Originally posted by jfsavage Minawee, any chance of some more images?
Sorry for my absence...
jfsavage, I will try to fulfill your request(s) tomorrow!
But with respect to the cropping so both frames looked "equal" - I realized the slightly different FOV's of the lenses were dead giveaways for which was which, but I thought this was acceptable insofar as total resolutions of both images were the same; I wanted to introduce as little "digital corruption" to the images as possible.
In the end, the cropping isn't the focus of this small comparison; it's the different rendering characteristics (in both the details and bokeh) of these lenses that intrigues me.
My own personal take: I LOVE the way the Zeiss handles. It is an MF lens of all-metal construction, and as such the focusing action is just butter smooth and substantial feeling. As good as the DA* 55mm is, it is still a plastic lens and will always feel that way when compared to the Zeiss. Image quality-wise, at first I found myself preferring the Zeiss over the DA*; but as I've played more and more with the DA*, it began to win me over. The Zeiss' bokeh almost has a Nokton 58mm-esque quality to it, though not as (as others have described it) "dreamy". I preferred this look at first, but now find the no-nonsense "clean" bokeh of the DA* more appealing...
So, in the end, I still love both lenses, however I find the DA* consistently mounted to my K10D about 90% of the time when I want a 50mm-range lens.
Now I just have to decide if I'm going to keep the Zeiss...it just feels sooo niiice (the way I'd imagine one of the Pentax Limited lenses would feel, though I haven't had the privilege of handling one personally...yet!)
Anyhow, as I said at the start of this post, I'll try to get the images you requested, but I probably won't be cropping them to match frames. Okay?
-Paul