Quality comes at a price: the new Zeiss 55mm/1.4 lens

The lens is specifically designed for high megapixel (30+) DSLRs and is said to deliver the best results (when compared to similar lenses). The new Zeiss OTUS 55mm f/1.4 APO Distagon T*, comes at a very hefty price though. However, with a price of nearly $4000, it is definitely not a lens for the casual shooter…

Oh, and like the other high quality Zeiss lenses, it is a manual focus only lens (but that should not surprise you).

The lens is available in Canon (ZE) and Nikon (ZF.2) mount.

New Zeiss lenses announced

Carl Zeiss, maker of quality lenses, recently announced a couple of new lenses.

Cinema Lenses

Two new lenses in the cinema lens line-up: the Compact Zoom CZ.2 28-80/T2.9 (remember, cinema lenses usually use T stops instead of F stops) and the Compact Prime CP.2 25/T2.1. Both lenses come with 5 (interchangeable) mounts (PL, EF, F, MFT and E) and will thus fit on a range of cameras including the popular Canon and Nikon DSLRs.

As always Zeiss quality comes with a price: the CZ.2 28-80/T2.9 has a suggested retail price of €14,900/US$19,900 and the CP.2 25/T2.1 of €3,300/US$ 4,500 (all excluding VAT!).

The 25mm prime will become available next month but for the 28-80 zoom, you'll have to wait until the second quarter of 2013.

Prime Lenses

Two new manual focus prime lenses have been announced also. A 55mm f/1.4 and an 135mm f/2.

The Distagon T* 55mm f/1.4 is to ship in the second half of 2013 (!), the Apo Sonnar T* 2/135 on the other hand should be available in December this year already with a suggested retail price of €1600/$2000.

Both lenses will be available with a Canon (ZE) or a Nikon (ZF.2) mount.

Zeiss introduces 70-200mm T2.9 and three T1.5 primes for cinematography

For all you quality conscious cinematographers filming with a DSLR, it is great to know you now have a couple of nice new options from Zeiss. Together with the introduction of their first zoom lens for this segment, they further extended their range of lenses specially catered for DSLR video shooters with three more fixed focal lenses.

The CZ.2 70-200mm T2.9 zoom is a manual focus lens with a diaphragm of 18 (!) blades, guarantee for very smooth out of focus rendering. Quality doesn't come cheap though: with an estimated price of €14,900 it is on the expensive side. Availability: end of this year.

Apart from the 70-200 zoom, Zeiss also introduces new 35mm (±€3,700), 50mm (±€3,300), and 85mm (±€3,300) T1.5 CP.2 Super Speed lenses. Availability: August this year.

To compensate a bit for the hefty price of these lenses, all four lenses have a replaceable mount, allowing for mounting on PL (Cinematography), EF (Canon), F (Nikon), or MFT (Micro Four Thirds) cameras.

Note: As is common for cinematography lenses, apertures for these lenses are given in T-stops instead of F-stops (T-stops take into account the loss of light inside the optics of the lens).

New Zeiss Distagon T* 2,8/15 lens

Carl Zeiss, know for its very high quality lenses, has announced a new super-wide-angle lens, the Distagon T* 2,8/15.

The Distagon T* 2,8/15 is a 15mm lens with a maximum aperture of f/2.8. Mounted on a “full frame” body it will give you an angle of view of 110°, large enough to capture huge vistas, even when in tight places. The lens is available in two mounts, ZE (for Canon cameras) and ZF.2 (for Nikon cameras).

It will be very interesting to see how this lens behaves compared to other similarly wide lenses (e.g., the Canon or Nikon 14/2.8, or the Nikon 14-24/2.8 zoom). Price wise it already is a clear “winner” with an estimated retail price around $2950 it is far more expensive than any of its alternatives…

Delivery of the first Zeiss Distagon T* 2,8/15 lenses is to be expected in May.

Focal length	15 mm
Aperture range	f/2.8 – f/22
Focusing range	0.25m – infinity
# elements/groups	15/12
Angle of view diag./horiz./vert.	110° / 100° / 76°
Coverage at close range	340 x 221 mm
Filter thread	M95 x 1.0
Dimensions (with caps)	ø 103 mm, length 132mm (ZF.2) / 135mm (ZE)
Weight	730g (ZF.2) / 820g (ZE)
Camera mounts	Nikon F Mount (ZF.2) / Canon EF Mount (ZE)