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50/1.4 vs 50/2 At ~4 foot range
This is a more interesting comparison than I realized when making it. It is valuable because it shows the overall behavior of each lens unambiguously. Accordingly, the approach here is to point out how the two 50mm lenses behave relative to each other, rather than to arrive at a hard “which is better” conclusion, since field curvature negates a blanket conclusion.
General behavior
The two Zeiss 50mm lenses show distinctly different behavior in this comparison—
- The twin issues of field curvature and focus shift both contribute to wildly differently conclusions, depending on where one looks in the frame, and to a lesser extent, which aperture.
- The 50mm f/2 Makro-Planar shows field curvature (at the edges/corners), even though it is a macro lens (macro lenses are generally expected to have reasonably flat field). For flat-field copy work or similar, this curved field is problematic, and readers are directed instead to the 100mm f/2 Makro-Planar, which has a flat field and near-zero distortion as well.
- Focus shift with the 50/1.4 Planar from f/2.8 to f/4 is significant, and should be accounted for.
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