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Flare
Judging a lens by one performance characteristic is not very useful, unless that performance restricts specific use cases: one of my hopes for the 18mm f/3.5 Distagon which I mentioned in my June 25 blog entry has been dashed: the desire for an ultra wide angle which can be shot directly into the sun with little or no flare (like the ZF 25/2.8 Distagon). That is not to be.
The UFOs produced by the ZF 18/3.5 are troublesome. The pair of blue-sky images below were made shortly after the 18/3.5 Distagon arrived, comparing it to the outstanding Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G zoom. Further shooting confirms that the behavior shown below is typical.
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Zeiss ZF 18/3.5 Distagon @ f/8