Contax 70-210 3.5 Vs Canon 70-200?

Hi Folks..... I am looking for a tele zoom. I already acquired Contax 50 1.7 & 35 2.8. So in order to keep glass from same brand I have been looking forward for Contax 70-210 3.5, but people online say for telezoom Canon is better. Does any member has experience with these two glasses?

Warm Regards
Anurag

I have a contax set, too, but would get the canon version if money were not a factor (it's many times more expensive). The reason is on a telephoto like this, I'd like to have IS. I've used the Canon 70-200 2.8 IS and it's awesome. If you were talking about getting one of the non-IS versions, I'd go for the contax...

Don't nail me down to it (I'm only shooting on canon cameras if somebody forces me to) but isn't the canon 70-200 a ultrasonic lens and for that reason not having hard stops on the focusing thread?
In that case you will loose your ability to mark focus distances on a follow focus.
I myself have a Minolta 70-200 2.8 SSM, its the same one currently sold from Sony but with coatings and even though this lens is from Minolta a manufacturer that gave almost any of its lenses hard stops for the focus this one has and detached focusing ring. Also the focus of this lens (and this was also the case with a canon one i had to use once, too) didn't felt nice manually focusing. Its not even remotely as smooth as that of a manual focusing lens. (Besides that they are both probably a lot more expensive then a comparable MF lens)

Though if the MF lens is expanding a lot or a pull-zoom it might be painful to work with as well.

Considering the Stabilization I wouldn't believe that you are likely to get good beheld footage of a 70-200 especially near the long end, its a lens I would traditionally see sitting on a tripod or mono pod for video. Considering this I wouldn't really consider the Stabilization a buying reason.

I just shot the Rockstar uproar concert completely hand held with the 70-200 2.8 IS the IS is great. Didn't have one issue at all.

I just shot the Rockstar uproar concert completely hand held with the 70-200 2.8 IS the IS is great. Didn't have one issue at all.

In that case the IS Lens seems to be the way to go when you look to shoot hand held. I think it really comes down to how you want to use the lens.

(If only used this kind of lens for stills till now but I'm willing to give them a chance on the BMCC.)

Thank you folks for prompt replies..... But as mentioned by 'FK' the criterion is image quality and matching color with other Contax primes. I am not planning to use it handheld, so the IS factor won't have much role.

. If you were talking about getting one of the non-IS versions, I'd go for the contax...

Are you talking in terms of image quality?

Don't nail me down to it (I'm only shooting on canon cameras if somebody forces me to) but isn't the canon 70-200 a ultrasonic lens and for that reason not having hard stops on the focusing thread?
In that case you will loose your ability to mark focus distances on a follow focus.
I myself have a Minolta 70-200 2.8 SSM, its the same one currently sold from Sony but with coatings and even though this lens is from Minolta a manufacturer that gave almost any of its lenses hard stops for the focus this one has and detached focusing ring. Also the focus of this lens (and this was also the case with a canon one i had to use once, too) didn't felt nice manually focusing. Its not even remotely as smooth as that of a manual focusing lens. (Besides that they are both probably a lot more expensive then a comparable MF lens)

Though if the MF lens is expanding a lot or a pull-zoom it might be painful to work with as well.

Sorry pal, I couldn't get it well, does that mean Canon is not best of the choice?

I just shot the Rockstar uproar concert completely hand held with the 70-200 2.8 IS the IS is great. Didn't have one issue at all.

I am planning to use lens for feature, that's why I am more concerned about the quality of image produced .

Ok I'll give it another shoot .

First things first, all these 70-200 lenses most photographers are so badly wanting are designed to be fast auto focus lenses, the design goal of these has never been to handle the best possible way when manually focused. Unlike with traditional lenses that were driven by a motor inside of the camera body these lenses are working with a Motor inside of the lens. Off course this motor isn't extremely powerful and for it to focus as fast as possible the whole Manual focusing System is dis-attached from the Moving parts of the lens when it is Automatically focusing. Is a bit like if there was a clutch between the focusing ring and the internal mechanics of the Lens.
The result of this are two negative aspects.
1.) The Manual focusing feels a bit Indirect, and it isn't the kind of smooth super precise manual Focus you would expect form a proper Manual Focusing lens.

To put it in perspective. I recently bought an Minolta MD 45 F2.0 from ebay for around 25€ just to give it to a friend of mine owning a NEX for him to play around with it. This Lens was a cheap lens already when it was Made while my 70-200 would did way beyond 2000€ new. (I belive it was also shipped as a Kit lens back in the days.) However this lens easily outperforms the 70-200 when it comes to manual focusing. The reason being that it didn't suffered from the design limitations you have if you want to build a quiet fast AF lens.

2.) The Manual focusing Ring isn't directly connected to the focusing mechanism. Traditionally if you pull focus using a Follow focus you have some sort of white disk (ARRI) or white ring (Chrosziel) that you can mark custom focusing points on. Lets say you have an actor going to different predefined points in a scene. You would simply write 1 2 3 4 ... on the follow focus ring for the points you want the focus to be. When filming you will simply focus looking on the markings of th followfocus so that you don't need to worry about the focus to be off. But if you you have the sort of lens described in the begining you can rotate your focusing ring beyond the end of the focusing distances of the lens. If this happens the position of the manual focusing ring changes relative to the distance the lens is currently focusing at. As a result your marks will not be correct anymore.

(3. AF lenses generally also have a shorter manual travel meaning that they are faster but less accurate to focus. This can be an issue for Cinematography however this changes form lens to lens and I can't make a definitive statement about the Canon Lens.)

I don't know about your Budget and your need to actually go far in the Tele Range but if the budget allows it a lens such as an used Cooke 20-100 T3.1, Angenieux HR 17-102mm T 2.9 or Angenieux HR 25-250mm T 3.5 . (These lenses however are more expensive then the Canon 70-200 so really make sure that they match your needs if you look into buying one.)

Concerning the Canon Zoom I would simply go and rent it for one or two days, renting such a lens is relatively inexpensive and I think that its a good was to see if the lens works for you or not.

I hope I could give you some other perspectives. But the best is really to try to get the Individual Lenses into your hands to try out what works best with your work-flow.

Ok I'll give it another shoot .

First things first, all these 70-200 lenses most photographers are so badly wanting are designed to be fast auto focus lenses, the design goal of these has never been to handle the best possible way when manually focused. Unlike with traditional lenses that were driven by a motor inside of the camera body these lenses are working with a Motor inside of the lens. Off course this motor isn't extremely powerful and for it to focus as fast as possible the whole Manual focusing System is dis-attached from the Moving parts of the lens when it is Automatically focusing. Is a bit like if there was a clutch between the focusing ring and the internal mechanics of the Lens.
The result of this are two negative aspects.
1.) The Manual focusing feels a bit Indirect, and it isn't the kind of smooth super precise manual Focus you would expect form a proper Manual Focusing lens.

To put it in perspective. I recently bought an Minolta MD 45 F2.0 from ebay for around 25€ just to give it to a friend of mine owning a NEX for him to play around with it. This Lens was a cheap lens already when it was Made while my 70-200 would did way beyond 2000€ new. (I belive it was also shipped as a Kit lens back in the days.) However this lens easily outperforms the 70-200 when it comes to manual focusing. The reason being that it didn't suffered from the design limitations you have if you want to build a quiet fast AF lens.

2.) The Manual focusing Ring isn't directly connected to the focusing mechanism. Traditionally if you pull focus using a Follow focus you have some sort of white disk (ARRI) or white ring (Chrosziel) that you can mark custom focusing points on. Lets say you have an actor going to different predefined points in a scene. You would simply write 1 2 3 4 ... on the follow focus ring for the points you want the focus to be. When filming you will simply focus looking on the markings of th followfocus so that you don't need to worry about the focus to be off. But if you you have the sort of lens described in the begining you can rotate your focusing ring beyond the end of the focusing distances of the lens. If this happens the position of the manual focusing ring changes relative to the distance the lens is currently focusing at. As a result your marks will not be correct anymore.

(3. AF lenses generally also have a shorter manual travel meaning that they are faster but less accurate to focus. This can be an issue for Cinematography however this changes form lens to lens and I can't make a definitive statement about the Canon Lens.)

I don't know about your Budget and your need to actually go far in the Tele Range but if the budget allows it a lens such as an used Cooke 20-100 T3.1, Angenieux HR 17-102mm T 2.9 or Angenieux HR 25-250mm T 3.5 . (These lenses however are more expensive then the Canon 70-200 so really make sure that they match your needs if you look into buying one.)

Concerning the Canon Zoom I would simply go and rent it for one or two days, renting such a lens is relatively inexpensive and I think that its a good was to see if the lens works for you or not.

I hope I could give you some other perspectives. But the best is really to try to get the Individual Lenses into your hands to try out what works best with your work-flow.

Thank you very much for spending this much time in explaining things, I really appreciate that. Yes surely me too acquired some first hand experience with old and new MF glasses. As you have mentioned, the focus throw on Vintage ones is large as I saw on mine Contax 50 1.7 & 35 2.8. Yesterday I borrowed a Tokina 11-16 from a friend and saw what you said . The focus throw was I believe not even half of that on Contax.
Regarding the premium Cooke's & Angenieux glasses, I wish I had my pockets that deep .

I once plugged a canon 70-200 of a friend but couldn't spend much time with it. Will bring it again to check it out. I read it somewhere it produces yellowish images, is that true?

What I really need to know is how does it fair in comparison with Contax 70-210 in terms of images produced. From what you have said, I am more convinced than before, that in terms of ease of handling it would be way better for a professional cameraman. But if someone could tell me which one is better image-wise, I would be a bit more delighted

Well the Problem with the Contax lens it that you pull the barrel towards you to zoom.
So even if it should have an good IQ it would be awkward to handle. (And I don't see you getting this lens to work properly with an matebox.)
(The total lenght of the lens changes when its focallength changes. The question is do you really need a Zoom, and does it really need to be up to 200? ( 200mm on the BMCC would be something like a 460-480mm Lens on a 35mm Fulframe SLR, thats a really long lens.)

Well the Problem with the Contax lens it that you pull the barrel towards you to zoom.
So even if it should have an good IQ it would be awkward to handle. (And I don't see you getting this lens to work properly with an matebox.)
(The total lenght of the lens changes when its focallength changes. The question is do you really need a Zoom, and does it really need to be up to 200? ( 200mm on the BMCC would be something like a 460-480mm Lens on a 35mm Fulframe SLR, thats a really long lens.)

Thanks again Pal for your insight.... I checked Canon 70-200 2.8 as well as Canon 100-400 and found images as good. But I am still curious about the performance of not only Contax, but now of Leica 80-200 & Angenieux 70-210 as well . And yes I need those wavelengths.

Warm Regards

but isn't the canon 70-200 a ultrasonic lens and for that reason not having hard stops on the focusing thread?

It is also the only telephoto parafocal still lens, which makes lot more sense.

but isn't the canon 70-200 a ultrasonic lens and for that reason not having hard stops on the focusing thread?

It is also the only telephoto parafocal still lens, which makes lot more sense.

It certainly isn't the only one my Minolta Lens is parfocal as well, some lenses (especially older ones) aren't but the Canon lens certainly isn't the only one around. (I have heard that the Sigma 70-200 2.8 Os is nearly parfocal, too. The Tamron 70-200 should be Parfocal as well and it is a lot cheaper then the Canon Lens.)

For Modern Lenses you might also just call the lens-manufacturer they should be able to tell you whether or not a lens is parfocal.

Well the Problem with the Contax lens it that you pull the barrel towards you to zoom.
So even if it should have an good IQ it would be awkward to handle. (And I don't see you getting this lens to work properly with an matebox.)
(The total lenght of the lens changes when its focallength changes. The question is do you really need a Zoom, and does it really need to be up to 200? ( 200mm on the BMCC would be something like a 460-480mm Lens on a 35mm Fulframe SLR, thats a really long lens.)

Thanks again Pal for your insight.... I checked Canon 70-200 2.8 as well as Canon 100-400 and found images as good. But I am still curious about the performance of not only Contax, but now of Leica 80-200 & Angenieux 70-210 as well . And yes I need those wavelengths.

Warm Regards

All the lenses should deliver good Images for an Angenieux lens the zoomrange of 70-200 is really small so I would think that the resolution should be OK, however Angenieux Glass tends to be a lot warmer then Zeiss Glass (that has the reputation of rendering very cold colors.). This is nothing critical In the days of digital color correction but still something you should be aware of. (Though most likely an easy fix if you are experienced at color grading.)
The Leica lenses have the reputation to be amongst the best Stills lenses money can buy. A lot of People are using Leica R lenses as budget cine-lens replacement, however the color rendition might also differ from that of the Zeiss lenses you already own.

I think in general the resolution of the lenses shouldn't be to critical even at 4K as 4K means only 8Mpx of total resolution.

I have a Vivitar 70-210 3.5 and I love it to death, and I picked it up for $40!

I have a Vivitar 70-210 3.5 and I love it to death, and I picked it up for $40!

How are you connecting this Vivitar? I take it to the BMCC? Thanks in advance for the info.

All the lenses should deliver good Images for an Angenieux lens the zoomrange of 70-200 is really small so I would think that the resolution should be OK, however Angenieux Glass tends to be a lot warmer then Zeiss Glass (that has the reputation of rendering very cold colors.). This is nothing critical In the days of digital color correction but still something you should be aware of. (Though most likely an easy fix if you are experienced at color grading.)
The Leica lenses have the reputation to be amongst the best Stills lenses money can buy. A lot of People are using Leica R lenses as budget cine-lens replacement, however the color rendition might also differ from that of the Zeiss lenses you already own.

I think in general the resolution of the lenses shouldn't be to critical even at 4K as 4K means only 8Mpx of total resolution.

Thanks Mr. Kreutzer, here expert Gurus are more helpful than one could expect
So does that mean even old Vivitar glass would hold good on big screen?

but isn't the canon 70-200 a ultrasonic lens and for that reason not having hard stops on the focusing thread?

It is also the only telephoto parafocal still lens, which makes lot more sense.

Surely, but it's not just about ease of use, because IMHO at the end how your image looks matter the most, and yeah I am surely getting greedy about having better images from an old second hand glass

I have a Vivitar 70-210 3.5 and I love it to death, and I picked it up for $40!

How are you connecting this Vivitar? I take it to the BMCC? Thanks in advance for the info.

Pal I too do have Vivitar 70-210 by Kiron. I too got lured by watching the shots of Mr Frank Glencairn. But my bad, I ended buying a FD mount version in anxiety and that doesn't focus beyond a couple of feet . And also, Mr Frank mentioned somewhere here on forum while doing a test on BMCC that
"if Vivitar looks so much good, then how beautiful Zeiss zoom gonna look"
I think he was clearly declaring supremacy of Zeiss/Contax glass. But yes as it has already been said all over so many times that you can't go wrong with price tag of these awesome oldies( Vivitar)

I have a Vivitar 70-210 3.5 and I love it to death, and I picked it up for $40!

How are you connecting this Vivitar? I take it to the BMCC? Thanks in advance for the info.

Sir it just needs the relevant adapter to connect it. Adapter are easily available on amazon for 10/15 bucks.

Warm Regards
Anurag

Sir it just needs the relevant adapter to connect it. Adapter are easily available on amazon for 10/15 bucks.

Warm Regards
Anurag

Thank you. Just so I'm clear, could you specify BMCC version (EF or MFT), adapter type, and lens mount? For example, I saw FD to EF adapters with and without glass. Are people using the Vivitar with the BMCC EF? Thanks again.

EDIT: apologies for drifting OT from the original post.

Thank you. Just so I'm clear, could you specify BMCC version (EF or MFT), adapter type, and lens mount? For example, I saw FD to EF adapters with and without glass. Are people using the Vivitar with the BMCC EF? Thanks again.

EDIT: apologies for drifting OT from the original post.

No problem for drifting as all Gurus here say we are all here to learn

I do have a EF mount version. Regarding mounts I would recommend ignore FD as far as possible or rather don't buy it at all. I have an average quality FD to EOS adapter which I purchased locally here in Delhi. Regarding the adapters you are talking, ones without glass would never focus to infinity. Those with glasses would focus to infinity buy inferior glass of adapter would produce bad images. So FD is not a viable option. I have been using Contax glass via Fotodiox adapters from amazon. They works real fine.