Carl Zeiss 35mm Goodness

Hopefully you are not tired about me carrying on about Zeiss lenses like a school girl in love with a doe-eyed rock star.  But this lens is like a rock star.  It’s a professional, it’s sexy, and my Zeiss 35mm is on tour in my neighborhood with it’s warm-up lens, the Zeiss 18mm.

It’s also making me a better photographer.  Not because of the clarity and amazing smooth bokeh of the lens, but because it forced me to turn off that crippling auto focus and put the control in my hands. And not only for focus, but it encouraged me to turn everything to manual and I am finding out that I can really master the light now – not let the light master me.

The shot above was taken with the sun at its apex and not a cloud obscuring the light.  But through the use of manual control, I was able to get great dark tones without the aid of filters or Photoshop.

Manual is your friend.

I plan to do a little traveling to the mid-west and give it a workout – really need a change of scenery from the lake here!  Look for more experiments with the Zeiss class to come!

The Carl Zeiss ZF.2 Family

My somewhat disturbing fondness for my latest piece of glass – the Carl Zeiss 35mm f/2 – was so strong, and frankly quite fervent, that I decided to throw caution into the wind, damn my low bank account and upgrade ALL my gear to Zeiss.  Today, having successfully sold my ultra-wide Sigma and my Nikon Fisheye lenses, I was able to purchase the drool-inspiring Carl Zeiss 18mm f/3.5.

21mm Versus 18mm

So, you ask, “Ray, why the 18mm f/3.5 instead of the 21mm f/2.8?”  Good question.

The $300 difference in cost had nothing to do with it.  When you’re dropping $1500 on a lens, the price isn’t a factor anymore.  It’s about my style.  If you look at my stream from the days I was shooting on my D80 – it was 90% shot with my Sigma 10-20mm glass.  I love the incredibly obnoxious wide shots of landscapes.  And though the difference from 18 to 21 mm isn’t mind shatteringly huge, it’s enough.  I like to go as extreme as I can and since Mr. Zeiss isn’t offering up that sexy 16-35mm lens for Nikon yet, 18 is as wide as it gets for me.

Can I deal with f/3.5?

As for F-stop, the 3.5 and 2.8 are irrelevant for my shooting.  I do long exposure in low light for most of my nature shots.  Being on a tripod is my key.  I tend to keep the shutter open from a second to 30 minutes.  Though I do love lenses that hover below f/2.8 – in landscape photography, they are not a must.

So, What’s Next?

Well, I’ll be in poverty for quite some time now.  But that’s OK – it’s very much worth it.  I will now begin saving for the CZ 50mm ZF.2 Makro and the CZ 100mm ZF.2 Makro.  It’ll be at least a year before I can afford to do that.  I do have 2 more pieces of glass to sell off, but that’ll get me only $500 or so.

Perhaps the kind folks at CZ would like to donate one for me to promote?