Customer Reviews

Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 Planar T* ZF Manual Focus Standard Lens for the Nikon F (AI-S) Bayonet SLR System.

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This review is for those who are looking to achieve the highest possible image quality in the 35mm format at an affordable price (for Nikon / Canon shooters) in the 50mm 'normal perspective' focal length. Some have called the Zeiss 50mm ZF the best standard DSLR lens in the world.

You can find technical details on the Zeiss website along with MTF charts. Reviews do not give you a physical sense for build quality. Once you hold one of these in your hand, you will probably fall in love ....and immediately sense that Nikon does not offer any competing (current) wide angle primes.

Nikon does offer Auto focus; the Zeiss lens is manual focus only. Therefore Zeiss does not allocate part of the budget to an expensive and bulky auto-focus mechanism. If event shooting is NOT the objective, this lens will work wonders for you. For the deliberative shooter, with time to compose and shoot, it is hard to imagine a better tool in the 35mm format.

What is so great about the images from the Zeiss 50mm? Some have described it as a '3D look'.

These images have a certain personality, a finesse and panache which is missing in the typical lens. To make a long story short, it produces images with a delightful visual palette which pops off from the page-- breathtaking colors, excruciating sharpness and detail, subtle tonal rendition, micro-contrast, variegated color, beautiful bokeh (above f2), resistance to flare, vignetting and distortion.

It is a very fast lens at F1.4 (extreme low-light capability). It is actually quite usable at this aperture unlike many other lenses which make this claim. With the D700 I could shoot in very dark conditions and still produce amazing results.

For those who are afraid of manual focusing, I suggest you invest in a third party split-prism focusing screen. I have purchased the Katz Eye screen (highly recommended) made by a tiny MA based company with excellent customer service. Granted, it is expensive at $ 105 for the Nikon D700. But it will make your focussing issues all but disappear; in fact I am having a lot of fun with deliberative shooting. Manual focus may not be fast enough for event shooting (weddings, graduations etc).... unless you have sufficient distance, are focussed at infinity and can blast away.

In fact, infinity + F8 will all but guarantee you fabulous results with this lens, as long as exposure conditions allow for F8. The D700 does display exif data if you set the menu up properly (for non-CPU lens data as 50mm etc.) In other words, if you set the aperture on the lens, the camera will calculate the appropriate speed in aperture priority mode. Caution--you have to make sure that you adjust exposure compensation based on your judgement.


Is there anything I do not like? The lens cap is awful, it is hard to put on and take off, as well it falls off into my camera bag on a regular basis. I cannot imagine how Zeiss / Cosina came up with such a fiddly design when they have designed such a superior lens and hood.

Minor quiblings aside, if you are looking for a compact, light, fast, all-MANUAL lens for deliberative shooting with a 35mm DSLR, I doubt you will find a better option than the 50mm Zeiss (except for the Zeiss 50mm F2 macro). Yes, I own the Canon and Nikon equivalents which are competent, but these lenses are simply not in the same class.

This is my absolute favorite lens (along with Nikon 24-70) & it is always my first option when conditions permit. To repeat, in my opinion, the Zeiss 50 f1.4 Planar lens can help you produce the absolute best possible images in the 35 mm format.

This is a Japanese made lens. That's not a bad thing, they make a lot of terrific lenses in Japan, the best, actually, but it's important to state that, because of the Zeiss name. This lens does not come from their German factory. A long time ago, before there were digital cameras, there was a company called Contex, which made super film cameras and you could buy lenses by Carl Zeiss for them. These lenses were made in Japan and when Contex closed their doors, they started making these lenses in a Nikon mount.

This is a wonderful lens, but I've sort of got a love hate relationship with it. Kind of sad really, because it has to do with autofocus. I've gotten so used to autofocus, even when shooting people indoors (on my D300s 50mm translates into 75mm which makes for an excellent portrait lens) that I've become spoiled, expecting the camera to do my work for me. And sadly, sometimes, the camera with it's autofocus lenses is faster than me. But still, doing portraits with this lens, I take my time anyway.

The bokeh is very pleasant with this lens at f2/8, as one would expect, and it's still quite pleasing as you move up to f/4 and you get you get a super, super sharp image throughout the lens' range. In my opinion, you won't find sharper images anywhere else, even if you do have to work at getting your focus just right, sometimes it takes a lot of shots to get the one you want, but I'm patient. If you're not, then maybe you need autofocus and this lens isn't for you.

There is no rubber on this lens, it looks and feels as if it was made a half century ago and as a lover of a time when they built things to last, that really works for me. Add to that the fact that the photos I get with my copy are terrific, you get a lens that I wouldn't trade away for anything. Well, I suppose if you came my way with a barrel full of cash I could be persuaded.

This lens is an expertly-crafted chunk of glass. Focus and aperture rings slide smoothy and consistently. Makes for an amazing video lens as well (I've used mine on a Nikon D300S and on a Canon 7D.) The included lens hood is very small and unobtrusive but still more than strong enough to protect the lens from impact.

As other reviews have said, though, this is not the most user-friendly 50mm. Manual focus can be tricky if you're not used to it, and the lubricant used tends to get very thick in colder temperatures (making the focus ring slide much more slowly). The aperture dial can only communicate properly with cameras with a bayonet mount (Like the D3 or D700 but not with older digital models like the D80.)

The lens has a distinct 'sweet spot' around f4 that is simply unreal. At f1.4 images are slightly softer with a VERY dramatic bokeh. Minimum focusing distance is a little too long for macro work... although for that I might recommend the Zeiss 50mm f/2.0 Makro-Planar.

Also, the Voigtlander Ultron 40mm f/2.0 is a very solid lens in a similar build quality.

All in all, this lens is built extremely well and delivers incredible optical quality in all lighting conditions, but might be a little difficult to control for inexperienced hands.

In collaboration with the Japanese firm Cosina, Zeiss has developed a series of Nikon F-mount lenses (which are also available, to a less extent, in Pentax Screw "S" and Bayonet "K" mounts) that are more than refined versions of its late, lamented Contax/Yashica-mount SLR Carl Zeiss lenses. The first lens issued in this collaboration, the 50mm f1.4 ZF Planar lens, is an updated version of the original Contax SLR 50mm f1.4 Planar, which, years ago, won ample praise from Popular Photography as the best 50mm lens currently available. It is heavier than its predecessor, with a slightly wider filter thread (58mm versus 55mm). But, like its critically acclaimed predecessor, it is a superb lens, and, quite possibly, the best fast 50mm lens currently available (While I have not shot with this lens, I am quite familiar with its predecessor, since I own - and have used for many years - a Contax 50mm f1.4 Planar.). This new 50mm Planar lens (just like its Contax predecessor) easily out-performs current and past 50mm f1.4 Nikkor lenses, especially wide-open at f1.4, showing substantially greater resolution and higher contrast. Anyone who owns a Nikon digital SLR camera that accepts Nikon manual focusing AI/AI-S lenses - as well as those who own manual focusing Nikon SLRs from the Nikon F onwards - should strongly consider adding this fine lens to their kit (The only major negative feature of this lens which may dissuade potential purchasers is that it does not come with a proprietary Nikon digital chip; Nikon did not give Zeiss permission to "chip" this lens.).