The name Zeiss needs no introduction in the field of lenses & optics, having been a cornerstone of the industry for countless decades. Recently however, Zeiss have stepped up its efforts for the DSLR market and last year announced a couple of fast (f/1.4) lenses for the popular 50mm and 85mm / normal telephoto range. I was given the Zeiss 85mm f1.4 for a couple of weeks to try on my Canon 5D Mark II and here are my findings.

Intro

I’ve used a lot of Zeiss glass in the past, both from the original “made in germany” breeding (e.g. Hasselblad) as well as the more recent Cosina / made in Japan versions (e.g. Zeiss Ikon). This is the first Zeiss lens I’ve used on a Canon though. I was pretty excited – partly because 85mm is a very nice focal range for my shooting style on a full frame / 35mm body, but also because of Zeiss’ reputation. The 1.4 is very fast on a 85mm. The shallow depth of field, which is so important for creative portraits / photography, is only surpassed at this focal length by a handful of lenses, including Canon’s own legendary 85mm f1.2.

The Zeiss 85mm f/1.4 ZE for Canon is priced at $1,283 and available from B&H. This puts it squarely in between two Canon lenses, the Canon 85mm f/1.2 L for $1,840 and the budget but versatile Canon 85mm f/1.8 for $379.

I have shot professionally with every L lens of 300mm and below within the Canon range – with the exception being the 85mm 1.2. I have tried it on a limited basis, and found it to be optically astounding. I still have the 85mm f1.8 which is one of the best value lenses in the Canon range given its useful length, aperture, fast focus and (comparatively) low price.

The rest of this write up will talk through the major features of the Zeiss, with comparisons where necessary to its Canon counterparts.

Build

The first thing that struck me about the Zeiss was its build quality. This is one of the best built modern lenses I’ve handled in quite some time (and can’t think of another offhand that surpasses it in build quality). The lens casing is made of metal and feels extremely solid. It’s heavy, but at about 1.5lbs (650ish grams), it’s about two thirds of weight of the Canon 85mm f1.2 L (which is 2.25lbs or about 1kg). It comes with a hood of course, which is fairly stout – I kept it mounted on during my usage. When mounted on a 5D, it looks like a beast – a very impressive looking piece of glass.

Handling

The Zeiss 85mm f/1.4 ZE mounts on Canon EOS bodies without an adapter. On a full frame lens, it behaves as printed on the box. On a 7D for example, it’ll give a field of view equivalent to roughly a 135mm f/2.0 lens (but with f/1.4 speed). As the lens is designed for Canon mounts, it is able to meter like any other lens. I shoot in aperture mode 95%+ of the time, setting the aperture through the body as per normal and let the camera choose the shutter speed. I found metering to be accurate, although sometimes a little underexposed which is easy to correct through exposure compensation at the time of shooting.

Handing is excellent. It does not have autofocus so you have to focus manually which on a 5D Mark II, is better than most other DSLRs due to the larger viewfinder. The 5D Mark II’s focusing screen is not ideally suited for manual focus however so you have to be familiar with manual focusing or practice (it is possible to upgrade the focusing screen but that’s another topic). In good lighting, I found focusing to be fast and easy, even on the eyes of a portrait subject – but bear in mind that I use manual focus lenses all the time due to my collection of film equipment. Indoors or under poor lighting, focusing is difficult, particularly on subjects with little to no contrast. Having said that, these are exactly the conditions that other lenses (particularly Canon’s 85mm f1.2 L) suffers under also.

To help with the challenges of manual focus, the lens has an Autofocus Confirm feature. This basically means you keep your finger pressed down on the AF button while turning the focus ring and when it’s in focus, it’ll beep. This worked extremely well in good light and under those conditions it is nearly as fast as autofocus for static subjects. When I started using the lens, I relied on my own eyesight for 90% of the time. This shifted significantly over time however and ended up using the AF confirm as my primary form of focusing after a day or so.

The lens has a long barrel rotation, which within the studio for portraits / product shots can lead to extremely accurate focus. There was some discussion online of the focus point shifting slightly during aperture changes but I haven’t noticed this in general operation.

Depending on where you take and for what use will determine as much about how you feel about using manuaI focus on a lens like this. In a studio, it’d be perfect – out at night for street photography (coupled with the large size), less ideal.

Optical Quality – Sharpness, Colour

Colour and contrast on the Zeiss 85mm f/1.4 is great at all apertures. It has that modern high contrast / high quality look that makes images pop – so we can move past this issue right away. Instead, I’ll spend a little time on sharpness as I’m sure this is what everyone wants to know – just how sharp is it. Overall, I’d conclude that center sharpness wide open (f/1.4) is very good while border sharpness is OK. What you’re really getting at this speed is dramatic falloff in depth of field and the resulting creativity. Stopping down to f2 and smaller improves center sharpness to superb levels while the edges improve also. It is expectedly sharper than the 85mm f/1.8. From memory I’d say (and this is just an estimate although it’s backed up from a couple of other reviews online) that it’s slightly softer than the more expensive Canon 85mm f1.2 L.

To give an example of sharpness, here’s a sample shot taken with the aperture set to f/1.4 at dusk. Note these were all from JPG (I could have used RAW for a bit more resolution but JPG is already so good on the 5DM2 it wasn’t really worth the additional work):

(original image at f/1.4)

This is a simple wide open shot. Notice the vignetting – this is standard fare when shooting wide open like this and disappears with a smaller aperture.

Seeing this in 100% crop, you get:

(100% crop at f/1.4)

Here the sharpness is good (you can see those individual wires / pipes running vertically down from the head of the Space Needle) although not perfect. Part of that is due to the CA / purple fringing which is present in the areas of high contrast. Overall, I thought CA was handled v well on the lens generally but as you can see, it’s present here (as I expected).

However, stop down to just f/2.8 and take another look:

(original image at f/2.8)

(100% crop at f/2.8)

For me, this is spectacular and coupled with the 5D Mark II’s awesome sensor, is really about as good as digital photography gets for center sharpness (in terms of pure resolution). Stopping down further to f4 didn’t yield altogether significant real world results at the center as it was already so good:

(100% crop at f/4)

Here’s what the bottom right corner looks like at f4:

Here’s another 100% crop example showing you just how much out of focus capability you get with an 85mm f/1.4.

(original image illustrating the rapid fall off in depth of field at f/1.4)

(100% crop of image at f/1.4)

Optical Quality – Bokeh

When you pay this much for a fast lens – you want it to be able to render the out of focus areas of the image (i.e. bokeh) in a pleasing manner. This is exactly what the Zeiss does in what I’d describe as a “modern” way. Bokeh in modern lens, when engineering correctly, has a smooth / creamy and somewhat linear look to it. Here’s an example of the Zeiss 85mm f/1.4:

(example of OOF / bokeh – as an aside, if you’re wondering why my dog looks this way then you can read more here)

This was shot at f/1.4 and a distance of a few meters (focused manually through the viewfinder although I missed the focus point just slightly and got my dogs nose in focus instead of his eye). Here you see what is little more than a snapshot come to life in a very pleasing manner. The rapid falloff in depth of field coupled with silky smooth rendering of the OOF areas transforms the shot. Here’s another example:

(example of OOF / bokeh)

Recommended uses – Architecture / Landscape lens

You don’t always need a wide lens for architecture and / or landscapes. With its great optics (particularly when stopped down), the lens functions well as an architecture / landscape lens when you have some distance between you and the subject.

Here are a couple of examples from walking around Seattle.

Dusk again, ISO 640 and f/4.5

“Lines”, ISO 400 and f11

Shot at sunrise, ISO 800 and f4

Shot almost directly into the sun. ISO 200 f/2.2 (notice the flare from the sun – a little more than I’d like at this aperture)

And finally three shots of the same scene, one at dusk, one at twilight and one the following morning at sunrise.

Recommended uses – Portrait lens

I didn’t start with this, but it’s most obvious recommendation for this lens and pretty much what it was designed for. You basically have two choices with this lens when it comes to portraits – shoot wide open for extreme subject isolation with good quality, or stop down slightly for a little less subject isolation but insane sharpness. I almost always opt for the former. I didn’t take this lens into a studio – rather choosing to try to use it as a candid portrait lens as I prefer at this focal length. A couple of examples follow:

Quick snapshot at dusk shot wide open and illustrating the dramatic subject isolation you get at 85mm and f1.4.

Another candid portrait, and again shot wide open

More f/1.4 – a little closer this time

OK one final shot wide open

I actually looked through my samples and I realised I don’t have anything stopped down with a portrait shot – I guess that tells you something about my shooting style. Regardless, this is a lovely portrait lens – at this price there isn’t any better.

Recommended uses – Street Photography

Well, I wouldn’t exactly recommend it as the primary purpose of this lens due to the size and lack of AF (or presence of MF without a split screen viewfinder), but it is possible. If you move slowly and try to anticipate scenes, it is possible to shoot street work (or lets compromise and call it “observational photography”) with this glass:

Unattended lawnower, ISO 800 f/1.4

Couple with dog, ISO 640 f/1.4

Morning rowers. ISO 800, f/2.2, not as sharp as it could have been as I anticipated the shutter speed poorly and should have set the ISO higher (this was 1/125 – should be 1/500 really)

Shot at dusk at ISO 400 and f/5

Wire art. ISO 800 f/2.8

Conclusion

OK that brings me to a close with the image samples. In terms of a summary of the positives regarding this lens, here they are.

• Fantastic all metal construction / build quality
• Compatible with Canon EOS bodies without an adapter and with metering and AF confirm
• Fast f/1.4 max aperture allows for creative photography and portraits while maintaining good image quality
• Wonderful subject isolation at f/1.4 and super smooth bokeh
• Stopping down to f2 or f2/.8 and lower produces stunningly sharp results in the center and very good results in the corners
• Price sits somewhere between the Canon 85mm f/1.2 L and Canon 85mm f/1.8 budget lens
• Not compact by any means, but lighter than the top of the range Canon

The lens is clearly a high quality piece of glass, and I think the big question for potential buyers really comes down to two things – whether the lack of autofocus is a significant barrier to entry and whether the price offers the right balance of performance / value. Ultimate I beleive it’ll depend on the intended use. If you want a cheap / lightweight / fast performing medium telephoto lens, with the emphasis being on all those features, beyou really need to go with the Canon 85mm f/1.8 (and most wedding photographers do).

If you want the absolute best optical quality and fastest glass (with the shallowest DOF) AND money is no object, then the Canon 85mm f/1.2 may be your best bet.

However, if you need a blend of the two – better optical quality and speed than the f/1.8, while better portability and price then the f/1.2, then Zeiss has now given you that option in the Zeiss 85mm f/1.4 ZE. I brought this lens around with me as a secondary camera + lens combo and managed to get some great shots with it. With prolonged or dedicated use, I think I can get some spectacular results, particularly in the area of portraits.

This lens would be a perfect addition for a studio and offers the flexibility of being able to be brought around for other uses (landscape, candids etc) at a price where the word “compromise” is a very good thing.