New ZM lenses, 21mm and 18mm.

Nachkebia said:
Little lower? it is 2/5 stops slower, should it be alot cheaper?
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I worry a little bit that it could be a bit expensive due to the cult status of the contax rf 21mm biogon....If it was to be around $500 I would probably have it as soon as someone like Popflash offered it up...
 
I'm glad that Zeiss is keeping the production up and even invents new lenses. I got the 2/35 Biogon for my M6 and no complaints! 🙂
 
The 21mm F4.5 is nothing new, I would have liked to see an improvement there, may be F3.5? how about F2.8?
18mm F4 is very interesting though, seems to be Zeiss wants to sell to those M8 owners to be.
Kiu
 
The 21mm F4.5 is nothing new, I would have liked to see an improvement there, may be F3.5? how about F2.8?
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Ehm, hasn't Zeiss been offering a Biogon T* 21/2.8 for quite some time (http://www.zeissikon.com/lens.21.htm)?

If they offer a 21/4.5 Biogon next to that, there has to be something special to the lens. Either it's very cheap, which I doubt in the light of the CV 21/4 Color Skopar, or it's somehow "classic", which would support Frank's theory.

Philipp
 
If the new compact 21 f/4.5 is a classic Biogon design - does that mean an exit angle that will be unsuitable ( or at least not optimal ) for future digital use? Looks like the 18 f/4 is more telecentric similar to the 21 f/2.8.
 
thurows said:
What I want to know is where were these in the 60s, 70s 80s and 90s? Why the push for manual focus leses from Zeiss now? I wonder if it's because Nikon is dropping their own line of manual focus lenses.
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The Contax SLR line was still alive in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. That might have prevented Zeiss from introducing lenses for other SLR mounts. Now that Contax is dead, they are free to do whatever they can.
 
Compared to the 21mm/2.8 Biogon ZM, the new 21mm/4.5 ZM mainly looks shorter on the front end with a very short rear protrusion. The 21mm/4.5 ZM will probably perform similarly to the 2.8, as they are both retrofocalized, not like the classic Biogons for Contax. The new one looks to be about the size of the 28mm/2.8 Biogon ZM and 50mm/1.5 C Sonnar, while the 21mm/2.8 is very long. Probably the 4.5 will be a good travel lens, but I already have the 2.8, which is nice and versatile, and not that big.

The 18mm/4 Distagon ZM looks really big though! Not sure if I would like that, but the photo does look like the lens sports a RF coupling cam (which are black on all the ZMs). When RF lenses approach the size of SLR ones my interest wanes. I'm not the he-man Nikon F4 toter I used to be!

The ZF lenses all look pretty big too, but the 25mm/2.8 Distagon and Makro-Planars look interesting. People rave about the Nikkor 24mm/2.8, but mine just isn't as sharp as I would like. And f/2 for macro lenses would seem to offer a big jump in versatility vs the Micro-Nikkors.
 
As for new manual focus lenses, perhaps Zeiss did a bit of research and saw the now-swelling backlash towards all things automaton from an entusiast perspective. They clearly have the everyman covered via their deal with Sony, so why not go after the specialist? To further my point, they just released "classic" Hassy lenses for a body that has recently been discontinued. Sound peculiar? No, not really.

Basically, I think they did their homework. Oh, and thanks for the compliment, sheepdog. Glad you liked it.

-grant
 
dcsang said:
That would make sense..
After all; CV already have the design/layout from the RD-1 so it should be easy to incorporate that into a Zeiss body I would think.

Dave
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Cosina only made the body for the R-D1. Epson designed & installed the electronics/software totally separate from Cosina, i.e. Cosina built the bodies & shipped them to Epson where the rest was installed. This lack of coordination was one of the weaknesses of the project & was probably responsible for many of the quality control problems.

I would hope that Zeiss would find this arrangement unacceptable for any project which would bear their name. My guess is that the lenses are targeted at the M8 & to a lesser extent at the R-D1 - much as the target for ZF lenses are Nikon cameras & not any camera initiated by Zeiss. I doubt that they signal a Zeiss digital camera any time soon.
 
It's interesting because a CV 18mm was shown a while back and the press kind of killed it (lack of positive responce).
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The reason given for the Voigtlander 18mm not going into production was that Cosina was busy with all the new Zeiss offerings. I think this new Zeiss lens is the real reason as they dont want to duplicate! Also explains why the popular 21mmm Voigtlander has not been upgraded to a new M mount barrel.
 
4971713-lg.jpg


OK this was the classical (1953) 4.5/21 Biogon in Contax RF mount.

Obviously the new Biogon is longer and intrudes less into the lens opening, therefore it cannot be the same design. It's a retrofocus like all new Zeiss superwides, either Distagon or Biogon name. Zeiss don't use these names that strict like they did in the 60's or 70's.

The lens has a nice size. I think most travellers prefer a trouser pocket's 21mm over a protruding f/2.8 lens. But than it need to be noticeable better than Cosina's 4/21mm.

Maybe the 4/18mm Distagon is the classic design. We'll see it with the published diagrams.

cheers Frank
 
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