Wow, those Yashica ML lenses...
It's interesting for me to learn from your experience that the Zeiss 70-210mm is actually a good lens.
I had always thought it might be a typical lens from this very early era of zoom lenses - and that the newer (and today cheaper) Zeiss 80-200 that you mentioned would be much better. Did you have the opportunity to do a comparison between these two?
As for 70-210mm, I myself have the well-known Canon FD lens which is really cheap today - but I have not yet checked it out.
Michael
Hello Michael,
The Canon FD lens is a decent performer but tends to be a bit soft as you get towards the longer focal lengths, though to be fair, that's the case with many long zooms. I did run a comparison of the Zeiss and Yashica equivalents, 70-210 and 80-200, about 15 years ago. The overall conclusion was, if memory serves, that both 70-210 lenses were bitingly sharp, had excellent contrast and even illumination throughout their focal range - no drop-off at 210mm. With the 80-200 lenses, both were fine performers, again throughout their focal lengths, but that Zeiss had the advantage in edge-to-edge sharpness. With the Yashica I had to run an additional test as I found that those with very early serial numbers had better performance in sharpness and contrast than those produced much later which was counter to what I'd have expected. Intriguingly, that also applied to the ML 100-300 lenses where the first few batches were a better match with their Zeiss cousin, especially towards the 300mm end where Zeiss otherwise had a significant advantage in both sharpness and contrast.
I regret that I was a Zeiss snob back in the late 1970s when I adopted the Contax Real Time System for my gymnastics photography, though to be fair, I could not have produced the books without their fast glass: 35, 50 and 85 f1.4s, 28 and 135 f2s and then later the 55 and 85 1.2s and the 100 f2. With the 1.2s in particular, pre-focusing was essential as their
dof is so shallow. But, in the last 15 years or so, I have got to know the Yashica range of lenses and while many are middle-of-the-road, they have some fabulous glass in their pantheon. I could have saved a small fortune had I been open to considering gear other than Zeiss! True, Yashica only produced 2 fast lenses in the form of the ML 55 1.2 and 50 f1.4 - both are fine lenses. But some of their glass matches or outperforms their Zeiss cousins under normal photographic conditions - such as their ML 35 & 24 f2.8s; their ML 21mm is no slouch either. But where Yashica excels is in some of its early zooms; we've already discussed the 70-210mm f4 and 100-300mm but their ML 28-50 is breathtaking and their ML 35-70 f3.5 and two-touch f4 zooms are truly amazing.
Other ML primes worth trying out are their 55 f2.8 & 100 f3.5 Macro lenses, 300mm f5.6/300mm f5.6 C, and of course the fabulous, tiny ML 500 f8 which is better than the Zeiss equivalent. Incidentally, the two C/Y versions of the Yashica 500mm f8 Reflex lenses are very decent performers and much cheaper than the rather rare ML. Of course, it's also worth remembering that Contax featured one Yashica lens in its brochures - the DX-100mm f4 Dental/Medical lens. It is essentially a large macro lens with an internal flash-ring and modelling light. While the Zeiss 100mm f4 S-Planar Bellows lens is in a class of its own, Yashica's little (by comparison) 100 f4 Bellows Lens is a bit special too - and about a tenth of the cost. I should also mention a couple of Yashica M42 lenses which I use regularly with an adapter ring: the Tomioka Yashinon 60mm f2.8 Macro is sharper than the superb Zeiss 60mm S-Planar; the DS-M 55mm f1.2 & 24mm f2.8 are every bit as good as the ML versions. And going back further in time, the Auto-Yashinon DX 100mm f2.8 is no slouch. The only Yashica ML lens to avoid is the 28-210.
For your amusement, I've attached a piccie showing some Yashica goodies I grabbed a while ago which include the DX-100mm f4 Medical lens with its modelling light showing, ML 55 f1.2, that 70-210 f4 and the wonderful Yashica FX-A of which fewer than 1000 were made before new owners Kyocera pulled the plug on it and the brilliant Contax 137AF (of which only 1 was made). Ah, what might have been