| Latest Review Posted | Carl Zeiss Flektogon MC 20mm F2.8
I looked for a long time for a superwide lens with easily corrected distorsion. Then I found this lens with distorsions that are neglible for most purposes:
Carl Zeiss Jena DDR Flektogon 20mm f 2,8.
My copy was made in 1976. I bought it CLA-d from Germany (actually eastern Germany not far from Jena), It was in good condition, but had some minor imperfections. "Infinity" as marked was beyond infinity. And the filter thread needed restoring.
I had the lens renovated by the firm Foto-Service Olbrich in Görlitz, Germany. I got it back as good as new. Problems gone. An excellent lens. A pleasure to use.
The text below is re-written as per May 31, 2022.
The best feature: General photo quality. Saturated colours. Straight lines are rendered nearly straight. This makes composition a lot easier than the usual barrel distortion.
I did a test, photographed a tiled surface. There was a small amount of barrel distorsion in the centre and a hint of pincusion distorsion at the edges. For most purposes, this does not matter, but for critical architectural work you can use the post-processing profile for Canon EF 20mm f/2,8 USM. It works very well! If needed, that post-correction makes straight lines almost perfectly straight.
General photo quality is astonishingly good for a 1976 superwide lens. In great light you can get great pictures. The lack of distorsion makes the superwide field of view look quite normal.
In some situations a strong light source outside o... |
