Some time ago I have a great chance to pick up one of these for about $400 less than the local retail price. I took the chance to test out the lens but was disappointed with some unknown problems with it so I'm didn't manage to offload more than $1000 from my pockets for a piece of dream glass. (Literally dream glass as I dreamt of it the day before I went to test that lens) The Sony/Minolta mount is the only DSLR camera that have access to premium autofocus Carl Zeiss lens unless you want to go to the Leica 4/3 mount option with Olympus/Panasonic.
Maybe it would be more worthwhile to wait for price drop because I'm pretty sure it will be sold for much lesser than the amount it commands now when new Carl Zeiss lens are finally out in the near future. (And when ppl starts to sell their CZ lens for newer ones etc). After all, I'm enjoying the fact that I managed to source for great 2nd hand deals so far and managed to recoup my investments by selling some of the lenses away. Something that is not possible if I go for brand new lens.
Anyway, here's the sample photos from the CZ lens that I tested in comparison to my KM 28-75mm f2.8 lens. Which is a gem if you ask me.
And let the technical stuff begins
The original resized photos of indoor test shot. On the left - 16-80mm f3.5-4.5 CZ , on the right - KM 28-75mm f2.8. Taken at 80mm for the CZ lens and 75mm for the KM one both at f4.5 and the exposure settings (ISO etc) are kept the same. Focus by centre spot.
CZ indoor centre 100% crop
KM indoor centre 100% crop
The results are obvious, the KM shot shows better sharpness at centre frame. And judging from the crops, maybe the CZ lens did not get the focus accurately. Maybe it was slightly back focussed. I tried many shots with the CZ lens and all samples turned up like this. I was taken aback by the relatively poor performance of the CZ lens compared to the KM. I thought it would at least be comparable and given the better range, make it a better walkaround lens for me.
It was suggested that the problem could be that the CZ have problem focusing in low light situations, so I brought it to shoot some brighter outdoor scenes.
Resized shots of the 2nd test site. Again, left is CZ, right is KM. With similar settings once again and tested many shots. The ones you see here are the better shots I got from CZ. Again focus is set at centre spot.
Centre crop for the CZ lens
Centre crop for the KM lens
Let's study the road sign that is about 10 m behind instead
CZ version
KM version
The CZ version seems a tad better for the road sign behind, so could it be that the CZ lens consistently back focussed a little compared to the KM lens? After trying 2 different CZ 16-80mm lens indoors and outdoors getting the same results for both photographers. I decided that the CZ may not be for me. At least not those 2 copies that I sampled.
This is only the first stage of the testing of CZ lens and I have already rejected it. I sampled the corner sharpness and it's incredibly sharp, but unable to find the right focus plane makes it a deal breaker for me. I read somewhere that the CZ lens is a strange beast, it does not like high contrast sites for focusing and prefer low contrast details for focusing. I have yet to try it out but even if it is true, I don't believe in spending over 1K on a lens and have to deal with so many problems. Right now, I'll just stick with my el-cheapo kit lens for my wide angle needs, until I wait for the next good deal to come along.
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