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Take your favorite wide angle zoom, rack it in to it's widest angle setting, point it at a brick wall and take a picture. Make a 5x7 or 8x10 print from that file or negative and look at the straight lines of mortar between the bricks. Do they bow up? Are they wavey? Do they bow inward? Odds are they do and that's called distortion and it's the bane of all wide angle lenses. It's why the horizon line seems to bulge upward in the middle on all those vacation photos you took down at the beach or why the palm trees at the edges of the photo seem to be leaning inward like some kind of arboreal vultures. The wider the angle of view, the harder it is for lens designers to control distortion. This is especially true for SLR lenses that have to be mounted farther from the film plane than a rangefinder lens in order to create a space for the mirror to move. Now imagine a 21mm wide angle lens that weighs a couple of ounces, fits in a shirt pocket, has a fast f2.8 aperture, is autofocusing and takes photographs that show essentially ZERO distortion edge to edge. The 21mm Contax Carl Zeiss Biogon is that lens. Designed for the now discontinued but superb Contax G1/G2 rangefinder cameras it is worth purchasing one of these bodies just to be able to use this incredible optic. Mine is permanently mounted on my G1 and goes with me even on "all digital" photo trips. The whole package, lens, body and finder weigh less than any one of the lenses in my digital or film SLR kit. If a high quality, distortion free verywide angle lens is what you're looking for, you could do much much worse. The only reason I have downgraded the lens to a 4/5 is the fact that it only fits the Contax G series of cameras.Read full review
Really great lens! Super sharp. Nice example of the zeiss look in images taken with it Great focal length for wide landscape shots. Manual focus feels great and dials in very nicely and easily. Can't say enough good things about this lens.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
If the Zeiss ZE 21 is not the best wide angle lens available, it is definitely a very close contender to the ultimate wide angle lens. Simple (manual focus) built like a tank (steel). No play in the focus ring - at all - period. The ZE still communicates focus to the camera even though it's manual and the camera focus notification still works.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
This lens is probably the finest lens I own due to it's sharpness, contrast, color saturation and overall resolution of detail. It's well-made and fairly easy to focus. I shoot product, food and architecture and don't miss the AF as I am usually tethered to my Mac. One area I've noticed that I have to compensate for is that the lens is about 1/2 to 3/4 of a stop darker at a given f-stop compared to my 35, TS-E II 24 or 14 II mm Canon L lenses. I see the difference instantly on the Mac when I switch lenses. I use Lightroom or Capture One for pre-processing so it's not a big negative, but something that you should be aware of. When I hit the road on industry magazine assignments, this lens goes with me everywhere. The 21mm angle of view enables me to capture dramatic compositions in which to augment the articles.Read full review
I bought this CZ 21mm simply because this is the best 21mm in the market, but sadly it is discontinued. It is sharp from corner to corner on my Canon 1Ds2 even wide open. Combined with a adapter (CZ to EOS) one can still have correct exposure and focus confirmation when manual focusing. The build of this lens is very solid, the design is very different from most Japanese SLR lenses, whether you think this is old-fashioned is very personal. The only drawback of this lens is the wavy distortion (not simply barrel or pincushion distortion) makes it not suitable for serious architectural pictures, but for ordinary landscape this is the dream lens to have. If you can find a reasonable priced copy in ebay then get it! You won't regret about this purchase.......unless CZ resurrects this lens for Nikon SLR. :-) (then you can buy an adapter for Nikon to EOS)Read full review
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