Zeiss ZF 85mm f1.4  vs.
Canon 85mm f1.2 L (Mark I)

In the Studio

Ironically, far from revealing what a lens is made of, studio lighting is a great leveller.  Supply an average optic with copious amount of perfectly balanced 5500K light, and time after time the results will be richly detailed and ideally contrasty. It takes a really bad lens not to shine in the studio. The real test is how they perform in daylight, or even better, whether they can retain shadow detail and microcontrast in everyday, overcast, gloomy light. At least that's the challenge in England.

But the depth of field at 85mm, f1.4 and 2m to the subject is so thin that I wanted to start the test with at least one variable nailed: the light.

Many hours later, I discovered that first impressions (namely, that the thick and thin Nikon-EOS adaptors I use depending on which lens they suit best), were wrong. You will need the thick kind, not the commonly available thin steel ones. Once again, the FotoDiox Pro does the job. For this reason alone I would recommend the ZF Nikon mount version of this lens over the ZS M42 version, which is less well served by high quality adaptors. Not to mention the higher resale value, and the fact that you're leaving the door open to use Nikon bodies in the future.

Anyway, the dead giveaway that you're using the wrong adaptor with Nikon lenses is that the plane of focus appears not to be flat. Given the elusive nature of the plane of focus at f1.4, you can be forgiven for  taking a while to work this out. Don't be as stupid as me: buy a proper adaptor – something at least as expensive as the FotoDiox: the CameraQuest and Novoflex ones are fine, too – just unnecessarily expensive.

It should be noted at this stage that the first batch of ZF 85mm f1.4's have horribly stiff focus rings, and far from reassuringly grippy lens caps. Whether these are teething gremlins or design faults remains to be seen, but ergonomically my spanking new Zeiss 85mm leaves much to be desired. Manual focusing is nowhere near as nice as – say –  a Nikon 85mm f1.4 D . . .