Sharp, Crisp
Inexpensive for a Zeiss
Great Bokeh
Small and light

Sometimes the G1 has difficulty locking focus wiht thei lins, but with the G2 it is fine

The best short teles I have ever used were this Planar and the 90/2.8 Leitz. As this is now such a bargan, it is the best overall. Sharp, crisp with color and detail that are just amazing.

Customer Service

Never needed-moot now as no longer in exisitance

Similar Products Used:

Leitz (90), Canon, Nikon, Minolta (100s)

sharp, great bokeh, inexpensive, professional results, nice color rendition, great contrast

none so far...

It's my favorite portrait lens, bar none. It's sharp where you want it to be, but has lovely bokeh where you don't want it sharp, and has little enough depth of field that you can play with sharpness/bokeh in portraits.

Customer Service

not needed

Similar Products Used:

zeiss 85/1.4, asahi 85/1.8, leitz 90/2 APO

high resolution lens. incredibly cheaper than Leitz lens.

No deep of field

Very solid and well made.superlative sharp and resolution.very pleasant the out-focus performance. With G1 it is perfect at 2.8 too!

Similar Products Used:

Nikkor 105 2.5,Planar 85 1.4, Zuiko 100 2.8, Jupiter 9 2, Elmar 90 4

Incredible value for money--the Leica focal length equivalent is inferior according to some tests and it is four times the cost. Very light--I love taking my G2 and 5 lenses on vacation--everything fits in a small Lowepro that weighs so little you can carry the equipment all day without discomfort.

None

As with all of the Zeiss G lenses, this one is simply excellent. Sharpness is incredible, contrast and color unmatched by anything else I have used including highly rated Nikkors. Skin tones are natural and it is possible to pick out the pores of the skin in portraits taken from 15 feet away and blown up on a 60 by 60 screen. As good as a Hasselblad? Probably. This lens is a gem and the entire G system is a delight--it is THE state of the art for sharpness, contrast, build-quality and convenience.

Customer Service

I hear its good

Similar Products Used:

Nikon 105mm 1.8 Nikon 80-200mm

Incredibly sharp and well built. You can handhold this lens much more easily than and SLR

The shallow DOF takes some experience to account for

An exceptional lens which is completely up to Zeiss standards of quality and manufacture. One must be mindful that when used whide open and a close distances that the lens has a very shallow depth of field and those who are not aware of this may find themselves disappointed but, once you learn to account for this there is usually no more surprises

Customer Service

No fault found!

Similar Products Used:

Zeiss 85/f1.4 SLR

Sharp, good color rendering, can handle poirtrait but will take your time

don''t expect to shoot macro flowers, I have tried too many times already

I must say this lens *was* really hard to handle. It''s sharp, it''s small and light weight as a 90 F2.8, the outcoming color is good, and the out-focus area looks sweet while the in-focus area looks popping out, it is a very nice lens, but that''s what after you can handle its focusing mechanism. Honestly speaking, I owned it for more than half a year, up to now I still cannot say I can handle the AF very well. Now I don''t have much difficulty focusing a person (she''d be within the sharp range, but I cannot make a crystal sharp right at the eye), but I really cannot handle tele-macro flowers! I think 7 macro flowers out of 10 will turn out to be failed works in my memo bin (I like using failed pictures as memos at home and even at work!) Anyway, so the final conclusion is you will need to have more practice before you can really love this lens. If you fail to master it, you will not like it. I rated it at 4 stars only because of the difficulty in focusing, the optical peroformance will be absolutely a 5 star one.

Customer Service

None needed

Similar Products Used:

Nikon 85 F1.8D, initially I thought this Nikon was sharp and was one of the best on earth, but after using this Contax, I found the quality of the Nikon one to be a very normal one ^_^

Very sharp Very contrasty Wonderful colors Excellent wide open almost no distortion great bokeh cheap for the quality of results

difficult to accurately focus (but not impossible) noisy (all the G series lenses are) lens hood is enormous (too big to leave on the camera at all times)

this is the sharpest telephoto lens I have ever used! At every f-stop, the sharpness and contrast are exceptional, and the colors are some of the best I have ever seen! In portraits, you can make out the fine texture of skin, to every little fine hair (which is either a blessing or curse...for me, it is a blessing) Attached to the G1, there is no mirror vibration, so I can get pin sharp 8x10 photos down to 1/20th of a second, and 4x6 photos at 1/10th. In theory. In practice... Since the lens is not rangefinder coupled, it has a steep learning curve before you know what you are focusing on. This makes wide open shooting difficult. contaxg.com has alot of useful information on how to properly focus specific lenses for this system at different distances, but still, it takes a while to get the hang of it, and even now, I''''m never 100% positive that I am focusing on the right part of the subject. Still, it produces the best photos I have gotten out of a telephoto lens. The out of focus areas are creamy smooth, and the focused subjects seem to come off the print (a feat no Canon lens I have ever used can duplicate) If you don''''t mind burning a couple of rolls of film learning how to use it, it''''s a wonderful tool to own. My advise to potential buyers. Go to a camera store. Purchase a roll of high speed film from them, and ask to try out the lens right there in the store. Shoot anything. The salesmen, some advervisements on the counter, the customers, anything, and try to shoot most of the shots wide open or at f4. Then hand the salesman the roll of film to develop. Once you get the results back from this experiment, you''''ll be able to see, in practice, if the lens works for you or not. In theory, this lens is everything I could wish for. In practice, it has taken some time to learn how wonderful it really is.

Customer Service

never used, can''''t say

Similar Products Used:

canon usm 100 2.0 contax 135mm 2.8 canon usm 200 2.8 contax g 35 2.0 contax 50mm 1.4

One of the best medium length portrait lenses. Very solidly built, and perfectly balanced when mounted on the G2.

None.

I would love to see Contax release a 105mm or 135mm telephoto for the G line. 90mm works fine, but sometimes leaves a little to be desired. However, since they do not have a 105 or 135, and they do have a 90mm, I will say that this 90mm has never disappointed me. It can be a little tough to get tack sharp focus at f/2.8 at very close subject to lense distances, but when lighting permits a stop down to f/4 will always render sharp focus. This lense produces the best bokeh of any lense I have ever used including Nikon's superb 135mm focus control lense. I have shot portraits with this lense that produce prints of up to 11X14 that cannot be distinguished from those shot with medium format 210mm lenses. Once you get into 16X20 prints, the only factor that works against this lense is the ability of the lab technician to make a great print, and the enlarging lense being used on that print. This lense is fantastic!

Customer Service

None needed.

Similar Products Used:

Nikon 85 and 105mm. Mamiya 210mm f/4

A high-performance portrait lens. Incredible sharpness, contrast, & color rendition (although I shoot mostly black & white). Good bokeh. Also very well-constructed.

None.

One of the best 90mm lenses available in the 35mm format. Another optical jewel in the Carl Zeiss crown.

Customer Service

None needed.

Similar Products Used:

Other G-series (21, 28, & 45). Old Contax RF lenses. Various Contax SLR, Nikon, & Leica.

Extremely fine quality!

No!

The best quality optics for "Mediumformat" shots, but with 35mm size films. Not suitable for portraits, - if you want to keep your motives friendly. Razorsharp!

Customer Service

Haven't been nessesary.

Similar Products Used:

Nikkor 1,4/85+2,8/135, Tamron 2,5/90, Contax SLR 2,8/85+135mm