Zeiss ZK Planar T* 50mm F/1.4 – Test Shots and an Unpleasant Incident

I am a huge fan of Zeiss lenses, and I have made sure to own at least one of them for each camera system I have used over the years. To be honest, my only regret when switching to Pentax and ditching Leica, Nikon and Canon was that Zeiss lenses in K mount weren’t as widely available as they are for other platforms. Sure, eBay has plenty of them, but I didn’t want to risk the consequences of overseas shipping. Eventually, however, I managed to get a Planar T* 50 mm f/1.4, and last night I went out for the first time to try it with a Pentax K-1.

I didn’t take many photos — just a few — because I just wanted to see how the lens performed. This is one of them, and I must say that the colour rendition and how neat the words look against the black background do not disappoint at all.

Mannequins are challenging subjects to photograph, and the results are often unsettling. This photo shows how the lens performs at F/1,4 and ISO 1600. The Zeiss look is unmistakable.

This is a meaningless shot, taken only to test the K-1 II IBIS at 1/6 of a second.

The unprocessed version of this photo revealed a moderate purple fringing, which was easily disposed of in post. The flare resistance is also acceptable.

This next photo is nothing special but for the many colours of the display, which allow to get an idea of how the lens manage them, but also for an unpleasant exchange that happened while I was shooting.

A waiter on the other side of the counter, completely outside the lens’s field of view, started yelling at me, asking what I was doing and why. Initially, I did not pay him any attention because I did not believe he was talking to me. Eventually, however, I realised that he was. While he repeated the question like a broken record, I simply told him that I was interested in the colours of the items on the counter. I added that, if this was going to be a problem, I would be happy to stop. My answer clearly took him by surprise and left him speechless for a while, until he said that it was OK to take the photo.

Of course, the law was on my side, and I was actually almost hoping he would escalate the situation by involving a manager or even the police. That would have been very entertaining for me and less so for them. However, for the benefit of everyone involved, nothing else happened, and I managed to get away with just this picture and an uneasy feeling about what taking pictures has become.

I am well aware that what is legally possible in photography is not always accepted by the average person. This is particularly true of street photography, which is why I try not to invade the personal sphere of the people I find interesting to photograph, even though they are in a public place. And here’s the catch: in decades of photographic journeys in various parts of the world, I have never had to confront people who questioned the fact that I was taking pictures that might have portrayed them. However, the first time I was involved in an argument was because of a photo of an inanimate object on public display.

That’s beyond my understanding.

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