The legacy: Contax CY 70-210 f/3.5

This photo was taken in Italy twelve years ago and scanned from film.  CY 70-210mm is my most favourite zoom lens and so why I still have two of this.  It is heavy and weights 1.2kg. Being the first Contax tele zoom lens, Zeiss tried their best to build this lens. At that time they did have the f/2.8 design but it was too big too heavy. So, they decided to have the 3.5 rather the 2.8 version. This is the only one of the two zoom lenses made in Germany for Contax SLR camera.

The sharpness of this lens is very good and even across the field. The central resolution is not the highest but you will find that the corner resolution are kept the same as the centre .  I compared this lens  with the first generation Canon 70-200mm F/2.8.  Canon has higher centre resolution at 3.5 but lower on edge region.  I sold my Canon and  stayed with the Contax.  Why?  Contax has better micro contrast and details in shadow.  The Canon is a very good lens for spot photography.

The closer together the sagittal and meridional lines are to each other, the smoother and more natural the background blurring (bokeh) becomes. It is one of the reason why I keep the Contax.  Please note that Contax's MTFs is measured from a real sample lens and the Canon's MTF charts are theoretical value.
Below is the MTF chart for Canon 70-200mm 2.8 II

It is a lens for film but it can aslo be used on digital.  I strongly suggest to use this lens with L41 UV filter and it can reduce the purple fringe issue on some digital cameras.By the way, any post image processor software can eliminate the purple fringe just by few clicks.

with Kodak SLR/c with no PP