Zeiss finally announced the new Loxia lens series made for the Full Frame E-mount Sony a7 cameras. You can read the full press text at SonyAlphaRumors.com.
The worldwide only preorders are now running at BHphoto:
Zeiss Loxia 35mm f/2 Biogon T* Lens for Sony E Mount (Click here).
Zeiss Loxia 50mm f/2 Planar T* Lens for Sony E Mount (Click here).
Zeiss Lens Hood for Loxia 35mm f/2 Lens (Click here).
Zeiss Lens Hood for Loxia 50mm f/2 Lens (Click here).
Zeiss Rear Lens Cap for Loxia Series Lenses (Click here).
Zeiss De-Click Key for Loxia Lenses (Click here).
8 Responses
Large, relatively slow, very expensive and only manual focus. Sounds like a win for Sony A7 users /sarcasm.
Pricing is comparable to the ZM equivalents and you get the benefit of EXIF and electronic aperture control. Since when has any Zeiss branded lens been AF?
MF with a helicoid and smooth aperture changes is a big plus for video users.
I’ll correct myself, as I forgot about the AF Touits. Not sure what that says about the Touit line 😉
Sony/Zeiss lenses don’t count as they are a Sony branded and manufactured lens.
Contax G?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contax_G
yeah, they look very nice, but the specs + price will make them very much a niche item. that’s fine, i’m sure there are people for whom size really matters more than other factors, and who would rather just zone focus and have a smaller lens. i would have thought that the lack of auto would bring the price down, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. anyway, it’s there if you want to, if you don’t, you can ignore it. i don’t have any use for it, but someone must of they wouldn’t have made it.
What about wide angle primes? Doesn’t the sensor which is tightly cramped into the mount represent an obstacle for such lens designs? There doesn’t seem to be much leeway and the light should hit digital sensors more or less perpendicularly (unless I’m missing something obvious). Is this a reason we don’t see wide angle lenses for FE mount?
Wide angle lenses should be easier to design for mirrorless, actually. Short focal lengths are especially challenging on systems where the flange distance is greater than the focal length. This is true of most wide angle DSLR lenses, especially on smaller sensor systems where wide angles represent even shorter focal lengths. In these cases you need to use retro-focal designs, meaning the light paths intersect between the lens and the sensor, beyond the rear element itself. This could actually lead to steeper angles of incidence for DSLR wide angle lenses and rules out simpler and better corrected double-Gauss lens designs.
Additionally, mirrorless systems are not limited by the short flange distance in the first place. Lens designs can always position the rear element farther away from the sensor. The current Olympus 40-150 actually moves the rear element quite far from the sensor when approaching its 150mm focal length. However this would be counterproductive for wide angle lenses, since it would necessitate more complex retro-focal lens designs, further degrading the image quality.
Thanks, that all makes sense. However, shouldn’t there be room for large enough exit pupil? When you look at APS-C mounts, M43 etc. the mount diameter is quite bigger than the sensor diagonal which I imagine allows for such pupil, covering quite a bit of sensor area. With FE-mount it seems to me there must be mechanical obstacles which in turn means quite acute light angles in the corners… but I’m not an expert by any means, just asking.