Zeiss Loxia 21mm f/2.8 is the Newest Edition to the Full-Frame E-Mount Lineup2 min read
Reading Time: 2 minutesA little over a year ago, Zeiss announced the Loxia line of mirrorless lenses, designed to work on the Sony E-Mount and cover full-frame sensors.
The first two lenses out of the gate were the 35mm f/2 and 50mm f/2, and now they’ve added a brand new 21mm f/2.8, which rounds out the line at the wide end – though they’re still missing some nice long lenses, which I have no doubt are coming eventually. If you’re using these lenses in APS-C/Super 35mm mode this is a nice set as-is, but in full-frame you’re probably going to want something longer like an 85mm (and if you’ve invested in some of the longer Zeiss lenses for Nikon/Canon they should match well).
Essentially these lenses take the stellar image quality of Zeiss Canon/Nikon still lenses and shrink them down to a size that makes much more sense on smaller mirrorless cameras like the Sony Alpha series. Since the distance to the sensor (flange distance) is much shorter for the Sony E-Mount, these were able to be reengineered to be much smaller and lighter, while still retaining everything that’s solid about Zeiss, like the all-metal housing and smooth manual focusing.
Zeiss tends to wait to get things right before they release products, so it’s probably safe to say we will see most, if not all, of the EF/F-Mount stills line shrunken down to the Loxia line at some point in the future.
At $1,500, this certainly isn’t cheap, but you’re paying for both image quality and build quality with Zeiss. If you shoot a lot of different formats you might be better off adapting the larger still lenses, but if you shoot a ton in the Sony E-Mount family these could be a great option. You can pre-order right now and we should be seeing the lens available in December.
via: No Film School
Image Credit: Zeiss
