A Year with Zeiss Lenses

More than a year had passed since I started migrating to Zeiss lenses – and I still couldn’t be happier. This, together with the Canon 5DS R completely transformed how I approach my subjects. The resulting files reflect what I see and how I see it. Every time. No additional frills that need to be edited out in post.

Fall Morning

Fall Morning

No matter if I work slowly and deliberately under a dark cloth, tethered to a MacBook Air, or – as it was the case with the above image – shooting handheld from a moving boat. The images are always stunning. I’ve never been so satisfied with any photographic equipment. These words shouldn’t be taken lightly – I’m an extremely hard-to-please man.

The only thing I miss with this setup is movements. A few degrees of tilt/swing here and there, plus a couple of millimeters rise/fall/shift could save the day sometimes. Well, if you think that I’m exploring the possibilities in this area, you are right. But more on my findings later.

The Circle

I love the 5:2 aspect ratio. And I dislike the majority of the “trees from below” kind of images. But this afternoon I was unable to resist the temptation to turn my pano shooting rig upwards – the scene was simply too graphic to ignore.

The Circle

The Circle

And like all of my 5:2 images, this one really shines on a 40 cm x 1m print.

“Damn, I Would Need a Tilt/Shift for That”

I can’t remember how many times I had to say the above… Until my 24mm TS-E lens arrived, of course. This is a kind of scene that you can’t photograph without such a lens (OK, you can do that with a 2m ladder). The other option would be perspective correction after the fact – losing substantial amount of resolution. But for a stunning 40 x 60 cm print you need the resolution.

Because of the slight overexposure I employed here (to add to the glowing fog feel), there was some cyan CA at high contrast edges along the top 1/5 of the image (the lens was shifted a lot), but nothing that can’t be corrected quickly in post.

I must admit: the TS-E 24 is my favorite landscape lens.

The Dividing Line