Compared to the last one, this is an all-natural post. The photo perfectly illustrates what I love about the ZF 25/2.8: Very close focusing on a small flower, great sharpness, and nice bokeh around the central (sharp and highly detailed) image.
(Click to enlarge and see the beautiful full-size image or settle for mediocrity your entire life.)
These were taken in Maki’s dad’s garden, although they could have been taken anywhere. (Yes many pixels were harmed and forced into unnatural configurations in the creation of this post.)
I’m referring to my new lens, of course, which I now have back in my possession, along with all the photos I took last weekend, because Maki’s dad was nice enough to take the nearly three-hour train ride (one hour on the express, but that’s for non-train-loving wussies, according to him) here to give it to me. Thanks Maki’s dad!
One of the things that appealed to me about the Zeiss 25/2.8, aside from extreme sharpness and freedom from modern evils such as autofocus and zooming, is the very low minimum focus distance. All lenses can only focus on things a certain distance away from them; just as you see old people move a newspaper away from themselves to read it. Well, the Zeiss can focus up to only 3 inches or so away from the front of the lens. This makes it almost a macro lens. But, at the same time it’s pretty wide at 25 mm. So, you gain the ability to take “environmental macros,” or close-up shots that also are wide enough to include more context than most macro shots show.
Here are just a few shots taken from a day at the park in Takefu, Maki’s hometown.
People were wondering why I was lying one the ground to get this shot.
Do you see a resemblance?
One at f/8 for a wide depth of field and wonderful sharpness…
And one at f/2.8 for a very narrow depth of field…
Obutsudan means a home Buddhist shrine. This is the one at Maki’s parents’ house, taken when we went up there last weekend. Maki’s mom is very devote, and offers prayers as well as food offerings every day. Most Japanese houses have one, although not usually as extravagant as this one.
I wish I knew what kind of lens was used to take this awesome photo.
So I bought a new lens. Traded in my beloved Sigma 10-20 and Nikon 35/2 for this beauty.
Went to the wife’s house over the long vacation and took many beautiful pictures with it.
Proceeded to leave it at wife’s parents’ house a couple hours away when coming back today, stranding camera, new lens, computer, and all my new photos with it until I can spare a day to go up there and get it all back myself (no way I’m having them send it!).
So, like I said, aaarrgh….
(I went to the camera store to pick up a mid-range zoom. I really did. I need a mid-range zoom really badly, especially for indoor pictures of the kids. Went to the store ready to buy any one of a number of zooms, but that which really had my lens-lust up was the new 24-70 by Nikon. I even brought along my precious ZF 100/2 to hock for it if need be. However, when I got there and tried it out it didn’t give me all that great results on my Fuji, which I had read had issues with that lens. But they had this box with the ZF 25/2.8 sitting there eyeing me, bringing to mind all the gorgeous photos I’ve seen taken with it. The big hunk of metal and glass beckoned. The Nikon zoom, with its silicon and plastic and nano-schmamo, seemed so faddish. So, I succumbed to retro-techno-lust once more and bought the much less practical but much more beautiful Zeiss, forgoing things like autofocus and zooming that taking pictures of kids really requires. I guess I have the camera-phone for that.)
