Personally, I'd love to see a poll with Zeiss lenses compared in a blind test to lenses from other companies, just t find out if the average for user would even prefer their images. There are several trains of thought here, one would be that Pentax users aren't all that interested in Zeiss lenses, because manual focus is already a pin before you even discuss the price, so it's starting with 2 strikes against it. Then if is likely based on other polls I've done, people prefer images taken with other lenses more, then that would be strike three. To my mind, you can't use lenses tests to proclaim Zeiss lenses "the best". I need to see images from five of the top 50mm lenses, Sigma Art, Pentax 50 macro, SMC Pentax 50 1.4, Zeiss 50 and possibly the new 50 1.4 when it comes out. I have to look at the kind of image I'd shoot, and the ZIess is at a tremendous disadvantage, because my favourite 50 is the macro, and in a blind test decide that one of the lenses was noticeably different, and find out afterwards it was the Zeiss. Until that happens I am not willing to conceed I'd take a Zeiss lens even if it was given to me.
The possibility exists that not only would I not find the Zeiss lens better, I might not even rate it as one of the top three. What I find lacking for the discussion of Zeiss lenses and lens ratings is those kinds of doubts. It needs to be proved that the lens ratings systems have some kind of meaning in terms of user appreciation before any discussion of their superiority can be entertained. When I can be told after some reliable research that 60% of people would choose a Zeiss lens instead of something else for their own use based on blind testing on the way they use their cameras (which is not pixel peeping or test charts), that might be good enough for me to consider them top o the line. That would be a pretty convincing accomplishment.
But there are no such tests and all this is innuendo, conjecture and mis-information. The assumption of excellence based on insufficient data and test charts.
I'm happy to concede they do well on test charts. I'm not willing to concede that test chart photography has a direct correlation with 3D photography and how people rate the images they take with their cameras. My polls with 75 to 100 participants suggest that rendering properties other than test chart resolution matter more.
Last edited by normhead; 08-03-2017 at 01:49 PM.