Hands On: Zeiss ZF Macros for Nikon

We test drive two new manual focus primes from Zeiss that are razor sharp and impressively heavy.

I've been shooting lately with two new Nikon F-mount Zeiss lenses, the ZF 100mm f/2 Makro-Planar T* ($1,500, street) and the ZF 50mm f/2 Makro-Planar T* ($999, estimated street). As you'd expect from a Zeiss-made optic, they are both simply razor sharp, and are also impressively heavy, in these days of featherweight zooms, due in part to their full-metal barrel. No, they don't have autofocus -- nor do any of the other "premium" manual-focus lenses Zeiss is making for Nikon F, Pentax K, and M42 (threaded) mounts -- but I haven't really missed it.

Depth of field is so shallow when you're shooting very close that autofocus can be more of a hindrance than a help: Wide-area AF arrays rarely pick the focus point you need to put the plane of focus where it should be to optimize depth of field, and even if you switch to single-point AF it can take a few lock-focus-and-recompose routines to get it right. As you know, you often want to place the plane of focus midway into the subject and leave it there, stopping down to sharpen everything else that matters.

Russell Hart

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