Zenitar 85mm f1.4 review

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At a first glance you would think this is a vintage lens but technically it’s not and you can buy it right now from the Zenit store. Specifically, the original Zenitar-1K was released in 1988 but the 1N and 1C were released in 2016 with an updated optical design.

The lens is made of metal, it weighs 580g, it is 59 to 70mm long and it has an external diameter of 78mm, with a 72mm front thread.

The iris has 8 blades, the aperture is clicked and it goes from f1.4 to f21 with half steps.

The focusing ring is textured, it turns 160 degrees and the minimum focusing distance is 85cm.

It comes with either Canon Ef or a Nikon F mount.

The lens is definitely chunky and well balanced, the controls turn smoothly but the focus ring is a bit stiff.

Wide open it can be quite soft even in the center with visible blooming.

By f2.8 it gets much sharper, with more detail and only falling off a bit in the corners.

By f8 it gets very sharp all over the frame, picking up even more detail.

And here’s a sample of how much it distorts.

Chromatic aberration is present and visible wide open, but it quickly disappears stopping down.

Colors are warm wide open and they get more neutral stopping down. Contrast is good, but it lacks some saturation.

Specular highlights have some hard edges but no artifacts and backgrounds can be very smooth or quite busy when further away.

It does flare when shooting towards a source of light, but it doesn’t lose much contrast and I haven’t had issues in normal use without a sunhood.

In all honesty, I was expecting the Zenitar to be much softer and unreliable, but I’m glad I was wrong.

It proved itself to be enjoyable to use and delivered pleasant images with a character that doesn’t obscure the subject.

Even wide open it was easy to focus properly and, unsurprisingly, it does feel right at home shooting portraits.




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