Zeiss lenses are well known for their contrasty, sharp, and nearly flawless renderings with smooth bokeh, making them highly sought-after portrait instruments. This great video review takes a look at one of the company's more reasonably priced options, the Milvus 85mm f/1.4 ZE and the sort of performance and image quality you can expect from it in practice.
Coming to you from Christopher Frost, this excellent video review takes a look at the Zeiss Milvus 85mm f/1.4 ZE lens. At $1,799, the Milvus 85mm f/1.4 certainly is not cheap, but when you compare its performance to the Otus 85mm f/1.4, which costs more than twice as much, it quickly looks like a relative bargain for anyone wanting to get a Zeiss portrait lens. It comes with a range of great features, including:
- Planar design for high sharpness throughout the focusing range
- Seven anomalous partial dispersion elements for reduced chromatic aberrations and increased clarity
- Spherical design for particularly smooth bokeh
- T* anti-reflective coating for reduced flares and ghosting and increased contrast
- Manual focus design
- Weather-resistant all-metal design
Altogether, the Milvus 85mm f/1.4 looks like a very viable alternative to the top-shelf Otus and a great option for a wide range of portrait shooters. Check out the video above for Frost's full thoughts.
It is a great lens, but you need space for your fingers on a Canon DSLR body. On the 6D or 6Dii it's way too fat, and I have rather thin, small hands. It was better on the EOS R due to the adapter, but there it was too front heavy for my taste.
Image quality? Gorgeous. If you want quality and don't mind a heavy piece of glass/metal, go for it. (I'm happier with my old FD 85mm/f1.2 L, as it's more than enough for me and way lighter.)