Contax Carl Zeiss Planar 85/1.4 T* : Portraiture excellence

One of the bargains I found that is normally not a bargain was my Contax Planar 85 lens , or to call it by its full name the:

Cpntax Carl Zeiss T* 85/1.4 Planar   I got for a really great price from a retired photographer in Saskatoon

The downside of it is that it wont work on my KX without some hardware modifications and I am reluctant to do so as its a rare German made version as I said before.

 The upside is : the incredible clarity and definition even on a 7 year old Canon Rebel XT , this was taken at a party for my daughter and using natural light only . Handheld and wide open my mother seems to pop out of the frame, but as she said " I look like an old woman" funny how being 67 does that to someone!

Contax Carl Zeiss Planar 85mm /1.4 T* sharp as a razor......well if someone else uses it

This is one of the sharpest lenses ever created, so of course I used it to take some abstract nature shots :)

  This one was taken wide open outside the YMCA as the summer sun dropped behind the trees and buildings , using the older Canon Rebel XT as Pentax wont accept the Contax /Yashica mount lenses unless you do some hardware modifications to it , its not destructive, but a bit pricey and fiddly the gentlemans website is here: Contax and Leica mods for Pentax   I havent tried them myself, but I hear really good things about the work he has done for others .

A small tidbit about this lens is that it is the MMG version ( G for made in W Germany, as opposed to the MMJ made in, you guessed it, Japan)  I really like this lens, but its worth quite  abit of money and I dont want to hack/mod it, so I will probably sell it in the near future and use the money for something almost as good ( details to follow!)

thanks for reading, now I am running out of archived photos and will have to get to work!

Autumn Sunset with Zeiss Planar T* 85mm at F2.0

I found this on my hard drive as I was backing up some photos, apparently I forgot I took this :)

 using my Rebel XT and the contax yashica adapter  , I was able to shoot into the sun using the 85 planar f1.4, I made sure the sun was either blurred by the tree or didnt look directly into the viewfinder, all that glass + sunlight could be dangerous

 The irony here is that teh planar lenses are  som of the finest and sharpest glass made, and i seem to spend all my time taking abstracts with them, c'est la vie!

Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm/1,7 : Wide open!

I managed to find a CZ T* Planar 50mm for a really good price , 200 dollars canadian , with caps and a UV filter, it is MINT , but unfortunately for me, it is in the Contax/yashica mount which doesnt work with my preferred Pentax KX.

 So I had to break out my old ( 2003) Canon Rebel XT ( EOS 350) and use that instead, so I pop the lens on  , take a few shots and uploaded them to the PC , this one came out really nice,its shot at f1.7 and is the last vestiges of sunlight streaming through the blinds to my computer room, quite sharp for wide open.

I did some research and on some sites the Planar 50/1,7 is regarded by some as one of the sharpest 50mms ever made, and it definitely has a beautiful build quality , the focus is silky smooth, the only downside is that now I have 2 camera bodies and the only reason for keeping the Rebel is to use the planars :(

Zeiss Planar 85 T* : Another desktop for you

Another desktop shot, this one taken with the Zeiss Planar lens from 1984 T* 85mm f1.4 @f1.4 on a Canon rebel XT T*

 Its a triptych , an artsy way of saying a 3 piece :) put together using photoshop.

Some people couldnt figure out what it was: its the light from outdoors shining through the patterned glass on my front door , this is the hallway wall!

Bokeh Inferno : desktop wallpaper Zeiss Planar 85mm f1.4 wide open

this one taken with a Zeiss Planar 85 T* on my Rebel XT using a fotodiox Contax/yashica > EOS adapter


The lens itself is a beauty and its a rare German made MMG model, it was made around the time zeiss was working with yashica, so the originals were made in W Germany, then the production was moved to Japan with German technicians and quality control engineers