hated in the G system was its main selling
point: it had an electronic rangefinder. It felt like controls were taken away from me, especially in low light. What I wanted was to be able to marry
these fabulous lenses with a Leica M6 body. It was not possible at the time, and I stopped shooting rangefinder cameras professionally. Instead, Contax
645 became my system of choice.
My interest to rangefinder photography was reinvigorated with arrival of the Leica M8. By researching this unique camera, I found out that Carl Zeiss
came up with a whole lens line-up compatible with the Leica M mount (originally made for the new Zeiss Ikon rangefinder camera). What sounded even more
interesting was that most of them were of Biogon design. Since Leitz aspherical lenses never appealed to me due to their lack of individual character,
comparing them to new ZM optics became of great interest to me. I started using Leica M8 cameras professionally in November 2006. About that time I
bought Distagon 4/18 and Biogon 2.8/28 ZM lenses. The lack of distortion, strong color fidelity and high microcontrast came as no surprise. What was
really striking was the subtlety of color and tonal gradations considering how "contrasty" these lenses were.
I was very excited when Carl Zeiss USA sent me a number of ZM optics that I did not have, except for the Distagon 2.8/15, for testing. After shooting with
these lenses for about a month, I decided to write this review using one photograph from each lens. My idea was to test the lenses in real-life situations,
to find each lens' "signature" and implement it in a picture. Shooting newspapers and resolution charts do not show the whole picture (no pun intended).
These kinds of tests will reveal resolving power, vignetting (if any), distortions, edge sharpness, and contrast. All these things are undeniably important,
but what they show is essentially how good the lens is for photographing resolution charts.
This may be mighty scientific, but not very practical for two reasons. First of all, the world is three-dimensional, which is not simulated in tests that
involve shooting flat objects parallel to the plane of focus. It is the ability to create an illusion of 3D that sets good lenses apart from mediocre ones.
Second, often times, the very distortions and aberrations that do not look pretty on MTF graphs constitute the lens "signature," making its image rendition
unique. In other words, MTF data is not as straightforward as it may seem. So, my strategy for the test was to identify unique properties of Carl Zeiss ZM
lenses and show how they could be used in practice. If for some reason you are interested in technical data,
www.zeiss.com/photo is a great source for this kind of information.
Distagon 4/18
This image, "A Witch Water Test" was shot at f/8 in Estremoz, Portugal during the 2007 International Photo Festival. Like all other images in this article,
this photo was taken with my Leica M8. Please keep in mind that due to a crop factor of 1.33, an effective local length was approximately 23mm. The image
shows a number of distinct features of the lens that make it ideally suited for B&W photography:
- Apparent sharpness of out-of-focus or motion-blurred elements. Zeiss Distagon 4/18 is incredibly sharp at the point of focus. Less sharp areas,
however, are so well-defined that they are not perceived as blurred. A picture below represents a crop from a print approximately three feet wide.
The first crop is behind the focus plane, while the second crop shows an area with a slight motion blur. In both cases, facial features are so well
rendered that they appear sharp.
Compare it with areas that were in sharp focus. Keeping in mind that the man's face occupies no more than 5 percent of the whole frame, the fact that
the lens resolves single strands of hair in his sideburn seems incredible. Same holds for the second crop where individual stitches are clearly visible:
- The contrast of the image was artificially increased to give it more emotional impact. Despite that, tonal gradations are delicate, and details in
shadows and highlights are sufficiently well-preserved. In addition, men in the first plane look incredibly three-dimensional: note how their elbows
seem to be popping out of the picture. Also note finesse with which texture details of a painted tank wall are rendered. I found this to be typical of
lenses of the Distagon design: small details seem to rise above the surface of a photograph. I also found that stopping the lens down 1.5-2 stops
makes tonal transitions even more delicate.
- Even though this photo was not meant to be in color, take a look at the unprocessed crop below. Keep in mind that before your eyes is a mere 10
percent of the photo. Note the delicacy of color gradations, and the absence of fringing and color bleeding in high-contrast areas.
- Certainly 1.33 crop makes this lens narrower than it really is, but even at 23mm, I expected a much stronger pull to the sides. Note that
heads of two men in the first plane are of the same size and of correct proportions, even though the head in the lower right is much close to
the side. Same with the group of girls in the back: there is no visible pull that would make the girl on the left look heavier than the rest
of the group.
An overall outstanding lens, Distagon 4/18 still has a few problems, all of them stem from less-than-100% compatibility with Leica M8. First, since the
lens lacks 6-bit code, images shot with an IR-Cut filter show significant cyan offset. In most cases, however, it can be easily removed in Lightroom.
Second, due to a smaller frame size, the auxiliary 18mm viewfinder is absolutely useless. 24mm viewfinder provides a much more precise field of view.
Incidentally, built-in M8 viewfinder accommodates 24mm, but the lens is so large that it obstructs at least 1/3 of the view.
Biogon 2.8/25
What immediately caught my attention was that all lenses of the line-up are uniformly designed not only mechanically (most of them, except 2.8/15, 4/18
and 2/85 are of similar size and weight), but also optically: they all have lower overall contrast, somewhat muted "creamy" colors, but at the same time,
deliver excellent definition of small details without excessive harshness. Speaking of uniformity of mechanical design, one of the greatest things about
it is that what you do on a street is not obvious to people around. With all lenses being of similar size, it is very hard for someone to understand what
you are shooting: a man ten feet away, or a group of kids playing three feet away and almost 90° to your side. Another words, all these lenses are an
excellent choice for people photography. Biogon 2.8/25 is not an exception. At f/5.6, it yields neutral, delicate colors, and very smooth transitions
between sharp and out-of-focus areas. Just like Distagon 4/18, this lens renders lifelike 3D shapes.
According to Leica, lenses wider than 40mm fitted with an IR-cut filter produce cyan offset. That is true in theory, but for all practical purposes,
cyan vignetting in photos taken with Distagon 2.8/25 is almost always negligible. The photo below is an excellent example of the lens performance.
Slight light falloff in the upper left corner may only be partially attributed to the cyan offset because mostly it is due to a gradient created
by a key light. Correction of such vignetting does not even require opening a file in Photoshop. In most cases, it can be done in Lightroom. For
those who do not use Lightroom, a free application called CornerFix is available online.
As one can see, Zeiss' approach to color rendition is quite a bit different from what Leica shooters are accustomed to. ZM optics lack brilliance of
Leica aspheric lenses, but in return, Zeiss offers subtlety of colors and tonal gradations. Deciding what is better is much like choosing between a
lobster tail and a bottle of Dom Pèrignon. Besides, Leica M8 makes this choice almost irrelevant: minute adjustments to a DNG file will make it
look more customary. Just as expected from a Biogon lens, 2.8/25 delivers incredible level of detail at the plane of focus. One can literally count
the eyelashes on a milk maid's face (see close-up below).
At the same time, note how it "ignores" skin imperfections. A wide-angle optics with portrait lens properties is not something that we usually see on
shelves of photographic stores. This property makes Biogon 2.8/25 an obvious choice for photojournalism and editorial work. On the Leica M8, this
lens focal length becomes 33.5mm, which is ideal for editorial photography: wide enough to make composing multi-plane images easy, but without an
obvious wide-angle linear distortion and side pull. I only wish it were one stop faster...
On a negative note, for proper framing with M8, this lens needs mount modification so it can engage correct frame lines. This service is offered by
Carl Zeiss USA, but, as one can imagine, it requires sending the lens away for at least a week.
Irakly Shanidze Bio
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