Zeiss Blog (Click here) unveiled the final name of the upcoming three Zeiss E-mount lenses. The name of the lens family will be “Touit“. If you are wondering where the heck Zeiss found that name her eis the original Zeiss explanation: “We decided to derive the future names of the lenses from the Latin names of birds. That fits well, as birds usually have excellent eyesight and can take unusual perspectives. Birds are also diverse and lively animals. Furthermore, the Latin names all have an attractive sound and are common in many languages and cultures.”
Touit is pronounced like the English “do it. As we told you before two lenses will be available for preorder from May 7 and those are the Touit 2.8/12 and Touit 1.8/32 (Click on the name to visit the detailed specs page). The third lens, the 50mm f/2.8 macro will be announced by end 2013.
93 Responses
Not pretentious at all Zeiss.
As in “We will release there lenses when we get around Touit”?
F#ck overprized size 🙂
touit?!?!?! what an horrible idea
Davidevil
Doesn’t sound friendly at all!
Okay, knowing I’d love using the 12mm it’s price will keep me taking UWA photos with SEL-16F28 plus VCL-ECU1, I guess – anyway: how many bucks for these birds?
Yes! I have exactly that same set up which does the job! The Sony SEL-16F28. 16mm/f2.8 with 0.75 magnification adapter to 12mm/f2.8
Touit sits on his mountain and laughs at your four winds.
price? call it whatever as long as the price is cheap (highly unlikely)
$1499,- each….
Wait, that seems to be in Australian dollars and for the X mount… That’s 1550 in USD…
Yes, but when you open the box a bird of elegant plumage flies off and fetches you a fruit basket.
I still struggle to see the point of a 50mm Zeiss macro on apsc… The only reason 50mm macros are popular is because they’re fairly cheap – 60 or 70mm would have been much better options
50mm is probably to keep the size of the lens down. A 100mm macro would be useful but large. Right now Sony has a 30mm macro in E-mount, so 50 is better. Even on the normal full frame cameras Canon and Sony have 50mm and 100mm macros so 50mm does seem to have a place.
Sony’s SEL-30M35 is more made for table top. Used for video with a slider or a skater dolly or for stop motion it’s pretty great, but traditional macro photograpers don’t find that much use for it, especially since it’s not really usable for repro photography due to poor corner performance.
As in “When I get a round tuit?
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/round_tuit
What e-mount is really lacking is a good portrait lens. Rumors are that an 85mm will someday appear but a nice fast 85mm from Zeiss should be a good seller.
Th 50mm does a very nice job.
85mm is a classic portrait shot on FF. It allows waist level and up. 85mm on APS-C is basically a head and shoulder shot. I find that focal length on APS-C to be quite limiting. I also use my 50mm as my portrait lens on my NEX and have little desire for an 85mm for NEX.
Sigma should more or less have that covered with the 60mm…
The 50mm Micro-Nikkor works well as a portrait lens on the NEX, so I would expect the Zeiss to be at least as good.
It would be good for E-mount to lack long lenses until good AF is available. Otherwise they would have to adapt lens for focus hunting (compromising performance) and heavy motor (size).
Minolta 58mm f1.2
Is the new name “tweet” ? Lol may be as a user you will called a “tweeter” 🙂 !!!!!
Price?
Not too crazy about that name. Kinda resembles the sound you make when you spit. Ah, well, the lenses will be nice, that’s one thing I am (fairly) sure about.
Touit? To wit, it sounds like “twit”.
In Québec, the word Touit mean idiot.
Exactement.
>Might very well be that something like the LAEA2 is simply quite an expensive product and might not be of interest to enough people to warrant the development.
LA-AE2 is exactly of low interest because of huge price and lack of IBIS in NEX bodies.
>I mean, Metabones did make an AF capable adapter for Canon lenses, Sony didn’t seem to stop them and my bet is that at its price it hasn’t been an impressive seller.
Because of their AF is slow. AF is slow because Sony is not giving the specifications. In fact, many Canon users would be happy to use their lenses on much better sensor, but virtually non-existent AF cuts the possibility.
>Also, I am not really sure we can make the analogy with the software products you mentioned. It’s a different type of product in a different market.
Are you deliberately ignoring ISA&PCI (open hardware standards) in my example to make your point? There are a lot of standards which are publicly available for non-profit use by students and hobbyists, and company may start developing a commercial product before obtaining a license (which is needed only after product is ready for market). Imagine how much more lenses and adaptors we had now is Sony adopted this policy.
>So, back to our initial issue, it doesn’t seem foolish to me to just say “it’s open”.
It is as dumb as calling applying term “beatiful woman” to a human being without bosom (duh), waist (duh), specific female part but with beard and specific male parts (duh, etc).
About the LAEA2. Is it really IBIS? Or is it simply an expensive product to use big lenses on a small camera, hence not of interest? You seem to be sure that Nikon and Canon lens owners would jump on the occasion to buy such a thing and blame Sony for this not happening. Fair enough, but it’s just your conjecture. My opinion is that there is not enough interest, so it wasn’t made. Well, the Metabones one was made and failed because it didn’t sell. Fairly logical assumption on my part.
Boooe, that is only a part of my reply, because, unfortunately, the commenting systems fails me over and over again. It becomes seriously irritating.
Seemingly commenting system doesn’t like certain words as spam or profanity.
For many NEX owners, especially in 3rd world countries, NEX is their main camera, they haven’t had a DSLR before (they also don’t have POSER attitude about camera-lens balance). So of course they have a lot more interest in CaNikon mount lenses, which are much more abundant than A-mount. For those who has/had a DSLR , more likely it was CaNikon too.
Metabones, and Chinese firm that launched LensTurbo recently, do not offer A->E focal reducer because of that. Low demand.
Boooe, do you participate in some other photo forums? I would really like to continue this conversation, but every comment I post longer than 2 lines just disappears.
>You seem to be sure that Nikon and Canon lens owners would jump on the occasion to buy such a thing and blame Sony for this not happening.
You seem to replace what I write with something another. I did not tell that about Nikon users. They have same sensor as Sony.
Small % of Canon users would have bought. even through this % was small that would still be comparable, in absolute figures, to A-mount camera users.
Yes I do
Another try: The AF on the Metabones Smart Adapter was released two months after PDAF arrived on NEX bodies and quite probably its development had started many months before and has nothing to see with Sony not giving the specs.
Another part: If you have a world full of “human(s) being without bosom (duh), waist (duh), specific female part but with beard and specific male parts (duh, etc)”, then calling the ones having female parts “beautiful women” would seem appropriate 🙂
“Metabones, and Chinese firm that launched LensTurbo recently, do not offer A->E focal reducer because of that. Low demand.”
Yet, when we don’t have Nikon to E or a crappy Canon to E, it is Sony’s fault for not giving the specs?
Metabones provides firmware updates for their adaptors. They would have added PDAF support if they knew how.
mmmhhh cool design …!
Sample images from the 12/2.8 on their website doesn’t look promising. Nice wide but not esp sharp.
Where are you seeing sharpness-judgeable samples? All I can find are the four web-sized shots in the “gallery” section, and all those tell me is that the lens is wide.
Where’s the MTF? I cannot find it anywhere.
It kinda suggests that it is not a real Zeiss, like the previous 24/1.8
I don’t know about your definition of real zeiss besides “made in germany” label, but my zeiss 24/1.8 has zeiss’ build quality and sharpness. Now if any other brands have both of these quality on their lenses, I will pay zeiss price for sure.
You obviously didn’t try real zeiss. The sonnar 24 has too low local contrast compared to real zeisses (zm, ze, zf, etc)
And it’s not a Sonnar, too. It’s retrofocus so therefore it should be a Distagon rather than Sonnar.
Zeiss make twit … And all the lens users are lens twitter 🙂 lol
Touit? Sounds like twit which means:
“…an insignificant, silly, or bothersome person: Pay no attention to that obnoxious little twit!
..”
Very poor marketing
Definitely poor marketing, although not quite as bad as Bugati’s “rape yellow”.
Touit? Sounds like a French fart.
haha
+ 1000..
but there is one excuse: the marketing at ZEISS is made by… technicians..
typical german, ..really bad..;-((
reminds me on the joke: whats the opposite of good?
good intentions..
I don’t get it. Why has Zeiss suddenly decided to give their lenses names? As if it will make anyone more likely to buy them.
Why 12/2.8 has large extension in the front? Making the lens unwieldy so everyone could see that it is a wideangle lens?
well, that’s exactly what you call good PRODUCT DESIGN. They didn’t win the awards for nothing 😉
Reminds me of the 20mm a-mount.
Cause it’s based on Zeiss Distagon design which means no or very little distortion but at the expense that the end of the lens need to have a large element.
Look carefully. The front lens is much smaller than the lens barrell, so this front extention is for cosmetic reasons.
If you use a twit lens, does that make you a twitter or a twat?
Me likey! (The sample images. The name… not so much)
12mm is somewhat short for birding 🙂
This is wind-up right? Tuit/Twit? C’mon admin, either someone’s yanking your chain, or there’s a marketing manager somewhere who’s about to lose his job!
Whatever next? Rx10 to be called RSole? 😀
Ok, since we’re done with this, can we now get Sigmarit 12mm 2.8?
Next time Zeiss should make a competition for inventing a sillier name than that. If this happens, I’m in.
So the X mount version gets an aperture ring, but not the E-mount?
All native X mount lenses have an aperture ring. No native E mount lenses have an aperture ring. Makes sense to me.
why no aperture ring on the nex version? that makes no sense – that all other e-lenses have no aperture ring either is no excuse.
A ring is the most easy and fast way to adjust the aperture. With an automatic setting there should be no problem with camera automatics…
I am getting the 12mm, “touit” or no “touit”. My only worry is if Zeiss have not gone all-out to make this not only a very good lens, but a great lens. It better be great, because the NEX 7, with its very high pixel density, shows up lens weaknesses without mercy.
Can we see the samples ?
Because “Dooeeeet” was already taken.
Really? No hyperfocal markings? How do you use a lens, for fast accurate landscape focusing, without markings. Do you check foreground and background critical focus for every shot?
I am in the target market for these lenses, and I love Zeiss, but I’ll stick with the ZM line which are fullframe ready, and have a verifiable design provenance.
How in the world would one do hyperfocal distance markings when both mount standards (Sony E-mount and Fuji X-mount) require focus-by-wire?
Well, the absence of direct coupling for manual focus can be considered another disadvantage.
That said, I don’t see why that makes it impossible for the lens to have an inspection port to indicate the internals of the lens, irrespective of the comms used to drive it.
I’m pretty sure the components required to enable that would contribute to an even more massive lens. People are already complaining about these dimensions.
Given the ethos for MILCs as of right now (smaller alternative to dSLRS), I think CZ is correct in adopting a minimalist approach in-line with the OEMs’ offerings. Perhaps someday when MILC is the default format, things can be different.
Focus by wire lenses are different than manual lenses, in that the focus ring spins round and round without a stop. It isn’t exactly easy to get a focus scale on these kinds of lenses.
Sony should implement a digital distance scale on the LCD, like Fuji does with their X cameras. That gets rid of the need, for the most part.
Also, the 12/2.8 will likely outperform ZM wides at the edges, especially on the NEX-7. Both NEX and Fuji X cameras smear the edges of various M mount lenses.
Well, it looks like Fuji’s new 14/2.8 has a distance scale, so it can be done.
NEX7 is hopeless in this area, and best avoided for this reason. Even the Sony native 16/2.8 and 10-18 suffer from color shift, vinegetting, and smearing.
We decided to derive the future names of the lenses from the Latin names of birds. That fits well, as birds usually have excellent eyesight and can take unusual perspectives. Birds are also diverse and lively animals. Furthermore, the Latin names all have an attractive sound and are common in many languages and cultures.
If these lenses turn out to be spectacular, I may reconsider my need to have FF. I’m already trying to consolidate my FF lenses down to 2-3 excellent primes. After using the NEX 7 for a year, I just can’t see myself going back to massively sized kits. I’ll wait for the FF NEX to decide whether to add these Zeiss to my collection. My feeling is the FF NEX lenses will be rather large but still smaller than FF DSLR lenses.
If these lenses turn out to be spectacular, I may reconsider my need to have FF. I’m already trying to consolidate my FF lenses down to 2-3 excellent primes. After using the NEX 7 for a year, I just can’t see myself going back to massively sized kits. I’ll wait for the FF NEX to decide whether to add these Zeiss to my collection. My feeling is the FF NEX lenses will be rather large but still smaller than FF DSLR lenses.
Reading today’s announcement of the Sony Zeiss E-mount Touit 1.8/32 lens encourages me to disregard the year off Nex-9 ff, and settle for the Nex-7n with its new 24MP sensor. I’m wondering if the 7’s new sensor will provide satisfying and admirable photos. The 7n will build on the 7, while the 9 might display its own initial problems similar to the 7’s initiation.
The Touit 1.8 will be fast and light at 0.44 lb as well as only 2.3 inches long to its hood. To me, this will be the ideal carry around lens, and one the relatively light Nex line is suited for.
The Nex 9 will come on the 2014 stage with lots of ff flair, but also with a heavy $3 to $4K price and not so comfortable to carry heavy A lenses. Sony Rumors does say the A lenses will have a big surprise next year, but will the Nex-9 ff price justify the investment for those of us without vintage lenses. I think I’m getting used Touit!
If the NEX 9 uses A-mount lens, it will be a giant bomb that will explode in Sony’s camera division’s face. People must get fired if the primary FF lenses for NEX 9 are A mount lenses.
“We decided to derive the future names of the lenses from the Latin names of birds. That fits well, as birds usually have excellent eyesight and can take unusual perspectives. Birds are also diverse and lively animals. Furthermore, the Latin names all have an attractive sound and are common in many languages and cultures.”
Andrea, are you sure this isn’t from the Onion?
Now that I think about it, I sort of imagine that this decision was made by someone at Zeiss who looks like Mike Myers’ old SNL character “Dieter”.
Now iz ze time on Shproketz ven vee dahnce…
No distance scale on 12/f2.8? Well, that’s not serious at all. I tried the 10-18 and the lack of scale was the biggest drawback: I would have much higher keeper ratio with MF.
So, I can state the whole E-mount line consists of toy cameras and toy lenses, no matter how expensive they are.
There are expensive toys. Toys can be expensive. Admire the sleek looks and let the cam do everything for you. You just need to fiddle around with a few donzen settings and buttons on the cams. 😀
There are expensive toys. Toys can be expensive. Admire the sleek looks and let the cam do everything for you. You just need to fiddle around with a few dozen settings and buttons on the cams. 😀
I like the name too! But I’m a serious german… 🙂
The jump from Planar or Distagon to Touit is huge. Actually, there are some cool Latin names for birds. We should be happy they didn’t pick Turdus I suppose:
http://www.mountainnature.com/birds/birdlistbylatinname.htm
No distance scale–no buy. How on earth I would focus e.g. on stars at night? Such a PITA with E16.