I've been toying with the idea of getting a Contax Aria for general photography because the new Nikon bodies just don't thrill me. I do mostly travel photography, with some landscape, people, the occasional macro, and "urban detail" stuff. Mostly B&W and color slides.

It seems that the Contax wide angles do not use floating elements for correction at close focus distances, something I love about my Nikon 24mm and 35mm lenses. Is this actually the case? I guess its no big deal since the Zeiss wide angles are generally praised.

So, I'm wondering if anyone has ever used both the Zeiss and Nikon 24, 28 and 35 lenses.

-- Pete Su (psu@jprc.com), March 11, 1999

Answers

Pete, I can't speak to the Nikon part of your question, but I use Contax cameras and their Zeiss lenses, and have and use the Zeiss T* 18, 25, 28, and 35mm lenses. Floating elements or not, these are superb lenses, razor sharp and wonderfully contrasty, with beautiful color rendition. I particularly like the 25 (and I use the 35 as my normal lens in preference to the 50).

-- Dave Kemp (Kempda@worldnet.att.net), March 14, 1999.

Some of the Contax wide-angle lenses do use floating elements. In particular, the 35/1.4 and the 21/2.8, and perhaps others. You can check their website to be sure: http://www.contaxcameras.com/slr/lensesbody.html

-- Jim Gauch (jegauch@jonesday.com), March 15, 1999.

Contrary to some of the positions stated on photo.net, I wouldn't be too concerned about design specifics of a lens, like floating elements. What counts is the final performance of the lens, and I don't think you'll go far wrong (gross understatement) with a prime Zeiss lens. I know my Pentax 24/2.8 doesn't have floating elements and the close up performance is escellent.

-- Bruce Rubenstein (b_rubenstein@yahoo.com), March 15, 1999.