Zeiss officially dropped the “Carl” from their lenses. This is both, an insignificant but also historical news for a company that used the “Carl Zeiss” mark for a century. On Zeiss Blog you can find the explanation why they did it:
“ZEISS is now taking this development into account in its decision to create consistency across its brand communications.”
All future lenses will have the “Zeiss” mark. Now let’s hope we can see these new A and E-mount Zeiss lenses soon! 🙂
Zeiss Touit links:
32mm f/1.8 at BHphoto, Adorama and Uniquephoto. In Europe at [shoplink 18498 ebay]CameraCenter UK[/shoplink] and FotoMundus.
12mm f/2.8 at BHphoto, Adorama and Uniquephoto. In Europe at [shoplink 18497 ebay]CameraCenter UK[/shoplink] and FotoMundus.
27 Responses
that just makes old carl zeiss lenses more valuable for collectors
Did really old lenses say ‘Zeiss Ikon’ ??
Zeiss Ikon sounds more Iconic than Carl Zeiss 🙂
Now Carl marked lenses are considered as vintage, I guess…
A blog talking about Nex lenses and the Touit 12mm :
http://specialphotonex.blogspot.fr/
We Williams you Carl 🙁
Lol
We will miss you Carl 🙁
And yet they will remain grossly overpriced- and isn’t that what’s really important. 🙂
I’ll never buy a lens without Carl name …
Ahahahahah.
t e s t
How about a Lens named just “Carl” ?
Carl 16mm F2.8? lol
for some reason my comments are not coming up and I get a sign that it says I already said that.
Admin, everything ok in the back-end of things?
Its been squiffy for an age….. Beyond annoying.
Wait, who said that. Did you hear something ?
Ha! you funny
True. I can’t tell if there is a problem or if I am being censored.
Ok, so “ZEISS is now taking this development into account” (what development? Oh, I see: “In general language usage, ‘ZEISS’ is already well established in many countries and languages when referring to both the logo and the company”) “in its decision to create consistency across its brand communications.”
Right, the “brand” and its “communications” are everything for a company and its marketing, especially if lenses with a name that massively reeks of old German optical tradition are being manufactured in Japan for many years now…
Another exercise in futility. People already called the Company Zeiss anyway, so why bother with the name-change? And why all Capitals? Did people also spell the name that way when Zeiss themselves didn’t?
They probably figured that the ZEISS version will attract more attention than the Zeiss version, but maybe they should have looked at how often Sony is actually written SONY in ads and articles. On all Sony products and in all that company’s literature, manuals etc. the name is spelled with all capitals, but everybody else writes it with a capital initial only. Therefore, if their aim was to bring consistency, they failed miserably.
RX1r lens still has “Carl Zeiss” in the photographs of the camera. Get one now and it may be a collector item like the Lunar for the ultimate Minolta/Sony collection.
In the year 2100 thy will just be branded “Z”, because of a “development”…
I strikes me as very unwise for a company that has a reputation built on more than 150 years of tradition to go after “consistency across its brand communications.” In my humble opinion the “ZEISS” on the lenses above makes it look cheap.
Actually, as long as I can remember, here in Jena averybody always said just Zeiss.
Originally the company was called “Carl Zeizz Jena” right? & they dropped the Jena.
Now they drop the Carl part. Its ok i think.
From a branding perspective, this was the right thing to do. One word or the common use is best and well proven (Apple, Ford, FedEx, etc.)
BUT the Zeiss company is a bit different. I think they should have changed the brand to Zeiss but KEPT the Carl Zeiss on the lenses because it is NOT the brand but the “signature” of the maker (which also has the brand in it).
Tiffany is a brand and store, Tiffany and Co. is the company name but Louis Comfort Tiffany’s signature (even after he was gone) is desirable on that company’s high quality products.
Carl’s “signature” matters!
It’s already delivered with the “Zeiss” only. At least the 12mm.
Got it yesterday, but will bring it back – AF is terribly slow and loud (nothing for videos…), and amount of CAs is annoying for post processing.
I mean, don’t get me wrong – the lens is not all that bad, but it offers a bit to less for that steep price tag.
As mentioned, the CAs are much higher than with the 10-18 (with correction set to off), and the AF is really pretty bad for my taste (speed and noise).
Vignetting is probably a stop better than on the Sony, and also distortions are better controlled with the Zeiss. But again not on a level where you’d pay any price for it.
Without Carl it’s not the same :'(