Portrait Photography with Carl Zeiss ZM Sonnar 50 F1.5

Zeiss Sonnar was designed in 1932. It was famous for its simple design, light weight, and fast speed. The ZM Sonnar is pretty much the same old design but with a Morden coating. This turns it into a very versatile and capable lens for portrait photography.

Unlike landscape, portrait photography is not super picky on sharpness. For me, even the chromatic aberration is not something of a big concern. The rendering character is more important here. We are talking about the transition between in and out of focused area and the transition from highlight to mid tone to shadow. These are something very hard to measure. Some lenses have very obvious drawbacks but actually are better on certain jobs. Zeiss Sonnar falls right into this category.

The chromatic aberration is not good or I should say it’s pretty bad. Corner sharpness? Forget about it unless you stop down to F4. Even at the centre, when shoot wide open, the lens looks soft . This soft look end up makes all the differences. When the transition between focus and out of focus area is smooth, it creates a very natural look. Also, the smooth transition between highlight and shadow greatly reduced harsh light from the sun.

Zeiss Sonnar has the most beautiful rendering among all the 50 mm lens I have used before. We are talking about at least 6 different lenses here.

How does Sonnar perform in studio? Let’s take look at some examples.

Zeiss Sonnar can be pretty sharp when stop down to F5.6. I normally shoot between F2.8 to F4 depends on shooting distance.

Hope this blog post can convince you to give Zeiss Sonnar a try or maybe just give manual focusing lens a try, if you haven’t done so. After some practice, you’ll find that you can be pretty fast and accurate with manual focusing. There is also something else about manual focusing, it’s really are more enjoyable shooting experience. It’s like driving a car with manual transmission. If you just want to get from point A to point B. it is inconvenient. If you enjoy driving, manual transmission is way more fun.