Carl Zeiss Distagon 35mm f/1.4: A very unscientific love affair

As a Contax fan, I have a weakness for Carl Zeiss lenses. So when I was asked to review the Carl Zeiss Distagon 35mm f/1.4, I felt the hand of destiny. The only thing is, I’ve already got a Carl Zeiss Distagon 35mm lens. In fact, it is my preferred lens when doing street photography. It’s wider than a 50mm, which I find restrictive, but not so wide that you need to have the camera in a subject’s face. However, my lens – and this is the big reveal – is an f/2.8.

So what’s the big difference? Well, to start with, for those extra two stops of light, you could be looking at around £1,100 for a mint-condition example, whereas the f/2.8 can be picked up for under £300. The f/1.4 is significantly heavier and noticeably bulkier. For those two stops of light, the effective aperture opening needs to be roughly twice the diameter to let in four times as much light. That doesn’t mean the lens itself has to be twice as wide, but it does help explain why this is a much bigger piece of glass. You notice the extra light immediately when you look through the viewfinder: the world is just so much brighter.

It’s bigger, it’s heavier and it lets in more light. Does that account for the difference in price? I’m thinking it must be made of gold. The f/1.4 weighs 605g (yes, I weighed it). That’s 363g more than the f/2.8. If gold were £100 per gram, that extra weight would be worth £36,300. Okay, so it’s not gold then. The truth is, making a fast wide-angle lens involves more than just making the glass bigger. The f/1.4 has a more complex optical design, including a floating element to help maintain image quality at close focusing distances. That and this lens is quite sought after, including by cinematographers, who love the aesthetic of the images and get the lenses converted or rehoused to fit their own systems.

The build of the lens feels precision-made, with that smooth resistance in the focus ring. But what I want to know is whether there’s really any difference in their performance? Both lenses are Carl Zeiss, after all, one of the best lens manufacturers in the world. The only way to find out is to compare them in a field test. Cut to ‘tooling up’ sequence. I’m thinking Commando (1985).

The concept: as this lens is popular with filmmakers, my idea is to go down to Brighton seafront during golden hour with a willing model. Then take some epic cinematic shots.

The setup: two identical Contax 139 Quartz camera bodies, loaded with Portra 400.

Now we’re on track to create some beautiful images and very scientifically compare photos from both lenses side by side.

… You know when you shoot a roll of film and you think I absolutely nailed that. And when you get home, your partner asks how the shoot went. You tell her, and your child, the neighbour, the neighbour’s children, the neighbour’s cat, that other cat that craps on the lawn, and half your colleagues from work, that they are in the presence of a creative genius. Only to get the film back and discover you’re not quite the genius you thought you were… I’m not saying that happened to me.

What actually happened? A colleague kindly offered to model. Finding a time when we could both do this shoot was difficult, and after the fourth attempt we managed an evening straight after work, with nice weather to boot. With sunset at around 18:40, we decided to hop into a taxi at the station and rush down to the seafront to catch golden hour, not really anticipating how long it might take to get through Brighton during rush hour. It ended up being more of a golden fifteen minutes. By the end, I still thought I’d nailed it, but shooting on film has a way of highlighting your weaknesses.

The first weakness is not remembering your own camera’s little quirks. The switch/toggle that unlocks the exposure compensation dial also doubles as the multiple-exposure switch, allowing you to cock the shutter without advancing the film. Well, on one of my camera bodies this gets stuck, and if you don’t manually push it back, you’ll end up shooting several exposures on one frame. An indication that things were not going to plan should have been, when I questioned why it was taking much longer to get through one roll than the other, despite me shooting nearly every scene with both cameras.

The second weakness only manifested once I got the rolls back, and that was my seeming inability to hold focus. I’m not blaming the lenses for this because I did manage to get some shots sharp. The upshot is that this review is far less scientific than I intended.

With only fifteen minutes before sunset, it wasn’t long before I was shooting wide open with both lenses. This is where the f/1.4 had the advantage. I was still able to maintain a reasonable shutter speed, whereas with the f/2.8 I was already down to 1/60 second and slowing fast. Those two stops can mean the difference between roughly 1/60 and 1/250 second in the same light. The disadvantage of shooting at f/1.4 was, of course, how a small movement from either of us could take her eyes out of focus. And there’s no autofocus with this lens!

I’ve still managed to get some shots for us to compare. In these scans, the photographs from both lenses have similar colours and contrast. Both lenses can create sharp images. Comparing them wide open doesn’t tell us which performs better at the same aperture, but it does show what that extra opening allows you to do. For me, that beautiful shallow depth of field completely transforms the picture. Is that enough to love this lens? Absolutely!

I love how wide this lens is, and yet you can get the background to melt away. I love the bokeh it creates. I intentionally only adjusted exposure after receiving the scans. The film, processing and scanning all play their part, but I’ve left the images otherwise as supplied. Between the results and the feel of that focus ring, I desire this lens!

For my street photography, the smaller, lighter f/2.8 remains the practical choice. But for shooting in fading light, or getting that shallow depth of field while keeping a wider view, the f/1.4 offers something my lens can’t.

Is it as practical as the f/2.8? No. Do I want this lens? Yes. Can I afford it? Not if I want to stay married.