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Zeiss posted a teaser on Instagram yesterday showing an image taken with a Zeiss 85mm F1.4 lens. While that is not that newsworthy on their own, they certainly did tease that Zeiss was coming out with something soon.
Zeiss had all but disappeared from the consumer market, focusing mostly on industrial lenses. The Batis and Loxia lines have been discontinued and Zeiss themselves have not created a consumer / professional stills camera lens for over six years.
It certainly seems as if Zeiss is doing something, and a new Otus 85mm F1.4 would be a fantastic starting point. SonyAlphaRumors received word from one of their sources;
Half a year ago, a guy I know who works for Zeiss in PR (and was also involved in marketing for the unfortunately failed ZX1) told me Zeiss is bringing out new lenses in a few months. Now if you look at zeiss imaging on instagram they are teasing something with an owl, so I guess it might be something Otus line related. May guess is an Otus line for mirrorless cameras as E-Mount and the like.
While that seems to be encouraging it's certainly not a slam dunk.
Otus lenses if you recall had no electronic connections to the EF mount. They are still available for the EF mount, for a mere $14,995 USD.
Zeiss has been hesitant on bringing electronic connected lenses to the EF mount in the past, because they are above the reverse engineering that third party EF lens manufacturers had to do. Given that mirrorless cameras overall play far nicer with lens data, I would imagine that Zeiss is looking to create the new mirrorless Otus lineup with electronic connections to the camera. Since they have done this before with the Batis and Loxia lineup for the E-mount, they do have some experience with this.
SAR thinks that it's possible we will see these Otus for mounts other than the E mount, and quite possibly for the RF mount. I think we will as well, as this wouldn't be something that Canon would feel threatened with, and it's possible that the lens communication is redimentary enough for Canon to quickly sign off on it. Or, Zeiss could keep with the Otus mystery and simply have a mechanical mount, and camera communcation be damned. If it's simply a mechanical lens mount with no connections, then I would put the RF mount as a near certainty.
The Zeiss Otus 85mm F1.4 for the DSLR mounts was a insanely great lens, with a equallly high price tag. You got what you paid for. Let's pause and relieve memory lane from 10 years ago via Zeiss's video.
Craig and I were used lens lusting a few weeks ago, and I said he needed to get the Contax/Yashica 21mm f/2.8 lens. Primarily because I wanted to borrow it from him.
I have long used Contax lenses on my EF cameras, and I miss that clinical sharpness and microcontrast that you get out of Zeiss. It will be good to see them re-enter the market, even if they decide to skip the RF mount for now.
What do you all think? Are you ready to sell a few kidneys to get some Zeiss primes?
Source: SonyAlphaRumors
My Zeiss Classic EF mount (15, 21 and 50mm) are all "read" even by the EOS R bodies. Including the focusing help...
And the Otus not?
See: https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Zeiss-Otus-85mm-f-1.4-Lens.aspx
I think Richard was referring to the Zeiss lenses in Contax/Yashica mount.
Anyway, it sure would be nice to see them in RF mount.
Now? Canon has really been hitting it out of the park with a lot (most? all?) of their RF lenses. Just compare the Otus 55 f/1.4 to the RF 50 f/1.2 or 50 1.4 VCM.
I like options, but the quality of the modern lenses is impressive and does not seem to be leaving Zeiss much room to differentiate themselves.
That said, I'll happily check out what they have to offer. It is not like they get to take my money automatically.
2 decades ago, they competed with far inferior lenses from Canon and Co. This has drastically changed, not only with RF, but also with the late EF lenses.
To be honest, if, as a beginner, I wanted the very best lenses, I'd get the Leica M APOs, Summiluxes and Summicrons or the RF 50 & 85 f/1,2, the RF 100 macro, the RF 135mm, the RF 70-200 etc... Provided I had the necessary $$$$$$$$$$$$$
Focusing quality and speed matter a lot to me.
But I'm nevertheless very curious as to what Zeiss will bring...
The EOS R Diary : RF 50mm f/1.2L USM – Laszlo Pusztai
I'm far from convinced...
Canon has done a much better job with the RF L lenses, but I'm not sure about the micro contrast that Zeiss is known for.
For the Leica M owners reading this post: The Zeiss ZM 25mm f/2,8 is absolutely fantastic, contrast, sharpness, colours, flare resistance. I'd go so far as to qualify it as a perfect lens. Alas, not all of them were mechanically on the same level as the optics. The mount has sometimes a tendency to get loose. So better check before buying...but it's worth it (provided you "6 bit code" it !!!!)
At least to me, the article almost perfectly surmises my point, even if one person's impressions are exactly correct, the Zeiss Otus 55 f/1.4 is better against 1) flare, 2) with vignetting, and 3) focus breathing. They also bring up color rendition, but that did not make the top 3 list for whatever reason. Seems to indicate resolution is a push. Yet, despite these, they still carry the EOS-R and RF 50 f/1.2 when they take a "second bag" with them for "easy" shooting when they do not feel inclined to use a "proper camera". Which I read that even to someone that previously owned and clearly prefers the Otus (with 5DRs), the RF 50 f/1.2 (with EOS-R) still meets their standards, at least part of the time.
There will always be people willing to pay extra for a specific feature.
I am making an assumption that whatever Zeiss does will have a similar 2x-3x higher price point, similar to the Otus vs "L" 10-15 years ago. Back then, the Otus was clearly better in a number of ways. Yet at that price point even back then with the advantages, I think only a small group of people actually made that investment. If Zeiss comes out with a $5-7k lens even with better flare, vignetting and focus breathing, I would not expect it to sell well. If they come out with a $2-3k lens that is better...then yes, I suspect it will have a reasonable, yet likely smallish (no-AF) market.
But I also photograph in cities, where you often have to focus real fast, if you don't want to get people or cars in your picture. No issue at all with the extremely quick focusing Leica M, much more with MF lenses on a MILF.
Additionally, wide open (f/1,2 or f/1,4) photography can be very demanding when shooting portraits wit MF lenses. As I wrote, I love Zeiss lenses, but there are some limitations to their use.