Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 2.8/28

My usage

I mainly use this lens for landscapes and cityscapes. Sometimes I use this as a normal wide angle lens in situations, in which corner sharpness isn't important.

Image quality

Sharpness and contrast

As can be seen from MTF graphs this lens is wicked sharp from center even wide open. However corners eventually catch up at f/8 and f/11. In addition to sharpness the micro contrast is excellent. When lens is used optimally pictures have very high acutance (apparent sharpness).

At close range performance decreases, but in practice that has not been huge problem since lens performance starts to decrease from 1 meter and it's not hopeless even in minimum focus distance.

According to Zeiss (underline parts different than in Canon's MTFs): "The Modulation Transfer (MTF) as a function of image height (u) and slit orientation (sagittal, tangential) has been measured with white light at spatial frequencies of R = 10, 20 and 40 cycles/mm."

Highlight flare/reflection

Even people say that Carl Zeiss T* coating is the best coating available I have had some issues with flare when photographing nighttime cityscapes. Below is example of this flare/reflection problem. This might be caused by reflections between lens' back element and sensor? However during daytime I have not seen problems even sun is shining directly to the lens. Even in those situations veiling flare isn't problem.

Whole image, from which below are crops which show the problems in more detailed way.


As you can see the highlights cause lens to flare and cause some sort of reflected highlight on opposite side of the image (compared to center point of the image).

Build quality and basics

Lens body is made of metal and there is no wobbling or anything else strange. Build quality is excellent.

Lens is very compact: Length 79mm (with C/Y adapter and lens caps, bare lens), diameter 62mm and distance from EOS mount with adapter is 52mm (how much lens extends from camera). Weight with C/Y adapter and lens caps is 311g, and the lens itself weights 276g. Lenses minimum focusing distance is 0.25m. Lenses minimum aperture is f/22. Lens has 6 aperture blades, and therefore aperture doesn't stay round when closed down.

Lens has 7 elements which are in 7 groups. Actual focal length is 28.5mm. Minimum focus distance is 0.25, which results 0.11x maximum magnification and full frame (36mm x 24mm) coverage of 316mm x 211mm. Magnification is calculated based on focal length and minimum focus distance.

Handling

Manual focus feeling is very good, there is just about correct amount of resistance. Focusing from minimum distance to maximum distance takes about 140 degrees.

Lens also has proper depth of field scale. However on digital cameras I would recommend atleast one stop higher value since the circle of confusion is smaller these days when digital SLRs enable much larger print sizes than film cameras.

Summary

Pros

+ When closed down (f/8 and f/11) world class sharpness and accutance
+ Very compact size
+ Excellent build quality, while maintaining small weight

Cons

- Performance on close-ups (no floating element): sharpness decreases and some barrel distortion appears

See photos in my picturebank taken with this lens.

See how lens performs with 12mm extender:
Cactus with 12mm extension tubes - 1 of 2
Cactus with 12mm extension tubes - 2 of 2

Digital Darkroom links (Link to parent category)

General

Software

Dave Coffin's RAW converter
Phase One - DSLR One
Breeze Systems (BreezeBrowser, Downloader...)
Digital Workflow - Converters link page
Pekka Saarinen's Linear Sharpen photoshop action
DCRAW - converted to Mac
DCRAW tutorial by Guillermo Luijk

Technique

Panoramas

Panorama Tools

Panorama Tools (Mirror)
Panorama Tools
Panorama Tools (Mirror)
PTGui
ePaperpress insructions for Panorama Tools
ePaperpress insructions for Panorama Tools
Caldwell photographic - Correction distorsion and color fringing
Correction distorsion and color fringing
Caldwell photographic
Max Lyons - PTAssembler tutorial
Big Ben's Panorama tutorial
John Houghton PTGui tutorial
panoguide.com

Taking panorama pictures

DIY Pan/Tilt-head
Home Built Panorama Head
Jasper-Engineering: Pano head
Big Ben's panorama tutorial
10D tutorial (8mm Sigma lens)
Kaidan - Kiwi-VL panorama head
Panoguide - Setting up to shoot panorama

Canon D30 and 15mm fisheye
Photo.net - Fisheye to rectlinear conversion
Luminous Landscape - Imagealign

AIM-DTP
Sharpening

Outback photo - Edge Sharpening
Luminous Landscape - High pass sharpenign

Exposure / Dynamic range

Luminous Landscape - Blended exposures
Luminous Landscape - Digital split neutral density filter
Luminous Landscape - Local Contrast Enchancement
Luminous Landscape - Hybrid conversion
AIM: The Linear RAW Workflow

Color

Luminous Landscape - Making better Black & White photos

Luminous Landscape - Instant PhotoShop
AIM-DTP - Color Dither Gamma (how to adjust gamma for monitor)
High Dynamic Range (HDR)

Naturescape's HDR tutorial

Apple

Forums

Mac Forums
Hopeinen Omena (in Finnish)

Aperture

AUPN Aperture Users Professional Network

Pictures of lens

Extending while focusing

Distagon 28mm extends while focused close.

On the left side: Focused to infinity
On the right side: Focused to minimum focus distance

Depth of field scale

Distagon 28mm has pretty good depth of field scale. However on digital cameras I would recommend one stop higher value since the circle of confusion is smaller these days when digital SLRs enable much larger print sizes than film cameras.

Depth of field scale