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Good news folks! I just learned from a trusted sources that unlike the other Loxia lenses the new 21mm Loxia is not going to be a modified version of the current [shoplink 9804 ebay]ZM T* 2,8/21 Biogon lens[/shoplink]. Zeiss decided to make a real new design of the lens specifically made for E-mount:
- The lens has a Distagon and not a Biogon design. Just like the new Milvus 21mm lens.
- The lens has a 11 elements and nine group design (Milvus has 16 elements and 13 group design).
- The lens has high resolution on all the frame with low distortion and color fringing and appealing bokeh
- The lens will ship in December
You can follow the live blogging of the announcement tomorrow here on SonyAlphaRumors (Monday October 12 at 11am Berlin time).
UPDATE:
Preorder:
In USA at BHphoto.
In Europe at Fotomundus.
Price: USD 1,499 (excl. VAT) or EUR 1,259.66 (excl. VAT).* and shipment start in December.
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69 Responses
Hmm, if it’s a distagon I wonder what of its size? As they (Zeiss) originally said that all Loxia lenses will have same filter thread size
Yes, this really should be their priority. Zeiss, please keep the Loxia line compact and convenient by sticking to the 52mm filter thread!
Did Zeiss really said this? I thought it was only something People on the Internet wished … and obviously would be a good idea!
Pretty sure Zeiss themselves said that.
It doesn’t have to be too big, even the ZM 35/1.4 is well within acceptable parameters.
The ZM35 1.4 is no doubt a stellar lens but it’s huge and there’s already the Batis lineup which is around the ZM35 size, I hope Zeiss keeps the Loxia lineup true to its ideology which is optimised rangefinder size lenses.
I don’t think the 35/1.4 is huge, if the 21 turns out to be the same size but had as less vignetting as as the Contax version then I’ll take one.
Nice !
Wonder the size and prize. And if this comes true. Then we have the Voigtlander 15mm, The Loxia 21mm, and i miss something like a 28mm,
There is Sony 28/2. Quite decent and compact and cheap
For night landscape shooters, it is very important to have hard infinity stop.
Ok. What is the use of the hard stop?
I usually focus on the front objects in night landscape and close down to get infinity sharp. Also you can see when lens is at infinity on the EVF/screen when doing Mf, you also see the focusing distance.
Try getting a hyperfocal at night. Or focusing at some mountain at infinity on a cloudy night. What you describe is much less convenient than simply turning the focusing to the proper mark.
Hm, good to know infinity on EVF is accurate. I miss hard stop on my NEX.
When I shot with Canon 6D and my 21mm Distagon, I needed a hard true infinity stop when doing night photography. When I started using focus assist not crucial anymore, Sony made it so easy!!
The 28mm f.2,0 is to big. Should be shorter than 45mm
The 28/2 is not decent. It is mediocre at best.
Sony’s FE 28mm is the 14th highest ranked lens on DXO. That’s isn’t quite mediocre.
and this conclution is based on what? There is a lot of the reviews of this lens that do not agree with you.
sony 28 2
Makes me a bit worried about the size of this lens, and quite entusiastic about the quality we can expect…
The Batis 25/2 is a Distagon and very reasonable in size and lighter than the Loxias.
Absolutely, reasonable size and exellent image quality. If it really is a 21mm distagon it is probably designed from scratch, and that, I do believe, is a good thing 🙂
I don’t understand what is is special about this lens that makes people excited.
In the end it’s just a small Aperture compared to the other Loxia lenses.
21 mm doesn t need wide aperture. I think that way ^^
– Milvus 85mm
– 7 Anomalous Partial Dispersion Elements
I’m jealous of this too.
Zeiss always put out the big guns when it comes to Nikon and Canon. It makes Loxia look like a water gun.
You clearly have no clue about lens design. The amount of APD elements doesn’t show how good the lens would be. Or when you design a lens, you can’t just populate the lens with a bunch of APD elements and call it a day. For example, high-performance rangefinder 21 (leica 21/1.4 and 21/3.4) has around 4 APD elements (5 for the lux). The Milvus has 5. All three are considered the best of a 21 can offer.
Now, you speculate this Distagon would have no APD base on some mysterious info that we here are not privy to. Less element, again, doesn’t mean much. Short flange UWA, whether symmetrical or retrofocus, has the advantage of sitting closer to the sensor. That would help tremendously with achieving high resolution while maintaining low distortion (Milvus has a horrendous amount of distortion, too much mustache) at a much smaller size and weight.
Lastly, you call this lens a small aperture lens. Are you aware of any current in production, FF DSLR 21 lens with a faster aperture than 2.8? If you want Otus level, are you willing to pay for an Otus price? Personally, I believe this Loxia will be competitive with the Milvus.
Who cares whats inside or what year the original design was done as lon as it delivers image quality. Both exisring Loxia lenses perform quite exelent. If you want bigger size, go canikon… ?
Funny because Lenscore.org tested the 2/35 Loxia and the 2/35 ZE/ZF/Milvus on a 200 megapixel sensor, and they put the Loxia 100 points ahead of the Milvus. Double whammy because the Loxia is the size of a micro four thirds lens.
And just wait for the Batis reviews to roll in. Those lenses are insanely good and again a fraction of the heft of the Milvi.
If you judge a lens solely on its aperture, then I guess it isn’t that exciting. But there are many other aspects of a lens’ design to take account of.
I can’t imagine many landscape or architecture photographers being too upset at it being *only* f/2.8 if it performs brilliantly across the frame even from wide open.
It’s gonna be substantially smaller and lighter than the corresponding Milvus (that shares the exact same aperture as that upcoming Loxia by the way) and it will undoubtedly outperform any existing native 21mm alternative. That alone makes it very exciting, at least for me.
What would be even more exciting is to have a native 21mm that performs as good on a Sony A7x as the Leica 21mm f/3.4 ASPH does on a Leica M. But I don’t hold my breath on this one.
My M mount Zeiss 21mm f/4.5c is a wonderful lens. I never regrettted the “small aperture”. A 21mm. Distagon will be large enough at f/2.8.
Since when can you determine what is special about a lens when you haven’t any information? You diminish your own opinion.
Want Otus quality but only want to pay Loxia price?
I really hope the world works this way. LOL!!!
Loxia is just different compared to Milvus and Otus lenses, which are both DSLR oriented. It has nothing to do with being inferior, just different design strategies. Both Loxia lenses are very good for their size and price.
Let’s hope it is somewhat more compact than the Milvus with adapter. I think I will keep 16-35/4 and some prime compact wide-angle. The 14/2.8 Samyang is not compact
SHUT UP & TAKE MY MONEY!!!!!
This one lens might keep EMount alive for a minute longer since the new Light camera can’t go that wide… yet.
Yep, sorry to say, it won’t be long now before all interchangeable lens cameras are tossed in the dump. Hope Sony enjoyed their little temporary success with the Elpha cams.
Next generation togs have a completely different idea about what a camera should be. Witness the death of cameras as we know them.
https://light.co/
All new Zeiss lenses are excellent. Pity they used old designes for the first loxias.
A landscape beast
So they really invest in Loxia line
If this matches the original Distagon 21/2.8 for SLR and only shrinks in size it could be really interesting. It’s now all but certain we’ll get more even illumination than the then possible Biogon.
No way it would match and only shrink in size. Something’s gotta give for going smaller/lighter. I do expect it to have lower distortion though. The epitome of small and high quality 21 is the SEM 21, and that is a 3.4 lens.
Hopefully it will be as good as the 25/2 Batis!
And I’m really hoping for a Loxia Distagon 35/1.4 next.
I’ve been trying to figure out the Zeiss bird names.
For example, I’m quite sure Otus was chosen because it sounds a lot like “opus”. This line of lenses is their magnum opus.
And I think Loxia was chosen to be similar to “Leica” and “Lux”. They want people to feel like they are buying a Leica-alternative when they pair a Loxia on an A7-series body.
But I haven’t figured out why they chose Batis and Milvus. Any ideas?
Bart and Milhaus
Nope, Lux is short form for summilux, no one calls Loxia by Xia.
Zeiss didn’t reveal their logic for choosing after bird names but googling them sort of reveal why they are chosen for specific lens lineups:
Otus – Scoops/True Owl, one of the 2 main owl family species (the other being barn owl), so I guess its position in the owl family tree, makes it the most premium lineup
Loxia – The birds under this genus tends to be small which reflects the Loxia line
Milvus – Medium-size birds of prey, makes sense as serves as Zeiss SLR middle-range lineup, not as good as Otus but much more accessible in terms of price.
Batis – The bird size look similar to Loxia but I guess it’s slightly larger and since it’s designed for mirrorless, so this was chosen.
Touit – Again, another small sized and probably similar size to Batis genus birds, same reasoning as Batis.
So there you have it. Though this is just my guess as it makes more sense to name the lenses over the characteristics of the bird then just randomly pick and choose.
The Zeiss guys are bird lovers and so they name their current lens series after Latin birds.
Otus is an owl. Owls are night nocturnal animals, hence their f/1.4-line.
Milvus is an easy distinguishable, specialized raptor. The Milvus lenses are also more specialized in their intended purpose than other lens designs.
Batis is a agile bird that captures fly in mid-air. Batis lenses have fast auto-focus to capture subjects in fast motion.
Loxia are characterized by the mandibles with crossed tips and are spread all over the world from Scandinavia to the Caribbean and deserts of Africa. That insinuates the manual handling and popularity of the lenses.
Touit are small, friendly and agile birds. The Touit lenses are also very small and for beginner.
It makes no sense to use Distagon design, especially in wideangle. It’s a design for SLR cameras. Distagon comes from the word “distance”. It’s a design in which the distance between the lens and the image is large.
LOL! Just like the the Sony Zeiss 35/1.4 Distagon and the Zeiss Batis 25/2 Distagon?
Distagons is Zeiss’ label for telecentric designs. Both existing FE Distagons have the rear lens element extremely close to the image plane, and so do the ZM Distagons.
I read an article of Zeiss about the Distagon and other designs and there they explain the practice behind the designs and the names.
“These have borne the brand name “Distagon” ever since, derived from “distance” and the previously mentioned Greek word for “angle”. Thus a Distagon is a wide – angle lens with a large distance to the image.”
Probably something has changed and it’s no longer valid, these new Distagons of course are not the original SLR designs.
https://www.fotoskoda.cz/images-old/multi/popisobr/ZEISS/Distagon.pdf
Large distance meaning what the lens sees aka wide angle. ??
It’s the distance between the lens and the image sensor. In SLRs it had to be large, the design compensates the use of small focal length with larger physical length. That’s why wideangles for SLRs are big, and for mirrorless they can be made smaller.
That’s one interpretation. I think the other is more likely. Distance to the horizon, distant mountains, etc.
More elements, easier correction I guess. More glass but cheaper glass? Distagons also have more even illumination, than comparable Biogons at least.
ok
Pictures aren’t really doing it for me. With that said, this technology is something to keep an eye out for. I’m certainly interested in it.
We shall see.
That’s a shame I always like biogon. Guess digital sensors can not take a 21mm biogon.
Good news? The 21mm Biogon is great (on film). Compact, low distortion, and very sharp. After the Loxia/Biogon 35mm I had hope the design could be adapted again. I suppose 21mm is just too wide.
Everything else equal, a shorter flange distance will result in a smaller physical size for wide-angle lenses. In your words what has to give is shorter distance between sensor and last lens element. Fortunately, that is something that can give when moving to shorter flange distance.
“The lens has high resolution on all the frame with low distortion and color fringing and appealing bokeh” – just like every lens ever made according to marketing.
Only lens I have ever seen come close to what marketing said was the RX1’s Sonnar. I remember asking my Japanese friend to translate to me what the marketing babble said when the RX1 was announced and when she translated it to me (it had similar language as this quote) I thought: “man, it’s going to be terrible just because they’re hyping it too much”
Well, I was wrong and was happy to be wrong.
All other times, I was right and sad that I was right.
“Yep, sorry to say, it won’t be long now before all interchangeable lens cameras are tossed in the dump.”
The times they are a changing. The kids aren’t interested in camera bags or Photoshop. Camera bags just get in the way. And time wasted using Photoshop gets in the way of dancing (and a lot of other fun things).
Maybe for some applications this camera might be perfect but it won’t be replacing anything.
I want Zeiss (like) 50mm f/1.4 with AF + OSS + MF ring (on the lens) + Aperture ring (on the lens) + Focus scale (on the lens).
also 100mm f/2 macro with all from above is awesome idea.
and of course a FE zoom like 30-90/2.8
Zeiss chose Distagon over Biogon. BFD!!!
Well I recall it was some Zeiss manager during an interview mentioning that one of the criteria in designing a Loxia lens is its lens barrel diameter is not larger then the mount diameter. And there’s mention about having a same size filter thread but as it’s not mentioned by everyone, so could be an error but I hope it’ll be the same size, will make purchasing polarisers or ND filters easier 😀
I also wished it was color matched but looking at the 35 and 50, guess not 🙁
Get the **** outta here. Where are the specs on the website? There aren’t any because its not a real contender. Its a toy.
Really? They have much better flexibility with such a short flange range so maybe they could pull it off, I guess.