Carl-Zeiss Prime: 135, F/1.8 or 85, F/1.4

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jbtaylor
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Re: Carl-Zeiss Prime: 135, F/1.8 or 85, F/1.4

Unread post by jbtaylor »

I have both. Bought the 85 1.4 in April of this year in preparation for a trip to Scotland. Used it for candids at the pub and at dinner. I love it. Focus speed was not an issue but more is always better in this regard. Focus speed improved since purchasing the a700 in September.

I purchasd the 135 1.8 in late August. Image quality and bokeh are superior to the 85mm from what I can tell. However, it is a big lens with a long focal length and I am still figuring out how to get the best out of it. I may find out that it was not an ideal purchase but I can't see myself getting rid of it. Hell, I may buy the a900 one day.

Think about what you want to shoot and how sturdy your arms and hands are. That will help you narrow it down.
Best of luck.
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Dr. Harout
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Re: Carl-Zeiss Prime: 135, F/1.8 or 85, F/1.4

Unread post by Dr. Harout »

jbtaylor wrote:I have both. Bought the 85 1.4 in April of this year in preparation for a trip to Scotland. Used it for candids at the pub and at dinner. I love it. Focus speed was not an issue but more is always better in this regard. Focus speed improved since purchasing the a700 in September.

I purchasd the 135 1.8 in late August. Image quality and bokeh are superior to the 85mm from what I can tell. However, it is a big lens with a long focal length and I am still figuring out how to get the best out of it. I may find out that it was not an ideal purchase but I can't see myself getting rid of it. Hell, I may buy the a900 one day.

Think about what you want to shoot and how sturdy your arms and hands are. That will help you narrow it down.
Best of luck.
Nice lenses indeed.
Welcome to the forum Jbtaylor.
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aster
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Re: Carl-Zeiss Prime: 135, F/1.8 or 85, F/1.4

Unread post by aster »

jbtaylor wrote:I have both. Bought the 85 1.4 in April of this year in preparation for a trip to Scotland. Used it for candids at the pub and at dinner. I love it. Focus speed was not an issue but more is always better in this regard. Focus speed improved since purchasing the a700 in September.

I purchasd the 135 1.8 in late August. Image quality and bokeh are superior to the 85mm from what I can tell. However, it is a big lens with a long focal length and I am still figuring out how to get the best out of it. I may find out that it was not an ideal purchase but I can't see myself getting rid of it. Hell, I may buy the a900 one day.

Think about what you want to shoot and how sturdy your arms and hands are. That will help you narrow it down.
Best of luck.

Thank you very much jbtaylor, :D

I'm glad to hear such favorable words for focus speed from an actual owner of the lenses. I try to exercise with weighs to strenghten my hold and sturdiness for handheld shooting. Except for trully windy days without a mono or tripod with me I seem to be able to use the SSS feature to my advantage so far.
85mm F1.4 is in the leading position for me at the moment, but I certainly can't disregard the fact that I wish to use the 135mm F1.8 for architectural interiors with lofty spaces...

Thanks again,
Yildiz
jbtaylor
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Re: Carl-Zeiss Prime: 135, F/1.8 or 85, F/1.4

Unread post by jbtaylor »

Thanks for the warm welcome Dr. Harout and aster. I tried to post some images but got an error message about not being able to determine the dimeonsion of the image. Therefore I will post the links.
These shold give you an idea about sharpness and bokeh for both lenses. Don't mind the subject matter, I am a bit off beat.

The 85mm 1,4
Image
http://www.pbase.com/jstaylor/image/103567691
Image
http://www.pbase.com/jstaylor/image/103567958
Image
http://www.pbase.com/jstaylor/image/103569789
The 135mm 1.8
Image
http://www.pbase.com/jstaylor/image/104190510
Image
http://www.pbase.com/jstaylor/image/104191107
Image
http://www.pbase.com/jstaylor/image/104192137
aster
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Re: Carl-Zeiss Prime: 135, F/1.8 or 85, F/1.4

Unread post by aster »

Thank you Jeff, :D

Those photos are very good samples of what these lenses are capable of!
The subject matter with big, warm, wet, brown, dreamy eyes and covered with thick creamy fur is especially sweet..... :D

Thank you for sharing your gallery, you also have very nice wild life and landscape shots, not to mention the nice couple!

Yildiz
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Re: Carl-Zeiss Prime: 135, F/1.8 or 85, F/1.4

Unread post by David Kilpatrick »

Jeff - I have fixed your image codes. When posting from pBase, paste in your URL:

http://www.pbase.com/jstaylor/image/104192137

then add /large.jpg to the end of this - ...ge/104192137/large.jpg

Finally, enclose this in BBCode brackets (you can do so by clicking the IMG button above the composition pane for posting message, before pasting in the URL and adding the /large.jpg size definer).

David
jbtaylor
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Re: Carl-Zeiss Prime: 135, F/1.8 or 85, F/1.4

Unread post by jbtaylor »

Thank you aster and of course David.
You folks have built a nice place here. Think I will stick around.
JT
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Dr. Harout
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Re: Carl-Zeiss Prime: 135, F/1.8 or 85, F/1.4

Unread post by Dr. Harout »

jbtaylor wrote:Thank you aster and of course David.
You folks have built a nice place here. Think I will stick around.
JT
And that would be the best thing to do. Wonderful shots. :D
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artaphot
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Re: Carl-Zeiss Prime: 135, F/1.8 or 85, F/1.4

Unread post by artaphot »

The choice depends largely on you. 85mm on a900 is a pefect lens for portraits. 135mm on a700/a100 is something completely different. Still great for people photography (the three main shots on my http://www.artaphot.ch" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; hompage were done with a100 plus Zeiss 135mm), but very different from 85mm on a900 indeed.

Both lenses are probably the sharpest in their focal range, better than Canon 1.2/85mm L and better than 2/135mm L (as a new Canon => Sony a900 user reported on dpreview recently). I have used the 135mm on the a900 as well, very sharp even at f1.8 and even in the corners. The 85 (at f1.4) will not be as sharp, I guess, but still very good.

Stephan
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Re: Carl-Zeiss Prime: 135, F/1.8 or 85, F/1.4

Unread post by aster »

Thank you artaphot, :D

Your experience with these very brilliant lenses on various APS-C Alphas and FF DSL-R Alpha is much appreciated. I looked at the galleries at your website and must say those are very intriguing photos of various subjects.
Your comparison shots and 100% crops with different lenses ammount to good archives.
I own the A100 at the moment, will evetually upgrade to either A700 or straight to the FF A900, therefore an on-multi-camera-testing for each lens is dear to me. :)

Thanks again,
Yildiz
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