By Sandy Ramirez
September 19, 2014
The View in the Pit. Canon 5D Mark III
Recently Carl Zeiss announced a new lens in their Otus line of lenses for DSLRs. The 85/1.4is Zeiss’ answer to the question “What do I use for a portrait lens?” Let me start this review with the question many of you are asking – is it a good lens? To be perfectly honest this is easily the best 85mm lens currently available for 35mm based DSLRs. I will even go further and say that with the exception of the Zeiss 80/2 for the old Contax 645 medium format system, this is the best 70-90mm lens I have ever used. End of Discussion.
The stuff dreams are made of…TheZeiss Otus 85/1.4
The Otus is a handsome fat lens. Its all black metal body exudes the sort of quality one would expect from some Mercedes SLK Black than a mere lens. Once in your hands the heft of the lens while apparent is quickly overcome by the sheer feel of quality. Its focus ring turns with a buttery smoothness, yet stays confidently where you turn it. It’s so decadent that even a Leica 35mm Summicronwould look upon it with a knowing envy. The comparison to Leica is quite apparent. Like the Summicron, the Otus is an all manual focus affair.
Style and Attitude
To test why one would get this lens, I decided to do a few street fashion portraits at Lincoln Center as it is Fashion Week here in NYC as I write this article. For me, any lens can do well stopped down to say f/4 and above. The real test is how good it is wide open at its maximum aperture. As many of you know DXO has already tested this lens and rated it the best 85 lens on the market. Here is the proof in a real world situation. Every shot I did for this article was at f/1.4. As I said before, stopping down forgives a world of ills, and I got outstanding performance at maximum aperture. The shot above is a prime example. Shot as ISO100 the level of detail wide open is amazing.
Look at all that detail
Many short telephotos would struggle at best to get this level of detail wide open, not to mention stopped down a bit. The level of sharpness and contrast is quite simply amazing. Let’s take a look at another image from the Otus.
Look at the bokeh….so pretty….the bokeh…
Zeiss claims that the new Otus has a neutral rendering of the bokeh, giving near MF image quality of full frame cameras like the Canon 5D Mark IIIused in this review or say the Nikon D810if you purchase the Nikon Mount Version. I must agree with them. The draw of this lens is classic Zeiss, and by that I do not mean the 35mm gear they built, but the famed lenses they made for the Hasselblad V-Mounts or the old Contax Medium Format cameras. The smooth soft background with the sharpness of the subject creates that famed “Zeiss pop” of subject isolation giving a very three dimensional feel to the image. The color rendition is unmistakably Zeiss as well tending to a pleasing warmth in the draw compared to the cooler draw of Canon lenses. As a studio lens or general purpose portrait lens you cannot get any better that the Zeiss Otus. The contacts on the lens work with the AF system to provide focus confirmation, which is quite useful.
Gingham
Of course there will be those that feel that you cannot shoot without auto focus. “It is a must!!! There was no such thing as photography before it and digital!!!!” will cry these folks who primarily live on the Internet. To test if said lens would work in a more “mission critical” environment. Runway.
Betsey Johnson SS2015. Don’t try this at home…
If you recall my previous article on runway photography, the requirements for a lens are definitely not anything that this lens supposedly matches. There is no AF to use for tracking, and as I mentioned everything was shot at f/1.4 for this article. So besides a test of whether one can use a lens like this for more “mission critical” applications it would also be a test of some ancient skills I had back before the days of auto focus. Back then we chose a spot on the runway and waited for the model to get there. The DOF of being at say f/8 would cover it from there. Here I did the same thing but decided that it would be all at f/1.4. Could I get useable shots? Yes I could. It works remarkably well with the 5D providing focus confirmation at the spot I decided to shoot the models at. In the end all this proves is that in the right hands one could shoot “mission critical” subjects if one knows how. Would it be easier with an AF lens? Of course, so would it be if I stopped down to say f/5.6.
Duo Tone
So what have we learned in all this? Well basically this is the best 85mm lens out there regardless of system or format. Is it for everyone? No. For some, the lack of AF is a deal breaker, though in truth those who have the skill can get around that. It just means you have to actually work for the results. If you shoot only stills deciding on this lens can be difficult. While yes it is miles ahead of any other 85 out there, does the way you shoot work with having a manual focus lens? If you shoot video on a DSLR, then the decision becomes far simpler, an unequivocal yes. There is no reason not to use the best lens you can get for shooting cinematic work. Seriously this lens will make your typical DSLR generate video that looks like 70mm Panavision. I highly recommend a test drive with this lens before you purchase unless of course you shoot video. If you do shoot video, just throw your wallet at the register and get this lens, you will not regret it.
Feel free to ask any questions below.
All images used with permission by Sandy Ramirez
