Zeiss Milvus Distagon 18mm f/2.8 Final Review + IQ
Summary
TLDRDustin Abbott reviews the Zeiss Milvus 18mm f/2.8 lens, praising its beautiful design and construction but finding its optics to be good but not exceptional compared to less expensive options. He compares it directly to the Tamron 15-30mm and Rokinon 12mm lenses, showing similar sharpness and performance despite higher cost. He concludes it produces great images but the extra cost may not yield better optical quality over other lenses.
Takeaways
- 😀 The Zeiss Milvus 18mm f/2.8 is a beautifully built and high-quality wide angle lens, with great weather sealing and handling.
- 👍🏻 It has a common 77mm filter thread, allowing the use of more accessible and affordable filters like ND filters for long exposures.
- 🌠 It performs very well for night sky and astro photography, with good control over coma and star stretching in the corners.
- 🔎 Optically, it does not clearly outperform cheaper lenses like the Tamron 15-30mm or Rokinon 12mm in sharpness and resolution.
- 😕 There is noticeable vignetting when shooting video, which could be an issue.
- 💡 It transmits more light than the Tamron, needing over a stop less exposure for equivalent brightness.
- 🌈 Chromatic aberrations are extremely well controlled.
- 👍 It has very low distortion, keeping lines straight even shooting up staircases.
- 🔬 Center sharpness seems on par with cheaper lenses, but edge sharpness falls behind slightly.
- 💰 The high cost may not bring a meaningful jump in optical quality over cheaper lenses.
Q & A
What lens is being reviewed in the video?
-The Zeiss Milvus 18mm f/2.8 lens is being reviewed.
How does the image quality of the Zeiss lens compare to other cheaper lenses?
-The Zeiss lens produces great images but does not necessarily outperform cheaper options like the Tamron or Rokinon lenses in terms of sharpness, especially in the corners.
What is the law of diminishing returns in regards to lenses?
-As lenses have gotten much better in recent years across all price ranges, spending more money does not necessarily get you a more highly performing lens over cheaper alternatives.
What is a benefit of the 77mm filter thread on the Zeiss 18mm lens?
-The 77mm filter thread allows the use of more accessible and affordable filters like neutral density filters to enable long exposure photography.
How does the Zeiss lens perform for astrophotography?
-It has well controlled coma and renders star points sharply, performing as well as or better than the 15mm Distagon and Tamron.
What is a disadvantage of the Zeiss 18mm lens?
-It has fairly heavy vignetting, which could be problematic for video work.
How does the Zeiss lens handle chromatic aberrations?
-It handles chromatic aberrations extremely well and has basically no visible color fringing.
How does the manual focus experience compare to other Zeiss lenses?
-The focus ring is perfectly damped and glides beautifully, similar to other Zeiss manual focus lenses.
What type of photographer would this lens work well for?
-Landscape, architecture, and astrophotographers would appreciate the high image quality, weather sealing, and manual focus experience.
What is an alternative lens recommendation for a cheaper option?
-The Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8 is sharp across the frame when stopped down and costs significantly less while allowing zoom flexibility.
Outlines
📸 Zeiss Milvus 18mm F2.8レンズの最終レビュー
このパラグラフでは、ダスティン・アボットがZeiss Milvus 18mm F2.8レンズの最終レビューを行います。このレンズは、Zeiss Milvusシリーズの中で15mmおよび21mmのDistagon設計レンズと同様の設計を持ち、価格と焦点距離の面でこれらの間に位置します。米国市場での価格は2,199ドルと高価ですが、その優れた構造、美しいデザイン、気密性能、そして操作性の良さが強調されています。また、フォーカスリングの動きが滑らかであり、ハイパーフォーカス距離の使用が推奨されています。このレンズは、10インチまでの近接撮影が可能で、良好な再現率を持っています。さらに、77mmの一般的なフロントフィルタースレッドを持っており、フィルターがより手軽に使用できる点もメリットです。画質に関しては、色収差がほとんど見られず、フレアやゴーストの抵抗性が高く、歪みが少ないことが特徴です。ただし、ビネットが強いことが欠点として挙げられています。アストロフォトグラフィーにも適しており、星の点が鮮明に描写され、コマ収差がよく制御されています。
🔍 比較テスト:Zeiss Milvus 18mmと他のレンズ
ダスティンは、Canon 5D Mark IVを使用し、Zeiss Milvus 18mm F2.8、Tamron 15-30mm、およびRokinon 12mm F2(APS-C用のため、実質的な焦点距離は類似)のレンズを三脚上で比較します。彼はまず、コマ性能を比較し、その後、画像の解像度、色収差、およびビネットを評価します。Zeissレンズは色収差において他のレンズよりも優れているが、解像度とビネットに関しては、特にコーナー部分でTamronやRokinonに劣っている場合があることを発見しました。さらに、光の伝達率が高いため、同じ露出設定で撮影した場合、Zeissレンズの方が画像が明るくなることが観察されました。
🔬 画質の詳細な比較と結論
このセクションでは、ダスティンはZeiss Milvus 18mmとTamronレンズの画質を更に詳細に比較し、F2.8とF5.6の絞りでのテストを行います。彼は、中央部の解像度が両レンズでほぼ同等であるものの、画像の端の部分でTamronレンズがより優れていることを見出しました。また、Zeissレンズは、同じ露出設定でより多くの光を捉えるため、Tamronレンズよりも1.5ストップ程度明るい画像を生成することが判明しました。ダスティンは、長時間露光を用いた撮影例をいくつか紹介し、77mmフロントフィルタースレッドの利点を示しました。しかし、最終的には、Zeiss Milvus 18mmが他の比較したレンズよりも顕著に優れているわけではなく、価格の差を正当化するほどの性能差は見られないと結論付けています。
🧐 レンズ選択における考察と総評
最後のパラグラフでは、ダスティンは、最近のレンズの品質が全般的に向上しているため、高価なレンズと安価なレンズの間の性能差が縮小していると指摘しています。この「次元の減少法則」により、Zeiss Milvus 18mmのような高価なレンズが、解像度の面で安価なレンズに明確な優位性を持たない場合があることを示しています。ダスティンは、このレンズが素晴らしい画質を提供するものの、他の類似のレンズと比較して特別に優れているわけではないと結論づけ、購入を検討する際にはその点を考慮する必要があると述べています。
Mindmap
Keywords
💡lens
💡image quality
💡astrophotography
💡distagon design
💡weather sealing
💡optical quality
💡diminishing returns
💡filter thread
💡manual focus
💡vignette
Highlights
レンズは美しく設計され、非常に高品質だが、他の似たレンズと比べて必ずしもシャープではない
コマ収差と歪みは良好に制御されている
フレアとゴーストがほとんどない
77mmのフロントフィルタースレッドは便利
長時間露光撮影に適している
中心部のシャープネスは同等だが、端部のシャープネスはTamronのほうが良い
明るさはZeissのほうが上回っている
高価なレンズが必ずしも高性能というわけではない
素晴らしいレンズだが、他の安価なレンズと比べて際立った点はない
高価なレンズを買う必要性が薄れつつある
最近のレンズ開発で格差がなくなりつつある
大きな技術革新がない限り当前は変わらない
ファイルリンク: 写真サンプル、イメージギャラリー
他のレビューもチェック
購入を検討するならリンクを参照
Transcripts
[Music]
hi i'm dustin abbott and i'm here today
to do my final review my final verdict
on the zeiss milvis 18 millimeter f 2.8
this is a distagon design like the two
other lenses now in the milvis lineup
for wide angle and that is the 15
millimeter distagon and then the 21
millimeter distagon and it slots right
between them in terms of price and of
course in terms of focal length it's not
an inexpensive lens in the u.s market it
has an msrp of
2199
which makes it pretty pricey if you
haven't already i'd encourage you to
take a look at this episode here where i
broke down the overall build the design
the specifications and cover those
things in detail in that i will just sum
that up to say that this is obviously a
beautifully built lens it's in fact one
of the most beautiful lenses that i've
ever seen it has great weather sealing
and it handles beautifully in the field
if you like using quality things you're
going to enjoy using the milvis 18
millimeter it's just a beautifully
crafted lens period beyond that in the
field it has a very nice moving uh focus
ring you know it's in that sense it's
very zeiss and very nil this it's
perfectly damped and it glides along
beautifully you'll find that
learning to use hyper focus distance is
going to help you a lot if you're not
accustomed to
focusing because i do find that with a
wider angle trying to achieve visual
focus even with a body setup like mine
with an egs focus screen it takes a
little bit more practice and so if you
learn to use the hyper focusing
markers it makes it easy you just keep
everything in focus until those certain
situations where you want to get really
close to something for example this lens
will focus down to a close 10 inches and
has a decent reproduction value to it
beyond that however we're going to break
down the overall
image quality and performance in the
field
um one thing that i really liked using
about it is the fact that it has a very
common 77 millimeter front filter thread
that's certainly smaller than its its
two brothers siblings in the milvis
lineup and it means the filters are more
accessible i used a haida pro
nd 1000 filter that i paid i think no
more than 70 dollars for and i was able
to get gorgeous long exposure images
i'll throw a couple of them up here for
you to see and and so that certainly is
much more convenient than the tamron 15
to 30 that i'm using right now that has
a curved front element and thus you
can't use traditional filters so my
filter system is big and it's bulky and
it's expensive and so that's certainly a
plus and something to consider if you're
looking at a lens like this beyond that
it checks a lot of the right boxes it
has basically no chromatic aberrations
that i've been able to see in the field
it handles that very very well
it's very flare resistant and and holds
contrast very well and has just the
barest minimum of ghosting and actually
i would say does better than the
exceptional distagon 15 millimeter in
that regard and certainly better than
what my tamron does because that bulbous
front element does tend to catch the
light a little bit um with the tamron
and so it's great in in that regard the
distortion is very low which is
certainly a plus for this i find that it
doesn't really need much correction and
uh you know one thing that's important
to me that if you're going to use it
like for shooting groups or shooting in
a bridal situation i noticed that when i
shot in a staircase that
there wasn't a lot of distortion there
the line stayed nice and straight and so
um that's it's good in that regard as
well the one area that it doesn't excel
is when it comes to vignette and that
also makes it somewhat similar to the 15
millimeter distagon it vignettes fairly
heavily and while that's not necessarily
a big deal in most situations if you're
shooting stills it can be more of a deal
if you are
shooting video with the lens and of
course zeiss lenses are often very
desirable for video shooters and so
that's something to watch out for
another plus is it is a great
astrophotography lens it does a great
job at night and star points are
rendered nice and sharp and if you look
along the edges coma is well controlled
there's no ufos or flying ducks there
but rather star points stay pretty
natural maybe just a little bit of
stretching in the corner but it's a
great performance and actually it holds
up very well when compared to the dista
distagon 15 millimeter or the tamron
that i'm shooting with that i think is
really good in that regard so it's a
great performer there we're going to
take a few minutes and break down the
image quality and in particular compare
how the resolution compares to
options like the tamron that i've been
alluding to i'll put that at 18
millimeters also f 2.8 and then similar
apertures we'll mount it on a tripod
with the 5d mark iv body and see how
they compare
side by side and just for the fun of it
i'm going to throw in a much less
expensive lens the rokinon 12 millimeter
f2 which is for mirrorless so i'll shoot
it on an eos m3 body but because it's on
aps-c
with the crop factor it's pretty similar
to the focal length of the uh millvis 18
millimeter
so let's jump in and let's take a look
at how they compare
okay first we'll uh just take a quick
look at some coma performance i've got
an image i shot a
almost two years ago on the distagon 15
millimeters over here at the corner and
then one i shot more recently with the
milvis 18 millimeter and so as you can
see and obviously they're two different
kinds of images in some ways but we're
mostly looking for this kind of thing
and so you can see just a little hint of
you know kind of the odd shape and the
extreme corner here um on the
milvis uh 18 millimeter but at the same
time the overall stars are are nice and
crisp and the image is smooth and so
there's not a lot of stretching here in
the corners and you know it's about the
same as the dyston 15 millimeter as far
as the actual coma shape in some
situations and the distagon 15
millimeter is
known to be one of the best um
lenses for shooting astro and so i mean
that's a strong performer there i also
want to give you a quick comparison to
the tamron 15 millimeter and i'll use a
um well we'll use the same kind of image
here for a second and then maybe a
second one also
and so uh here both of these are same
kind of thing this is 20 millimeters f
2.8 and so if we look towards the center
of the frame
we see a pretty similar looking result
and if we look out towards the corners
we see also a pretty similar looking
result this is the tamron and so you can
see
you know
some of the the little bits of coma
taking shape there same kind of thing
here it's really a pretty similar
result which is great for the milvis
because i've done a shootout with the
tamron and it was the lens that i
thought was one of the best for
shooting the night sky and so this is
actually a very good performance from
this and then just to compare another
more recent image from the
milvis that i just took here and so
we'll just again look at the stars you
know again a similar performance
okay so here as promised we're going to
compare side by side the zeiss which is
on the right and the rokinon which is on
the left and so we start out here on the
edge we're going to see the only
advantage really that the zeiss has is
there's you know quite obviously some
color fringing here both purple and
green fringing that just isn't there
chromatic aberrations are pretty much
perfect on the zeiss lens and uh but as
we look here and go on into the image we
can tell that despite the fact that this
ice is working with a superior sensor
the 5d mark iv
there's just you know overall more
sharpness and contrast or certainly no
more
sharpness and contrast for the zeiss
than there is for the rokinon and
you know if we just look here there's
just a nice amount of contrast and
detail here and i just think more so
maybe than what's showing up there on
the zeiss and if we look down towards
this corner here and in these grasses
we can see that you know once again
there's really not any more resolution
there for the zeiss and so we'll take
another quick look at f 5.6 and see if
that has uh cleared up so again we have
uh rokinon on the left we have zeiss on
the right and so if we look on this side
we see that
um number one chromatic aberrations
still haven't really cleared up on the
rokinon and so that's certainly an
advantage for zeiss but at the same time
our results are pretty much the same i
would say that they're pretty close to
being similar in terms of overall
sharpness here but neither are you
seeing a you know clear advantage for
the zeiss either and if we look up into
this kind of corner in the foreground i
would say that the rokinon is delivering
the stronger image
so now we're going to compare the tamron
with the zeiss this is both shot at 18
millimeters f 2.8 so zeiss on the right
tamron on the left and so number one you
can see that the tamron has far less
vignette here than what the zeiss does
so that's one advantage for
the tamron now if we look towards the
center of the image and i live view
focused on this rock right here to give
us a kind of a middle distance that
should allow for a lot of everything
else to be in focus we can find that
while the look is not similar there
appears to me to be a bit more contrast
on the tamron and a little bit more
definition in the tree these are both
shot on the 5d mark iv
and and so once again as we kind of pan
this way the image looks pretty similar
um however on these rocks there's
probably just a hint more resolution for
the tamron they're pretty close i mean
we'll call them
equal if we look at these chairs that
are hidden up in here they're also
looking pretty much similar as we move
towards the edge of the frame though i
look at this sign and i definitely see
an advantage for the tamron it's just a
little bit sharper
and
here in these rocks and of course we're
getting close to a depth of field issue
here but um for the vignettes kind of
hurting the zeiss image but overall here
the uh the tamron um looks just a hint
better
so here we're stopped down to f 5.6 and
here's something interesting begins to
emerge um number one we see that while
they're both the
the same basic basic exposure that one
400th of a second at 5.6 iso 100 exact
same body they're shot within just a few
minutes of each other you see that the
exposure value is radically different in
that the zeiss looks overexposed but in
reality it's needing far less light than
the tamron and so the light transmission
is clearly favors the zeiss lens here
and uh and so here if we actually look
it's it's kind of hard to compare with
that much exposure on there so what i'm
going to do is i have actually
tried to equalize exposure and by the
way i needed about a stop and a half to
get the histograms relatively close
on each one and so what we're going to
do now is we're going to jump in here
and take a look now that they're a
little bit more balanced and so here in
the middle um you know there's still
actually a little bit more exposure for
the zeiss than there is for the tamron
even after all of that
i'm not really necessarily seeing an
advantage for either lens if we look at
these chairs they're both nicely
rendered i would say that there's
perhaps a hint more definition in the
leaves over here if we pull over this
way it definitely looks like the tamron
is sharper in this little area of rock
here
and and here on this rock too so i would
say and definitely on the sign i mean
it's a clear advantage and clear
advantage here um along this fence that
there's just more definition there and
in these rocks over here so i would say
that um certainly the the center
sharpness may be about equal but the
edge sharpness that definitely goes to
the tamron
and finally i'm not really going to
compare these two images but more just
to show again that that
exposure difference this is the exact
same exposure shot four minutes apart
but look how much more light um the
zeiss is sucking in and so um if that's
something that's important to you that
certainly is a factor that the zeiss
needs far less light than what the
tamron does to
um to to produce the the image and so
that's something to take under
consideration as a part of this
here just want to quickly show you that
with a very inexpensive
height of filter
i was able to throw on their long
exposure and so then with just a little
bit of post-processing i was able to
produce a really dynamic
image there and similarly here
this is
just a 10 second exposure middle of the
day
but you know with some processing able
to produce a really cool result and then
to crop in that a bit
and
you know change the look up to you know
emphasize the movement of the water
along the rocks so that's one advantage
of that little 77 millimeter front
filter thread this is straight out of
camera here just shows the lens is very
dynamic here's a lot of light coming
towards the sensor all of these cars
passing by but you'll notice the
it's it's held up very very well against
that flare similarly here and a lot of
movement in the sky another long
exposure shot here but a great result
there
finally just you know this is an f4 shot
you know kind of a more traditional
look and if you look up it here there's
just great definition but look in the
transition
from the leaves moving up to the sky or
from the branches no chromatic
aberration at all that's a flawless
performance right there so as you can
see while the milvis produces beautiful
images it doesn't necessarily blow away
either the tamron or the rokinon
optically and in fact in some ways i
think it gives up some to them
particularly in the corners i think what
you're seeing is the result of what i
call a law of diminishing returns that
in recent years lenses have gotten so
much better across the field it used to
be that first party were up here and
third party were way down here it used
to be that
you know that expensive lenses were way
up here and inexpensive lenses were way
down here but we've seen a leveling of
the playing field due to advances that
are trickling down to other
manufacturers and to less expensive
lenses and so until there's another huge
optical breakthrough i think that you're
going to see a lot of parity and in fact
that's what i've been seeing in recent
years that particularly in the last two
years that there have been so many good
lenses released often at the same um
focal length that really you have to
kind of turn to other measures to make
your buying decision and and i think
that that's going to be true with the
milvis 18 millimeter is it a great lens
it absolutely is and i've been really
thrilled with the images i've been able
to produce with it
at the same time when you measure it
head to head with less expensive options
it isn't necessarily a sharper lens
compared to them
and then so that's just something to
take into consideration if you're
looking for a zeiss lens and looking for
this focal length it's a great option
and if you're looking for a great
landscape lens it is a great option but
at the same time know that spending the
more money to get this lens isn't
necessarily going to get you a more
highly performing lens than some of the
less expensive alternatives and i have
to confess that that cools my enthusiasm
somewhat for it it's a great lens i love
using it it's beautiful to look at and
it's beautiful to use and it creates
great images but at the same time i
wouldn't necessarily call it exceptional
in the sense of being better than other
similar lenses
i'm dustin abbott if you look down below
you will find
linkage to follow me on social media you
can also find a link to my full written
review that has a lot more image samples
also a link to an image gallery and also
a place to go and do some shopping if
you want to take a further look if you
haven't already please subscribe thanks
for watching
have a great day
[Music]
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