According to SonyAlphaRumors sources Sony and Zeiss just defined the future lens strategy. All future Zeiss lenses will be Fullframe. There will be no more Zeiss DT lenses (like the Sony 16-80mm f/3.5-4.5 Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T DT Zoom Lens
We need to doublecheck the rumors we received about the next Zeiss lenses. If you know more about the future Zeiss lenses please contact me using the right form on the sidebar or at sonyalpharumors@gmail.com. Every little help helps! Thanks!
Those are the current fullframe Zeiss lenses (Click on store name to check price and availability):
– Sony 16-35mm f/2.8 ZA Lens (Amazon
– Sony 24mm f/2.0 Distagon T* lens (Amazon
– Sony 24 -70mm f/2.8 Carl Zeiss Vario Sonnar T Zoom Lens (Amazon
– Sony 85mm f1.4 Carl Zeiss Planar T Coated Telephoto Lens (Amazon
– Sony 135mm f/1.8 Carl Zeiss Sonnar T Telephoto Lens (Amazon
P.S: Just my two cent. I would love see a new wide fast Zeiss lens, the 28mm f/1.4 or/and the 35mm f/1.4 🙂
53 Responses
*Minor typo – These intead of Those
What about the E-mount Zeiss lenses?
The E mount itself can fit a full frame sensor…
I’m confident that future FF Sony DSLR’s will have video capability so with this in mind I suspect the 85 & 135 ZA’s will have a make over to include SSM. What I would love to see though would be a w/a and tele T/S ZA’s
Can anyone point out the advantages of a 200mm 2.0? It’s kinda long for a portrait lens, and the perspective is a bit extreme. It’s too short for most telephoto work. Any ideas? How are the Nikonites using theirs?
an ultimate tool for indoor sports photographers and photojournalists to cover events that only permits available light photography, but like all mid-tele lenses it is flexible for portraits to shooting airplanes.
It is also a required prime for those who don’t use zooms in that range.
Think of 70-200/2.8. Go for the far end, and open up the aperture.
Got it! Also, I saw a test of image quality using a Sony 70-200 2.8, and a Sigma 100-400 4.0 (which I have as well), and the Sigma produced better results at 200 mm. Too bad about the old focus mechanism, as it’s a sharp lens. A 200 would have to be freaking magnificent to make it into my kit, considering the coverage I already have.
I will buy CZ 85 f/1.4 SSM
Whoa sorry this reply is for asnapper. Darn, I keep on replying to the post below what I want to reply.
Well, the ability to get pin-point sharpness for a full body shot with creamy bokeh. This can’t be obtained with any lens below 200mm (even with the 2.8). It’s definitely good for fashion shoot, landscape, indoor sport (though a 70-200 is better due to the zoom capability). The only downside is the weight and size, but the result is breath-taking.
Re: potential Zeiss 35 1.4 – Sony already makes it, and it’s a rebadged Minolta design that goes back to the mid-1980’s. I have one of those old ones (pre-G, pre-ADI), and it is gorgeous on my A900. If the current Sony 35 1.4G equals my 20+ year lens in IQ, there is no reason to AF the Zeiss design.
But hearing even this little rumor that Sony is committed to supporting the full-frame format is fantastic news. Successor for the A900/850 EVER? This makes it at least likely.
The Contax/Yasashita MF version, for some drooling:
http://www.smt.zeiss.com/C12567A8003B8B6F/EmbedTitelIntern/Aposonnar2_200mm_e/$File/Aposonnar2_200mm_e.pdf
Also a picture of the Aposonnar 200mm f/2.0 beside the Tele-apotessar 300mm f/2.8
http://news.mapcamera.com/media/12/blog_080327_01.jpg
Would like to see them tackle CA a bit more.
That would be my number one concern with Bright Zeiss lenses. My 85mm ZA has too much CA, I tend to use my cheap 85mm Samyang instead.. or my Tamron 90mm. Both perform better in terms of CA.
RE: 35mm G lens… the CA on this guy is pretty horrible. If the zeiss offers an improvement with SSM I’d buy it! perfect Street lens.
Maybe A77 with 24mpix is a full frame camera. That would make it amazing, and very usable in crop mode for APSC lenses owners. With EVFs you could have 100% viefinder coverage no matter what lens mode is chosen.
It’s unlikely, otherwise it might be more expensive, definitely more than $1500.
I wanna keep my pockets full =\
My source says that the A77 will be APSc, and so apparently do SAR’s sources. Moreover, Sony officials have been saying for nearly a year now that the A700 successor will be APSc. I think it will be.
Are these 4 includes possible update to current 85 & 135 to include SSM? Would love to buy CZ 85 f/1.4 SSM. Or if Sony can make 85 f1.8(2.8) STF SSM.
Or the CP lineup that CZ has said will be available for a-mount?
STF lens can’t have SSM as it can’t have the Autofocus. The design of such lens excludes possibility of DSLR having AF with it.
true phase detenct can’t autofocus with that sord of lens, but i think it’s possible to achieve autofocus with contrast af, albeit very slow af, so it’s better left with mf so that sony can offer us some great VF, be they either electronic or optical 🙂
as regarding the new zeiss lenses it’s a great news and zeiss lenses are very pepular among sony shooters, i don’t think they sell badly at all, sony wins out of this, CZ wins and the users win.
i would love to see a zeiss makro though with f/2 and 1:2 magnification, like their MF one for nikon f mount, it’s absolutely brilliant.
I’d love to see entire line of Zeiss MF lenses ported to A-bayonet, even without the AF.
Can those lens be used with teleconvertor?
I want a 24mm F4 CZ T/S!!!!! I’ll take 3 of them!
So that either means…
1. no more E-mount Zeiss lens? or
2. There will be new FF NEX cameras?
You can always use a 35mm lens on a 1.5X sensor.
Is there any E-mount zeiss lenses?
Zeiss DT designation would only refer to Alpha mount. They may categorize the E-mount as totally separate. And for what it’s worth, there has only been one Zeiss DT lens thus far.
The bigger news is the possible continuation of 35mm in the Alpha mount, which i’m sure everyone welcomes 🙂
I’ll be looking to get the 135 1.8Z in around 12 months, so it would be great to see an update with SSM.
For the 35/1.4, there is already a G version.
If there will be a new one, it should be a G too (MK-II).
The present 35/1.4 G is a rather old lens (and so does the optics of it), it deserves an update or reborn. If the new version turns out to be a Zeiss and when people compare it with the old G then the latter one will be outperformed badly– giving an impression that “G” is inferior to “ZA”. Sony shall not allow that to happen.
On the other hand, Zeiss has metioned that they do not have a plan to release any zoom lens for the moment. Thus it is very likely that those new Zeiss would be mostly prime lenses.
The most common focal length for prime lenses are: 24or28, 35, 50, 85 and 135, and Zeiss has already sent out the 24, 85 and 135. For the upcoming lenses except from the 200/2: 28 will be less likely, unless having a 1.4, as the 24 is there. 35 should be a G, and what is left being untouch is the 50. Noted that the only 50 we can get is the old 50/1.4 which is still capable to capture good picture but…not “that” good enough. Just my opinion, I would like to see a Planar T* 50mm F1.2 ZA SSM.
A 50mm f/1.2?!?!
Count me in!
Well, the sad news is that we most likely won’t see Zeiss 16-80 successor. 🙁
Bad day, cause I hope for it long enough already…
Planar T* 50mm F1.2 ZA SSM? Highly unlikely. So far Zeiss was focused more on getting high quality wide-open than getting as bright lens as possible, like the Canon did.
Wasn’t there a previous “rumour” several months ago, where they were updating the 16-80 to a 2.8-3.5. Posiibly there are referring to “new” lenses only.
200mm f2 fits in nicely, and is a critical need in the tele-primes line up after the 300mm G and the 500mm G. Sony needs something in 600mm / 800mm range, a 400mm is also good.
What we’ve always been missing out on is a 12, 14, or 16mm wide prime. Right now the widest full frame lens is the 16-35 zoom (i won’t count fisheye for this part). If any new Zeiss FF zoom should come out, i’d hope it to be a 12-24 or 10-16.
The 35m G & 50 f1.4 may be old, but its still holding its ground… which is a huge testament to the Minolta legacy and quality of their engineers. Sony needs to expand its offerings in order to appeal to professional shooters (and to balance out what they’ve done late in the amateur/consumer market), those 2 lenses will hold their ground for at least another 2 years before they really have to update them.
Sony 35/1.4 G is Minolta/Sony worse FF lens. It is not only my opinion, but also similarly rated by most of reviews. Its need replacement as soon as possible, instead of 50mm 1.4, which still is one of the best 50mm lenses.
135mm SSM would be nice and I think Sony needs to rebadge Minolta 100mm f2.
Sony certainly needs long macro lens, like 100f/2.8 in new pack.
Wide angle lenses could also use update. Like… 11-18mm f/4.5-5.6 which has horrible CA, or 20 f-2.8 which is smooth like.no.other ;] distorted and has beautiful vignetting.
OMG, let’s hope they’re not speaking about E-mount FF. It would be astonishing if A77 would be FF, but 99,999% it won’t 😛
This is extremely good news. I’m happy to hear that Sony is making an investment in reinforcing its FullFrame DSLR market. This is the news that we Sony Alpha 850/900 users were waiting to hear. Zeiss lenses for the A-mount have always been a strong point for Sony since they are highly prized by photographers for the excellent optical and image quality. Zeiss lenses is one of the reasons why many people invest in SONY. So once again thumbs up for Sony. Hopefully we’ll get equally as good news on the A900 successor.
With regard to Zeiss lenses, I’d like to see the 85mm F/1.4 and 135mm F/1.8 revamped to include SSM. I’d also like to see a Zeiss 50mm F/1.2, 60 mm F/2.0 macro and a 200 mm F/2.0. That would really put Sony on par with Nikon and Canon.
Don’t just be on par with Canikon… beat them!
I also want 50mm 1.2…. to replace my Sigma 50 1.4
“I would like to see a Planar T* 50mm F1.2 ZA SSM.”
+1
How about reviving the old Minolta 58mm f1.2 or 50mm f1.2 from the manual focus days? That should be fun.
Not with A850/A900 with M-only mode 🙁
why? I only shoot in M mode…
All future Zeiss lenses will be fullframe.
Didn’t they announce one for the NEX?
Alpha Mount lenses 🙂
It was stated one place or another during Photokina that the E-Mount was designed for later full-frame!!! If true, the E-Mount will take over the world.
It was designed for APS-C with a possibility of adding FF sensor, though it’d require new lenses (or using the A-mount lenses) due to the fact that all E-mount lenses are DT only.
Great news! I really hope for a 35mm F2.0 SSM lens from Zeiss; not too heavy with high image quality!
Good news. There are still plenty of gaps that need to be filled, lenses wider than 20mm and faster than F1.4 in particular.
And a 28/1.4 would be ever welcome.
There are even gaps in f/1.4 line, not saying about f/1.8, especially: full frame f/1.8.
i really hope a 24mm t/s is forthcoming! i’m on verge of having to switch to canon for this lens, so this would be the answer to all my prayers. please sony!
I prefer to have a updated 1.4 – 35mm or mimimun an new 2.0-35mm
the new lens of zeiss that must be 50mm SSM f/1.4 or f/1.2
i hope this premium lense will coming to complete medium range sony zeiss 😀 it would be great if it come true