Review on Zeiss Normal Planar Manual Cameras by Tim Paolucci

I bought a Zeiss 50mm 1.4 about eleven months ago and have been using it regularly ever since. First I used it with 7D but then switched to 5D3. I'm not a professional, but I love to take photos. I started shooting with a 50mm FD lens during the Canon AE1 days, later I bought an EOS-1 with a 1.4-50mm lens and really liked it. Due to the high cost of film development at the time, I tried to improve my hobby by counting every shot. L, the new 100mm 2.8L IS and Zeiss 85mm 1.4. I bought a Zeiss 50mm 1.4 because it reminded me of an old 50mm FD lens with a depth of field scale. I still like to use the hyperfocal scale. I also enjoy watching my friends try to focus with this lens, it slows down when trying to focus on a subject. It brings me back the joy of manual focus. The Zeiss 50mm delivers nice saturation with sharp image definition at small apertures, especially at f4, 5.6 and 8, which is really great. That creates the wow effect. I uploaded one of my landscape shots from a Zeiss 50 1.4 and my 5D3 as a desktop in my office, a colleague came into my office as I turned on my computer and saw the photo, his jaw dropped, he exclaimed Wow! This clarity, he said. Of course I had to explain that, especially since he knew this scene, since he also passed it every day on his way to the office, but he had never seen it, as Zeiss put it. The build quality of this lens is excellent, I use it with a Zeiss 58mm UV filter to protect the front element. However, I will only recommend this lens, as well as the 85mm 1.4, to those who can go slower and spend some time with it, which is really useful. Well done Zeiss, 5 stars.