Any experience with the Zeiss 50mm Makro on Sony E?

[Barmaglot]

On 3/12/2024 at 6:24 AM, Lewis88 said:

Lens arrived today, and was already firmware updated!

 

Also based on some crude measurements and holding the inside port glass of my 40mm port to the lens front, I need 31+ mm of extension. So looks like the 2x 17mm rings will work just fine. They arrive later this week. 

 

Also threw the dome on without any extensions and it fits and would focus in air. Not sure how much being off the optical center is affecting it though.

If you ever end up taking it on a blackwater dive, please sound off with the results. I'm curious as to how it would perform vis a vis an adapted Canon 60mm. I'm currently transitioning from an a6300 to a6700, and while the 90mm has received a very substantial boost in autofocus performance, the Canon 60mm still suffers from hunting, so I'm pondering selling it and getting a Zeiss 50mm instead - while the 90mm autofocus can probably handle blackwater with the new body, its field of view is somewhat too narrow on APS-C when everything is moving around.

[ChipBPhoto]

10 hours ago, Barmaglot said:

If you ever end up taking it on a blackwater dive, please sound off with the results.

Exactly what I am also considering.  I have an a1 and Sony 90, but want something shorter specifically for BlackWater.  Unfortunately the Sony 50 macro is reported as not performing well in the BW conditions.  I realize this is an APS-C lens, but in this environment a little vignetting won’t matter. 

[Barmaglot]

27 minutes ago, ChipBPhoto said:

I realize this is an APS-C lens, but in this environment a little vignetting won’t matter. 

How big is the image circle on the Zeiss lens? I know that the Canon EF-S 60mm has only slight vignetting on full frame, but I haven't seen any tests with the Zeiss 50mm.

[Phil Rudin]

I am failing to grasp why you would want to use the Canon APS-C on full frame or the excellent Zeiss 50mm. With the 60mm you end up with an almost identical AOV V. the Sony 90mm macro which is very fast focusing on the current A1 and A7R V cameras. The Zeiss 50mm macro is 31 degrees V. 27 degrees for the Sony 90mm, not that much wider. By comparison the Sony FE 50mm F/2.8 macro is 47 degrees on full frame, noticeably wider. Add to that the fact that you need to calculate a port configuration. With the Sony 50 macro you use the 32 port that many already own for WWL-1/1B and an N100 40mm extension (I have this extension for sale).

 

Last the Sony 50mm macro has excellent IQ and I think it will outperform the Zeiss 50 and Canon 60 for AF speed and accuracy.

 

With APS-C cameras like Sony A6700 I would be recommending the Zeiss 50 but on full frame I just don't see much if any upside.
 

[Barmaglot]

1 minute ago, Phil Rudin said:

I am failing to grasp why you would want to use the Canon APS-C on full frame or the excellent Zeiss 50mm. With the 60mm you end up with an almost identical AOV V. the Sony 90mm macro which is very fast focusing on the current A1 and A7R V cameras. The Zeiss 50mm macro is 31 degrees V. 27 degrees for the Sony 90mm, not that much wider. By comparison the Sony FE 50mm F/2.8 macro is 47 degrees on full frame, noticeably wider.

The idea is to use the APS-C lens in full-frame mode, without cropping. The 90mm has a fairly narrow field of view, making it challenging to use on blackwater dives, and the FE 50mm is slow. The Canon EF-S 60mm when used on full frame only produces slight vignetting in the corners, which is immaterial for blackwater shots, hence my question as to how big is the actual image circle of the Sony-Zeiss 50mm.

[Phil Rudin]

I have used all of these lenses and I don't believe the Zeiss 50 or the Canon 60 will be any faster than the Sony FE 50mm

assuming they are all being used on the same Sony FF camera. Second we have been seeing excellent blackwater for years taken on APS-C with 60mm equivalent to 90mm on FF and  with the Sony FE 90 macro, Canon 100 macro and Nikon 105mm lenses. I agree that adding a shorter lens allows for a different prospective but the idea that using an APS-C designed 50mm on a FF sensor is somehow going to be better than using the FF Sony 50 macro eludes me.

 

I addition I know many of the excellent photographers shooting BW with lenses in the 90mm or greater equivalent range with FF, APS-C and M43 all are cropping results for most subjects. It seems to me that the 47 degree AOV would result in images needing even greater crops.  

[Lewis88]

2x 17mm extension rings arrived today, and everything fits with 1mm or 2mm to spare between the lens and port glass.

 

So I'm macro ready! Just need the new strobes to arrive so I can get everything tested and packed.

 

Not doing any blackwater in Philippines in May, but maybe on the Belize liveaboard in June.

[hellhole]

hey!! how about us a7riv owner!  i want to get a 50mm and is keen to know how the 50mm macro work on the older cams.

 

 

[Barmaglot]

16 hours ago, Phil Rudin said:

I agree that adding a shorter lens allows for a different prospective but the idea that using an APS-C designed 50mm on a FF sensor is somehow going to be better than using the FF Sony 50 macro eludes me.

The FE 50mm macro lens suffers from a reputation of being very slow. Whether or not this reputation is well deserved, I can't comment, not having used it, but it's there. It also have a fairly limiting minimum aperture of f/16. When I started doing blackwater, my only macro lens was the 90mm, and on my a6300 body, I quickly found it to be unusable, and my search for a better solution led me to Canon EF-S 60mm macro. That lens focuses quite fast, but tends to hunt in less than very good lighting - I have a Weefine Smart Focus 1000 focus light, and I found that I needed to amplify it with my strobes' modeling lights, and frequently my spotting torch as well. On my last trip, I put a 5400lm video light on the housing cold shoe, and this actually worked quite well - I encountered almost no hunting in one and a half blackwater dives that I did.

 

The Canon 60mm, at least on older bodies, focuses much faster than the Sony 90mm, and its image circle provides almost complete coverage of a full-frame sensor - there's slight vignetting in the corners that disappears as you get close to minimum focus distance. The question is, how does the Sony-Zeiss 50mm compare to it in these criteria - focus speed, and sensor coverage. The newer bodies (A1, A7RV, possibly A7CII/A7CR) have made the Sony 90mm a viable option for blackwater, but plenty of people are still using A7IV and older cameras.

 

16 hours ago, Phil Rudin said:

I addition I know many of the excellent photographers shooting BW with lenses in the 90mm or greater equivalent range with FF, APS-C and M43 all are cropping results for most subjects. It seems to me that the 47 degree AOV would result in images needing even greater crops.  

The shorter focal length is for easier target acquisition. You have a wider field of view to acquire your subject from a moderate distance, center them in the frame, lock focus, then move in for maximum feasible magnification. The 90-105mm lenses are a bit narrow in this regard; you have to aim them much more precisely for that initial lock-on - many blackwater photographers consider the '60mm on full-frame' to be the sweet spot between magnification capability of 90-105mm lenses, and wide field of view of 30-40mm lenses. I have personally tried Sony 30mm f/3.5 macro on APS-C and found it too wide - it's easy to do the initial acquisition, but achieving proper magnification requires getting in so close that tracking and lighting become an issue.

 

[VsubT]

Just seeing this thread, so a little late to the game.  I shoot a Zeiss 50mm on Sony a6600 body, and went through the same decision process.  I already own the Canon 60mm lens, but got bogged down in picking an adapter + ports for Sony/Canon and went with the Zeiss 50mm instead after finding a pretty good deal on eBay.

 

Overall, I'm happy with the lens.  Guessing I've had it in blackwater on ~10 dives off south Florida and one in Indonesia.  It does best in blackwater with lots of focus light and the aperture set to a pretty high number with high ISO, shutter around 1/125s.  Not ideal compared to results I see from local Nikon+60mm shooters, but it does the job and is reasonably quick for focus with enough light (either red or white).  A recent blackwater example is here.  Looking at a possible upgrade to Canon R7 with 60mm macro to help with blackwater, but that's a different topic.

 

I used this lens extensively on a recent trip to Indonesia, see this gallery for a variety of macro shots taken with it.  I found it relatively easy to shoot normal macro subjects with it, especially compared to blackwater.

 

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is using the Zeiss 50mm with wet optics.  I found that a CMC-2 on a flip adapter was really useful to get in tighter where field of view was less of a concern, and it gave good results.  Tried it out for the hell of it, and it's on my camera for any non-blackwater macro dives with that lens now.

 

Hope this is helpful.

 

Lance

[Lewis88]

12 minutes ago, VsubT said:

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is using the Zeiss 50mm with wet optics.  I found that a CMC-2 on a flip adapter was really useful to get in tighter where field of view was less of a concern, and it gave good results.  Tried it out for the hell of it, and it's on my camera for any non-blackwater macro dives with that lens now.

 

This is good to hear! I have a +7 diopter on a flip already, and since I'm using the same port, I plan on bringing it and seeing how it does with the zeiss.

[Barmaglot]

1 hour ago, VsubT said:

I shoot a Zeiss 50mm on Sony a6600 body, and went through the same decision process.  I already own the Canon 60mm lens, but got bogged down in picking an adapter + ports for Sony/Canon and went with the Zeiss 50mm instead after finding a pretty good deal on eBay.

How would you rate their focusing speed (traversing between far and close focus, locking on to subject) in air in different lighting conditions, comparing against each other?

[VsubT]

Can’t make a direct comparison, since I never got the Metabones adapter for Canon 60mm on Sony.

 

My Canon body is a T4i, and I’ve had better results for blackwater AF with the a6600 + Zeiss 50mm.  Pretty sure newer Canon bodies would improve AF significantly, but I don’t have direct experience with one. 

 

Lance

[Phil Rudin]

Barmaglot, If you read my post you can clearly see that I am addressing the question within this thread about using an APS-C lens like the Ziess 50mm macro on a full frame camera like the A1 in Chip's case rather than the FF 90mm macro lens. In no way would I have ever recommended the 90mm macro on a Sony APS-C camera especially one as old as the A6300 body. 

 

I have also pointed out that the lens AOV on APS-C using 50 and 60mm macros is close to equal coverage as using the 90mm on full frame so BW distance to subject would be equal give or take a few mm depending on on a 1.5 or 1.6 crop factor. A 60mm equivalent would be more like using the Olympus/Pana 30mm lenses on M43 camera bodies.

 

Regarding the CMC-2 I have used the 2 and the more powerful CMC-1 both on APS-C with the Zeiss 50mm macro with excellent results.  

 

 

 

 

 

[Barmaglot]

32 minutes ago, Phil Rudin said:

 

I have also pointed out that the lens AOV on APS-C using 50 and 60mm macros is close to equal coverage as using the 90mm on full frame so BW distance to subject would be equal give or take a few mm depending on on a 1.5 or 1.6 crop factor. A 60mm equivalent would be more like using the Olympus/Pana 30mm lenses on M43 camera bodies.

Yes, but @ChipBPhoto is looking for something wider than 90mm to use on his A1. Yes, a 60mm lens on FF would be like using a 30mm on M43 - and as it happens, the 30mm is the most popular blackwater lens on M43 cameras. The questions which stand (and thus far haven't been answered) are:

 

1. How large is the actual image circle of the Zeiss 50mm in terms of full-frame coverage? Not in APS-C mode, but in full-frame mode. For Canon EF-S 60mm this is known - full coverage at 1:1, slight corner vignetting at longer distances.
2. How good is its focusing speed and reliability vis a vis Sony FE 50mm and Canon EF-S 60mm?

And again, the wider AoV is not for shooting larger subjects at a similar distance, but for easier target acquisition at distance before moving in to closer distance for similar framing.

 

The FE 50mm would be the obvious solution for a 'wider than 90mm macro lens', but it suffers from limited minimum aperture (f/16) and has a very poor reputation for focusing speed, which may or may not be alleviated by the newer-generation autofocus in the A1 body, hence @ChipBPhoto looking at alternatives.

[Phil Rudin]

Since Chip and I are friends we discussed this issue at length and he will be borrowing my Sony FE 50mm to compare to the Zeiss 50mm he ordered. 

 

Other FF macro lenses exist like the shorter Sigma 70mm macro which I have also used and found to be not fit for U/W use.

Regarding Olympus, the 30mm is the obvious choice for BW because the Pana 45 macro is way to slow and the 60mm is a bit long at a 120mm equivalent. 

 

Regarding image circle perhaps Chip will have some idea when he tests the Zeiss. 

 

All Sony FF U/W shooters would I am sure like to see more modern macro options including a super fast 50/60 and a new 90/100 that goes beyond 1:1. I am not holding my breath, it seems Sony would rather make yet another 50mm that is an F/1 or F/ 0.1 rather than lenses that people will buy. After ten years Sony still does not offer an AF fisheye or fisheye zoom. These are lenses they would sell in much larger numbers than another 50mm F/1.2.

[Davide DB]

1 hour ago, Phil Rudin said:

Regarding Olympus, the 30mm is the obvious choice for BW because the Pana 45 macro is way to slow and the 60mm is a bit long at a 120mm equivalent. 

 

Am I mistaken or does the 30 mm have maximum magnification practically on the surface of the port?
 

[Chris Ross]

3 hours ago, Davide DB said:

 

Am I mistaken or does the 30 mm have maximum magnification practically on the surface of the port?
 

 

Min focus is about 20mm from the port glass.  I have the Panasonic 30mm f2.8 macro which I use occasionally UW.  I find that max practical magnification to be about 0.5x for UW use.

 

The Panasonic lens has very snappy focus and is better than the 60mm macro in that regard.

 

[Barmaglot]

7 hours ago, Phil Rudin said:

Since Chip and I are friends we discussed this issue at length and he will be borrowing my Sony FE 50mm to compare to the Zeiss 50mm he ordered. 

Looking forward to hear of the results. All the reviews of FE 50mm that I've seen were done many years ago, when it was first released, so it'd be good to know what its comparative performance is with newer cameras.