Zeiss N70-200 vs. Zeiss N70-300

[Guest]

I was considering 28-80 lens (that's was my question about difference between 28-80 and 24-85). I ordered that lens from a warehouse. I had several days to check it and eventually return to a seller. So I got one and shot some pictures. One of them is on the screen "a piece of wood". Yesterday I returned this lens because I'm not satisfied with this sharpness. Maybe I do something wrong, or maybe this is not so great lens like 24-85? Now I ordered 24-85 and I'm curious if I get better quality (sharpness). I'm satisfied with the pictures I can see on that forum, but what I got using this lens is not exactly what I expected. Does anybody have any experience with 28-80? Most people use standard lens for Contax N1, it's 24-85, but I thought that if I don't need 4mm wider lens, I can save some money. I didn't scan this photo personally, I just sent it to a lab and ordered CD together with prints. I'll upload another one picture I did in the same time. I put the filter HOYA 81A on my lens, but I dodn't think that it made any difference in sharpness.

 

[Guest]

This is my 2nd picture shot by 28-80. Again, in my opinion these leaves are not as sharp as others pictures in this forum (probably shot by 24-85). The same film FUJI Superia X-TRA 400 with HOYA 81A filter. One idea came to my head... Is is possible that these pictures are not so sharp because I used a negative film instead slide?
I had to compress both pictures using Photoshop because they were to big to upload. I saved to jpg format using 72 dpi (typical scree resolution) and using quality 10 (12 is max). I know that using compression I'll loose some quality, but now when I'm comparing this uploaded photo to my original (before compression) photo, I can't see any difference, so this is very similar photo to my uncompressed file.

Kris.

 

[Guest]

Hi Kris,

I am using the 28-80 but I am quite curious about the 24-85 as well. The price and weight of the 24-85 prevents me from getting it. I was just on hike yesterday and the light weight of NX and 28-80 combo was a blessing. My feet were tired but my neck was spared.

For handheld shots, factors that cause the image to be less sharp can be camera shake or slow shutter speed in relation to the zoom/focal length (the norm is to use shutter speed equal to the zoom/focal length or better yet, twice the zoom/focal length). But I guess you know that already.

If it helps, here again is my test shot with the 28-80 (my earlier post did not upload correctly). It's one stop over-exposed (which explains the bright red). So far, I am satisfied with the 28-80. The negative was originally scanned at 600x404 at 72dpi. Then I resized the image in Photoshop Elements.

Please do post pictures taken with the 24-85. I would love to see how sharp the images can be and read your comparison.

 

[dirk]

Kris,

sharpness of a photo is determined by many different factors. There more obvious ones is handshake.

If you want to shoot handshake free without a tripod, you actually need a speed of 1/250 at least with the 28-80. The bigger the lens the faster the shutterspedd must be.

2nd reason could be wrong focussing. The N1 is not always right calibrated. You see this above all, if you use the split-screen for focusing (optional for N1). This is not nice to hear, but prevents in too early wrong judgements about the focus accuracy of the N1. Contax will fix that normally for free.

3rd. The film might be too old or just not good

4th. Your lab did a bad job for the prints. Try thze same neg with another lab to make sure.

5th. if you test sharpness or qaulity of a sstem, NEVER put a filter in front of it!

6th. Pay attention which aperture you are using. With some lenses at 2.8 or 3.5 the DOF is just to shallow to give pleasing results...

try it out, and use something like a wall with some nice structures and colours and more DOF in it.

dirk

 

[Guest]

Regarding to the post above; I can agree with some suggestions, but not with all of them.

1st. - "a speed of 1/250 at least with the 28-80". That's would be true. Next time I'll do the same using faster speed.

2nd. - I'm not sure, unlikely reason. As you can see, there is no big depth of field (a piece of wood). The difference between the closest and the farest object is about 2 or 3 inches. The largest aperture you can set in this lens is 3.5 or 4 (depends on focal lenght). I remember that the subject was very sharp through the viewfinder. I didn't shoot this picture in any kind of rush. So using aperture 3.5 this piece of wood should be sharp enough even if focus wasn't very accurate.

3rd. - The film was far away from end of developing date. Again, unlikely reason.

4rd. - In my opinion this is the most likely reason. I'll try to develop my new film in a different lab. Does anybody know any good place, where you can develop a film via mail?

5rd. - I read in many photo magazines, and not only that this filter has very small influence (almost not at all) on sharpness of final result. Next time I'll take a series of pictures with and without this filter. In my opinion unlikely reason.

In a week or so, I'll upload some pictures using 24-85 targeted at the same subjects.

I forgot to add that the pictures I uploaded were shot at speed about 1/125 and 1/90, I thought it's enough to eliminate influence of handshaking. I suppose faster speed is required if you use a lens at least 140 or more, but 80mm or zoom mode (the same 80mm) is not so demanding.

Kris.