Carl Zeiss MAKRO PLANAR T* 50mm F2
Review and Photo example of the Macro Planar T* 50mm F2.
Table of contents
Gallery
- The examples were taken with the KODAK DCS Pro SLR/n.
Review
The Macro Planar 50mm is a Carl Zeiss brand macro lens manufactured and sold by Cosina.
It is a half-macro lens that can get as close as 0.24m with a planar rear group and a lens for close-up photography. The eight aperture blades are not circular but a loose octagonal shape, and the lens mounts released are ZF for Nikon Ai-S and ZE for Canon EF.
I chose this lens from among the F-mount lenses when I bought a used Kodak SLR digital camera DCS Pro SLR/n. I remember that I chose this lens because it had been a long time since I had bought a macro lens at the time, and the lens price was cheap. Personally, I like the Cosina Zeiss designs from this era, and it looks beautiful when attached to the DCS Pro SLR/n.
The helicoid is a little heavy, but this level of resistance makes it easier to use a macro lens, and I never had trouble focusing. This may be influenced by the sensor of the camera used and the image creation, but since the F2 is bright for a macro lens, the depiction is not very sharp at full aperture, and the cat’s fur is depicted softly, and the distant scenery is depicted in a painterly way rather than with an emphasis on resolution. Of course, it becomes crisper when stopped down, so it’s a lens that can be used appropriately. It’s a versatile lens that can be used for both long-distance and close-up photography, and the foreground and background bokeh are not noisy, so I liked it as a standard lens.
Unfortunately, I sold the camera and lens together when I was sorting out the mount.
The Macro Planar lens has been updated from the first generation introduced to the third generation.
- The first generation is this lens (ZF without electronic contacts and ZE with electronic contacts)
- The second generation was changed to ZF2 in June 2010, which added electronic contacts (Nikon Ai-S with CPU) to ZF
- The third generation was changed to Milvus 2 / 50 (ZF and ZE) in July 2016, with a new exterior and name
These lenses may have changed due to the evolution of coatings, but the lens structure is the same.
There are several prefixes used for close-up lenses, and Carl Zeiss uses “MAKRO”, which means “large” in German. Many other manufacturers use “MACRO”, which means “large” in English. Nikon uses “MICRO”, which means “small”, as the prefix for close-up lenses, and although the notation reflects the individuality of each company, I think the variation in notation is confusing for people who are not very interested in camera lenses.
Lens construction diagram taken from Carl Zeiss Historical Products
Specification
| Items | Value | Note. |
| Focal length(mm) | 50 | |
| Max aperture | 2 | |
| Min aperture | 22 | |
| Lens Construction | 8elements in 6groups | |
| Leaf blade | 8 | |
| Min distance(m) | 0.24 | |
| Lens length(mm) | 107.6 | |
| Max diameter(mm) | 72 | ZF |
| Filter Size(mm) | 70.4 | ZF |
| Weight(kg) | 500 | ZF |
| Release date | 2007.3 |
Reference links
Update history
- 2024.07.03:update
- 2024.03.04:update
- 2023.05.15:First draft
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