Help with Carl Zeiss lenses!

Petrita.eire

Hello there, I'd like to ask you, please,
for help with choosing Carl Zeiss lenses.
Which one their lenses you think would be perfect
for portraits, architecture and city photography?
I am using a Canon dslr
Many kind thanks

GhostInTheRuins

You'll have a hard time finding a single lens to sufficiently cover both portraits and architecture.

Odd that you want a Zeiss lens but don't know which. Why do you want/need one?

Petrita.eire

I wanna get Carl Zeiss cause they are simply the best to me!
Here are some examples of photos I was hoping to do:

http://500px.com/photo/5467600

and the first one in this

http://www.photoextract.com/plus-extract/2011/10/1

and something like this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/slightlyesoterik/5377546683/in/set-72157624530447115


Thank you for advice with lenses.

af_thefragile

Generally a 85mm is considered the beauty lens which makes people look good in portraits.
And a 35mm would be the architecture lens...

So that's a pretty wide range of focus...

You could always instead get the Canon 24-105mm F4 L lens. Its a very popular and one of the best all round lens which will cover the focal lengths you're looking for...

But if you want a large aperture Zeiss prime, maybe you could settle midway in between for a 50mm f1.4. Its significantly cheaper than the 35mm f1.4 and the 80mm f1.4 primes...



Also another thing is to think of lenses more in a way of the compression between the foreground and the background they give you than the angle they cover. You can always zoom with your feet. What gives a particular focal length lens its characteristic is how it relates the foreground and the background. A good tutorial on understanding focal lengths here: http://vimeo.com/27556331

amdgilmore

There's really nothing in those photos that you can't achieve with lenses from any manufacturer, but if you've got your heart set on a Zeiss you should choose which one of those areas is most important to you and buy a Zeiss with the proper focal length for that type of photography.

Then buy a Canon lens that covers the other two.

As said above, you're not going to get a single Zeiss lens that covers architecture, portraits and street. And buying three different ones is a bit of a waste of money (but it's your money).


What camera model are you using? Is it APS-C or full-frame?

Petrita.eire

Hi, thank you for your reply, I have Canon 5D mark II.
The vimeo video is really great. Thanks so much for that
Ok, so if I was to choose a a street/city photography which Zeiss one would you recommend, please?
I had my eye on Zeiss 35mm Distagon T* f/2
Thank you

DaireQuinlan

That first link you give seems to indicate it was taken with some canon EF lens. The second one I don't know, the third one looks like it does more because it's medium format than anything else I'd say.

Honestly I'd think you'd be better of picking up a nice canon 35mm. Those CZ lenses for the various big mounts are nice lenses but very over-priced. There's a big brand mark-up there, all the more ironic because they're actually manufactured by Cosina anyway. Nothing you take will ever be readily identifiable merely because it was taken with a particular brand lens.

jpb1974

Worth bearing in mind that Canon mount Zeiss lenses are manual focus. Pretty sure they don't do autofocus lenses.

inkedpt

Distagon T* 2,8/15 for architecture
Planar T*1,4/85 for portraits
You already know for street photography

The photo on the first link was taken with a camera like yours fitted with 24-105 mm f/4 L canon lens. Unless you really need the lens above this one will do you can look up for this lens reviews they're not to bad and... get a nifty 50mm for the fun street photography

af_thefragile

I must add the Zeiss 85 f1.4 does give lovely smooth bokeh!!

Here's a review for it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCT9fyKsp4M

diarmaidol

Do you think a Zeiss lens will make you a better photographer. It can't be denied that good glass helps but it's not the be all and end all. Sure get a bright lens to allow you get a shallow depth of field but you have to ask the question do you need the level of sharpness these (high end Brand) lens are associated with.