Carl Zeiss 85mm f/1.4 Planar T* 1.4/85

SLRgear Review
July 5, 2010
by Andrew Alexander

Carl Zeiss has been offering prime lenses in the ZF format for some time now, offering a high-quality alternative, but with only manual focus. The 85mm ƒ/1.4 Planar is among these options, available for the Canon EF-Mount (ZE), Nikon F-Mount (ZF, ZF.2) and Pentax K-Mount (ZK).

The 85mm ƒ/2 ships with a circular lens hood, takes 72mm filters, and is compatible with full-frame and APS-C digital SLR camera bodies. It is available now for around $1,000.

Sharpness
The Carl Zeiss 85mm ƒ/1.4 Planar is a sharp lens, but for maximum sharpness it must be used stopped-down to at least ƒ/4. Wide open at ƒ/1.4, the lens is not tack-sharp, producing images on the full-frame D3x where the center is in the range of 2 blur units, and there is some corner softness, around 3 blur units. As the lens is stopped down, its performance improves: at ƒ/2, the corners stay at 3 blur units, but the center sweet spot has improved to about 1.5 blur units. At ƒ/2.8, the corners come under control and reduce to just under 2 blur units, while the center is just over 1 blur unit. At ƒ/4 the lens is essentially tack-sharp across the frame (1 blur unit) and stays this way until ƒ/8. At ƒ/11, diffraction limiting has started to set in, and we note results of just under 1.5 blur units across the frame; fully stopped-down at ƒ/16, we note 1.5 blur units across the frame.

It's pretty much the same story on the D200, though the corners are slightly better at the wider apertures given the reduced capture size of the APS-C image sensor. In summary, excellent results for sharpness when stopped down, but don't expect tack-sharp results when used wide open.

Chromatic Aberration
Chromatic aberration is extremely well-controlled. On the D200, which does not automatically correct for CA, our test results show very little; however, when used wide open, the inherent softness (if you can call 2-3 blur units soft) of the lens is enough to aggravate color fringing in areas of high contrast. Check the sample images for real-world performance in this regard. On the D3x, CA is very hard to detect; stopped down significantly, sample images show no fringing at all.

Shading (''Vignetting'')
Mounted on the D200, the Zeiss 85mm ƒ/1.4 produces almost no corner shading. The only shading to speak of is when the lens is used wide open at ƒ/1.4, where the extreme corners are a third-of-a-stop darker than the center.

On the D3x, it's slightly more prominent, but not much. At ƒ/1.4, the corners are a half-stop darker than the center; at ƒ/2, the corners are a third-of-a-stop darker. At ƒ/2.8 and smaller, corner shading is non-existent.

Distortion
The Zeiss 85mm ƒ/1.4 produces negligible distortion, on either the D200 or D3x.

Autofocus Operation
The Zeiss 85mm ƒ/1.4 is a manual-focus-only lens.

Macro
The 85mm ƒ/1.4 isn't a macro lens. The minimum close-focusing distance is good for close subjects, at just over three feet (1 meter); however, at this range, its magnification is only 0.10x.

Build Quality and Handling
The Carl Zeiss 85mm ƒ/1.4 is built with an old-school appreciation to quality. The lens is fairly heavy, using a construction of both plastic and metal, weighing in at 21-23 ounces (600-670 grams, depending on mount). Both the body mount and filter threads are metal. There are no buttons on the lens, and you'll have to ensure that the version you have is compatible with the camera you intend to use it on; in some cases, this may be in manual mode only (though in the Nikon version, Zeiss has released a ZF.2 version which includes CPU contacts that address this issue). The lens features an aperture ring, a distance scale marked in feet and meters, and a depth-of-field scale (ƒ/4-ƒ/16) with an infrared index mark.

The focusing ring is the manual control surface on the lens. It's a ribbed polycarbonate ring, 5/8'' wide. It has excellent manual focus response (as you'd expect) with a very smooth turning action, and offers an absolutely huge amount of play - about 250 degrees of turning action from minimum close-focus to infinity. The lens won't focus past infinity however, with hard stops at the close and infinity ends. There is a slight amount of lens extension as the lens is focused - about 1/2''. The front element of the lens won't turn during focusing, making life that much easier for polarizer users. The lens takes 72mm filters.

The lens ships with a circular lens hood, which can be reversed and stored on the lens via the bayonet mount. The interior of the lens is flocked to reduce stray light, and when mounted, the lens hood adds 1 1/4 inches to the overall length.

Alternatives

When considering other options, it's worth stating the obvious: the Canon, Nikon and Pentax primes all have autofocus motors, while the Zeiss lens does not.

Canon EF 85mm ƒ/1.2L II USM ~$1,900
The Canon 85mm ƒ/1.2 is an excellent lens, producing results very similar to the Carl Zeiss, but offering an extra third-stop of speed (ƒ/1.2 instead of ƒ/1.4 as a maximum aperture). The lenses are very close in terms of their potential sharpness, and both produce very low levels of chromatic aberration. Corner shading is just slightly more prominent in the Canon lens, as is some slight distortion when used full-frame.

Nikon 85mm ƒ/1.4D AF Nikkor ~$1,100
An almost legendary portrait lens, our testing showed that on a full-frame body the corners are extremely soft, but in the case of portrait photography, this can actually be an advantage. In terms of overall sharpness, the Carl Zeiss achieves across-the-frame sharpness at ƒ/4, while one must stop down to at least ƒ/8 for the same performance from the Nikon. Distortion and chromatic aberration results are similar, perhaps a hair better on the Carl Zeiss, and the Nikon exhibits more corner shading.

Pentax 55mm ƒ/1.4 SDM SMC DA* ~$800
Pentax's offering in the 85mm category has been discontinued, but as Pentax doesn't produce a full-frame digital camera body, the closest digital equivalent (taking into account the 1.5x crop factor) would be this lens. The 55mm ƒ/1.4 SDM is very sharp, quite similar to the Zeiss 85mm in fact, and perhaps even a hair sharper at ƒ/2.8 than the Zeiss. Corner shading is similar, though the Pentax distorts slightly and there is a tad more chromatic aberration to speak of.

Conclusion
Once again, Zeiss has produced an excellent prime lens, comparable with any of those offered by the manufacturers it can be used with. If you don't need or want autofocus, this is an excellent manual focus alternative; its 250 degrees of manual focus action are really quite lovely to work with, allowing you great fidelity when finding the correct focus point (and when working with the ƒ/1.4 aperture, you'll need it).

Sample Photos

The VFA target should give you a good idea of sharpness in the center and corners, as well as some idea of the extent of barrel or pincushion distortion and chromatic aberration, while the Still Life subject may help in judging contrast and color. We shoot both images using the default JPEG settings and manual white balance of our test bodies, so the images should be quite consistent from lens to lens.

Still Life shot

VFA target

As appropriate, we shoot these with both full-frame and sub-frame bodies, at a range of focal lengths, and at both maximum aperture and ƒ/8. For the ''VFA'' target (the viewfinder accuracy target from Imaging Resource), we also provide sample crops from the center and upper-left corner of each shot, so you can quickly get a sense of relative sharpness, without having to download and inspect the full-res images. To avoid space limitations with the layout of our review pages, indexes to the test shots launch in separate windows.