Carl Zeiss (Contax) lenses on my Z7

Having a small collection of Carl Zeiss Contax mount lenses, I thought it would be worthwhile seeing if their unique character could be captured in my photography.

There are plenty of YouTube posts where comparisons are made between the film and photography versions of these lenses. They may not be as super sharp as the latest Z mount offerings from Nikon, however to create a "friendly" look, extreme sharpness is not always what you want.

To use Carl-Zeiss lenses with an URTH adapter the Z7 need to be set completely to manual. No lens information will be passed to the camera body, so take notes if you want to recreate or publish the photos settings.

My very first image taken on the 50mm f/1.4 @ f/1.4, with slight exposure changes, converted to B&W and cropped

Later, walking home, taken on the 85mm f/2.8, the level of detail is great.

So, for 36 EUR I have given new life to my favourite lenses, and have a much lighter street photography bag :)

Another from the 85mm @f/2.8, practicing low light manual focus. I noticed just using the red edge focus peaking only really works once stopped down to f4 or greater. So it's a game of trial and error with a moving subject.

Trying in low light using the 50mm @ f/1.4

The general quality is still good for a 30+ year old lens.