Sony Japan (Source DC.watch) delayed the launch of the new Zeiss 50mmf /1.4 A-mount lens because of the “exceptional high demand”. The lens should have been shipped from may but now the date has been postponed to July 26. BHphoto (Click here) still reports July 10 as shipping date but I am sure that they will change it soon. Meantime Rokinon announced that the new Tilt Shift lens will ship next week (See Bhptoto).
The Zeiss preorders can be taken at Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here) and SonyStore USA (via AlphaCameraDeals). In Europe at Wex UK and Amazon DE.
94 Responses
is it just me or are the lens prices rising everywhere?
I mean when was the last time a lens came out for under 300 bucks…?
Here you go, and these are only from Sony. Sigmas have even more to add.
SAL1855, SAL55200, SAL55300, SAL75300, SAL50F18
Only don’t expect the stuff mentioned above to even come close in performance to that Zeiss.
Are you kidding me. The Sony 35mm f1.8 and 50mm f1.8 are easily matching the IQ that my CZ 24-70mm delivers.
The 85mm f2.8 measures about as much as a CZ 85mm f1.4 so those lenses are very good lenses. The only issue is the full plastic body which might not last as long.
So, you say mid class primes match a f/2.8 zoom? What a surprise …
As for the 85mm lenses – even if the 2.8 is just as good at 2.8 (what I doubt – the bokeh of the Sony lens isn’t the best), the Zeiss has a huge speed advantage, which alone is enough to warrant it’s price.
You are calling a $149 lens as mid class ? Then what is an entry class prime lens I must ask ?
And the f2.8 zoom is not just an f2.8 zoom like say a Tamron 28-70mm f2.8 but the flagship wide angle zoom lens for the Sony system selling at $1900.
You misunderstand me if you believe I am saying it is better to buy the 85mm f2.8 over the Zeiss. I never said that. All I said that its a very sharp lens in its own right and I really couldn’t tell any real difference between that lens and the Zeiss.
That the Zeiss has far far better build quality and is much faster (aperture wise) is not in question. My only contention is that the cheap primes are also stellar performers in their own right.
And yes the 85mm f2.8 is very sharp wide open. In fact the 35mm f1.8, 50mm f1.8 and 85mm f2.8 are all sharp wide open and I own two of these lenses while a friend owns the third along with the Zeiss 85mm.
Not at all. I do have the Sony 35mm f/1.8, 50mm f/1.4 and the 24-70mm f/2.8 CZ. Although the CZ is far away from being perfect, it’s mostly better than those two primes – and it should be for 2k. At f/8.0 the 50mm is a little bit sharper but the CZ has much less CA, CF etc.
Its not just optics…the ergonomics of the Zeiss are much better. When it comes to balancing a lens to a pro body with VG, you need the weight, and large lens barrel.
inflation, also they know people are willing to pay so much for lenses, so they charge more for it
It’s just the same for food and other living stuff because of inflation. It’s a new lens so i’m sure it’s better than any other 50mm lens but of course it’s also a luxury product. Their goal is not to sell a lot. I’m really curious about how this lens is better than his competitors; if it’s really much better than the sigma then i don’t mind buying one even at that price.
Interesting. I suppose that pre orders are how one determines demand before launch but I am curious as to what figures are considered “high” demand. In any case this is encouraging and I hope that it somehow accelerates other lens plans …
Didn’t they learn from the Zeiss 24mm fiasco?
I’ve never heard of a company delay a product because so many people want it 😉
I agree. That is strange for sure . . . .
Samsung delayed the S4 for that reason. Lumia 900 delayed in UK for that same reason. Apple has also done this…
+1
What fiasco was that?
They were sold out for some time and they were selling on ebay for a even more ridiculous price than they are sold for now.
Amazon has July 14 release date.
hahah for a so overpriced price? people are mad!! this is a good zeiss/sonuy campaign
This only shows one thing: There’re too many people with too much money out there. But I can’t imagine any company holding off a launch because of high demand. There’s nothing better than being sold out.
Marketing !!!
Like Apple & recently Samsung doing with its galaxy S4 ^^
So, what I read is that Sony can’t deliver small numbers in the beginnng because what?
Care to explain how this is marketing?
I believe he is referring to reverse psychology marketing – the “Pull Game”.
Sony Corporate: “[INSERT EXPLETIVE HERE]! No one is preordering this lens! Marketing, leak some info about “how well its selling.”
Sony Marketing: “Look everyone, this awesome expensive lens is now delayed because we cant fulfill the exploding demand!!”
Consumer: “Oh…wow. I guess I should pre-order one too!”
Its the “Apple” effect. Everyone wants to be in the ‘in crowd’. However, I dont think its gonna work for this sort of product…
Might be, but I really doubt it. Btw, such a strategy doesn’t necessarily mean that “no one is preordering”. I find it much more believable that there is an actual interest in that lens, given the dated SAL50f14.
I am also not sure what do you mean by the “Apple effect”. Apple certainly doesn’t need to delay anything, they do sell everything like crazy.
True – they dont play this game. What I meant is that Apple is an addiction to many. People throwing out their iPhone 4S to buy the iPhone 5…when its virutally the same product. They have to feel like they’re in the “in crowd”, and in this case, the “pros with the Zeiss label”. The ‘image’ of Zeiss is exactly the same as the ‘image’ of Apple.
Yep, says a lot about their marketing efforts and quality. What I find even more interesting is the “out” crowd. Those who believe bashing on Apple is cool. The human mind is mesmerizing.
Meanwhile the stores are full with junk lenses.
That’s probably the most ridiculous BS corporate spin I’ve ever read.
I’ve never seen any lens delay in this ridiculous reason.
If the price is $1000, I do believe this rumor. Sony needs to fire their whole management team and restructure the company.
Yeah…right. Never does this happen, expecially for a lens of this magnitude. What this REALLY means is that there have been very few preorders and they’re trying to figure out how to cheapen the design/manufacturing process last minute to help boost sales. Or, they’re trying to figure out if its even worth it to ramp up full scale production. They’ve already lost tons of (probably hundreds of thousands if not millions) of dollars in the R&D of this lens…what would hurt more – ramp up full scale production of a lens that doesnt sell at all, or, cancel the project and take the loss.
Jack
And whiners gonna whine…
You bectcha!! I’m hosting a BBQ tonight and THIS rumor will be the theme. LOL
Some people live their lives like this: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-w_gLFa02dVg/UKs4doE4BdI/AAAAAAAAAbQ/WGiznpABLy0/s1600/head-in-the-sand.gif
Absolutely. Maybe Sony’s future isn’t as bleak as described in the comments.
Did Nikon delay the release of the D800 because of “exceptional high demand”?
http://dptnt.com/2012/03/amazon-nikon-d800-shipping-delayed/
hahaha, spot on 😀
You are talking of a vendor delaying shipment because that vendor has not received its allocation. That is a different case from this one. Unless they planned to produce only five lenses. They have been in business for a long time and they are in a better position to make reasonble predictions on how many lenses they can sell. To beulieve this, one must be a big believer in Sony. It is the same thing as the cameras. Sony might have figured out that releasing a78 just two years a77 would be commercial disaster. The reasonnthat was given one was also lame
Yeah but this is different. Nikon didn’t delay the release but couldn’t handle the high demand. A single customer might got his D800 delayed by Amazon but another on the other side of the world got his in time. The Sony-rumor said, Sony won’t ship the lens entirely until summer because of what-ever-strange-reason.
Actually, for the moment, only Sony Japan has announced a delay. Meanwhile, remember the D4 delay?
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-11674-12326
UK and Japan cited overwhelming demand as the reason.
Overwhelming demand was a concequence of the D4 production delay. Not the other way around….
Uhmm, no. Japan cited overwhelming demand for the delay. Unfortunately, the article isn’t available anymore, but here is a discussion about it:
http://photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00ZynM
I know what they claimed, but it wasnt true. Waiting for my D4, I spoke to NPS several times and they told me that there were production delays, and the camera was in very high demand already – but being in demand didnt have anything to do with a release delay. There were bugs with assembly that needed to be worked out. Either there was intentional, or uninentional misinformation.
Well, maybe what they told you wasn’t true? 🙂 Anyway, you just showed another reason for a possible delay of the Zeiss. Reverse psychology marketing seems a bit far fetched.
Anything is possible, and, I agree.
“Hey, you know that 50/1.4 we listed for, like, $1500?”
“Yeah.”
“Somebody ordered one.”
“What?”
“Seriously, somebody ordered one. A couple people, actually. Maybe, like, six.”
“So, you mean we actually have to produce the thing?”
“I know, right? Totally thought we could just coast with the prototype.”
Ha, yep. Just like the 500 f4.
“Hey Hiroto, someone ordered the 500 f4!”
“April Fools, right?”
“Nope.”
“Should we tell him that soon he wont have a new camera to mount his $13,000 lens on?”
Supervisor: “Get back to work!”
That’s exactly what I was thinking! Seriously though, if I could justify it, I would buy it.
your post should go to top-10 BS excuses on this website.
And we can give you the honorary title of master Sony Alpha Rumors troll.
A black belt in the art of trolling.
The conversation DP and Canon Jack were joking about probably DID take place at some point in time in a Sony factory.
bullsheet, they said the same thing with the zeiss 24mm. y didn’t they just make more this time.
I believe demand is high. and I believe production is delayed. but I find it hard to believe those two are related. but “delayed because of high demand” sound better than “delayed because we screw up”.
High demand without any reviews? Those people must be in good religion.
You expect something bad from Zeiss?
The Zeiss has good center sharpness but there are many Zeiss lenses have soft corner. Even the the Leica have the same problem.
On A-mount they usually tend to have excellent corners 🙂 better than ZF/ZE versions.
I am not sure if this Planar has the same optical formula or not
http://www.photozone.de/nikon_ff/588-zeisszf5014ff?start=1
The new Sony Zeiss is an entirely new optical design, designed by Sony in cooperation with Zeiss as stated by the video posted here a while back hosted by a Sony engineer.
If that’s so, there may be some improvement. As mentioned above, not all Zeiss are good so I would wait for a full review before touching that expensive lens.
There’s enough evidence out there already to support total confidence in this product. Besides, like Vlad says, its Zeiss. They dont release hyped up junk. The problem isnt the lens; its confidence in the A-mount. Right now Sony is trying to build a modern, state of the art highrise atop an unknown foundation.
If this lens was being made with a native F-mount or EF-mount, you could bet it would be sold out continuously for years.
I am happy to have owned CZ lenses in my life and I will probably get more in the future but they are overpriced when you compare then to some much cheaper lenses. I really thought my pictures would be so much better when I got them and they were better but not even 50% better maybe 20% if that. If you can afford then you wont be disappointed. CZ lenses can stand next to any other pro quality lenses but I do feel like you pay extra for that blue sticker and heaven help you if you need to get it repaired. Some people will claim nothing comes close and many other bold statements and it seams to me they just want to justify the premium they paid. There are plenty lenses that come close that cost many times less. CZ lenses are special but most clients,if you shoot for money don’t notice what you do. So I just shoot with primes for now with 2 Nex-6 cameras for now.
It applies to everything, not just zeiss. 150$ prime will never be 600% better than a 1000$ prime. % of increase in price NEVER equals to % of increase in quality.
You are right on the money!
Here’s what I think Sony should do;
Learn from Sigma.
Sigma has its own DSLR system, and they make lenses for other mounts. They make the overwhelming majority of their money for Canon/Nikon cameras.
If Sony started offering Zeiss autofocus lenses for Canon/Nikon cameras, it would be a win/win for everyone. This really wouldnt cut into the Alpha sales at all, but would tremendously boost overall profits. Heck, I’d buy this lens in a heartbeat if it was in F-mount!
Of course, I know this is a crazy idea…but its a nice dream.
Maybe Sony should market their flash system to other brands too. At least they all have ISO shoes. Our Sony’s are stuck for another year with half new cameras ISO and the other half (including lunar) as iISO.
Sounds like they are trying to create a little demand by saying there is so much demand… This works for silly Iphone buyers but I hardly doubt this is the case with this highly overpriced lens… Here is an example… I had a ‘brand new’ old stock Minolta maxxum 50 1.4 listed on ebay(Yes I said brand new), and had to list it 3 times for it to finally sell… very rare, high quality 50 mm lens that was at a great price, and still took 2 weeks to sell… Yes, I understand it probably wont match the image quality of this lens, but was 5 times cheaper… Will this lens be 5 times better, Nope… The lesson? ‘Don’t believe the hype’…
The logic of a little hairy Troll who has just come out from under his bridge.
I don’t get it. What are you talking about?
Sony, what’s wrong with you? You are dangling this carrot “should be released soon” in front of the people buying into your brand who should know better. Choose from what ever is available on the market now. This heavy lens won’t magically make your AF points be more accurate or suddenly appear outside the “central square area” of a99, Sony 50mm F1.4 is good enough
Oh no… Web resolution demands top ZA IQ. I’m sure my clients will want every job reshot with the new ZA.
So high demand pushes back the release date of the entire run of lens? Never heard of a company that estimates demand at say 1,000 pieces and then getting pre orders of 5,000 putting off delivery of the original estimated demand of 1,000. I say b***s***. Demand has nothing to do with the delay. They just don’t have any lens ready to be delivered on their original release date.
In the eyes of Sony Management, this translates to “Gee, the new bodies ain’t sellin’ too well and we didn’t think so many A-Mount owners were still active users”.
It’s probabaly a sign that Sony never understood why exactly they didn’t move too many Sony-labelled Minolta lenses — the obvious answer being that a coating upgrade was insufficient to get existing users to re-purchase the same lenses.
Meanwhile, Sony had abandoned old lenses like the 28/2.8 which performed just fine from an optics standpoint. In this example, its real shortcoming was the motor — loud and slow — and a SAM/SSM upgrade would have kept it a viable product for today.
I agree that the new lenses are getting a bit too expensive. Sony’s body/lens pricing scheme seems a tad out of whack…
Was somebody dissing the cz 24-70? I kinda like the results I get, for e.g.
http://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/pic/31971629
Caution, pretty girl ahead!
1500 bucks for a 50mm prime… LOL. I dont care how “awesome” the IQ is, the price is just ridiculous. Well done Sony…
Can’t afford it – don’t whine.
So the Blue Sticker Man wasn’t pleased with Sony’s assembly robots.
Anyone entertained the view that certain specifications of the lens may have had to been updated to synchronize with new FF alpha mount strategy for the new year??????????
It is likely that there haven’t been enough pre-orders/interest to make a production run.
By delaying the release date they are hoping to get more pre-orders and will turn on the factory line when the production costs can break even.
I don’t see any reason not to ship what they have supposedly produced, so I smell marketing BS and a failure to sell.
they just told you something contrary – and you insist that there weren’t enough orders. WHAT?! Face the truth man – your ridiculous predictions don’t cover with reality.
Sky-walker for once think rationary. Which company would go with this strategy if the demand was so high? And what is high in this case? How many Sony shooters are there in the world and how many of those will buy this lens? These guys have been selling lenses for a long time and they pretty much know what to expect at which price point. Even when companies spend a certain amount of funds into research, it cannot go into full production if it will incur losses by doing so. You dont justify funds that have already been spent by incurring more losses. What AlphaGuy wriote make more sense than what you have said
+1
“These guys have been selling lenses for a long time and they pretty much know what to expect at which price point.”
But then, if they are delaying, does it mean they messed up?
Mr Putin said that the elections in Russia were free and frauds, if had been, were negligible. Face the truth, man!
Sky_walker, marketing departments love naive people like you.
Hey Nut, go troll elsewhere. Sony Alpha Rumors didnt MAKE the rumor, they just reported it. Take a hike buddy.
Photonut fails again. Who actually believes his nonsense?
sony should maybe acknowledge that the sigma 50/1.4 got too many good reviews, and found that they couldn’t charge 3X for the same lens, and they are thinking of an increase in the price, to make customers happy and enhance their status of owners of very expensive lenses. For that they need to wait for the right conditions though. In the meantime they will design something of lesser quality.
Such BS. If they were ready they would sell what they have and back order because of demand. I also see the Sigma 35 has mysteriously moved from expected release of December to April and now to May. The Alpha mount is an afterthought even for Sony. Nobody puts off release because of demand. That makes no sense. They are not ready for release. They are just trying to convince us that everyone wants this lens to attempt to boost sales. They are just behind in production.
I’m not understanding the arguments and bitter complaints regarding the pricing for this lens – not the value, the pricing.
The SZ 135mm/ 1.8 – $1800
The SZ 85mm / 1.4 – $1699
The SZ 50mm / 1.4 SSM – $1500
The SZ 24mm / 2.0 SSM – $1400
The SZ 50mm / 1.4 makes sense perfect sense at $1500 given the existing line-up of Sony Zeiss lenses. To charge $1000 for it would invalidate the pricing for the entire SZ line up of primes. It wouldn’t make sense to charge less than the 24mm, it’s longer and faster. If anything the 85mm and 135mm are in need of updating or a price reduction given the lack of SSM and inability to support AF-D mode.
No argument about pricing. Anyone can charge anything they like.
Even Nikon, with their excellent 50/1.4 G for $484 new.
The ZA 85 and ZA 135 are AF-D compliant as of firmware 1.01, but an SSM upgrade would be nice!
I can’t believe some folks are arguing against better lower prices. Honestly I don’t see the point of a 50mm f1.4 CZ lens (there are other primes that make more sense)
£1300 odd is honestly way OTT price wise, sure I’d not expect it bargain basement. But £800 (bit more sensible price wise) odd even then I’d say thanks but no thanks.
I’m sure the lens will be great optics and build wise, yes sealing too (would want to be for the asking price) Reality is bar a few wealthy A mount shooters who collect Zeiss glass, it’s not even remotely going to be on the agenda for most folks.
Even if you gave me the money to buy one, I can think of other lenses I’d prefer to spend the money on.