plea to Sony/Zeiss

Lens quality can be a touchy subject, some people buy expensive glass and put cheap UV filters on the front, they also don't clean them, use soft focus filters and also Photoshop them badly, yes I know not everyone.
The extra perceived or real quality gained from Zeiss, Leica, Nikon, Schneider is beauty in the eye of the beholder, or could it be the Emperor's new clothes.

I have been lucky enough to use some wonderful glass over the years BUT PLEASE MR. SONY & MR. ZEISS give us a 50mm Planar for the Alpha, the 50 1.4 Sony is a great little lens but not a Planar and the Sigma 50mm 1.4 is an exceptional lens if you get a good copy.

These days I think some Zeiss lenses are made by Cosina Voigtlander but like Marks and Spencers biscuits to a Zeiss recipe and under stricter quality control.

Having said that I think CV glass is superb and the link below is to a mock up book I am working on for a publisher containing CV 40mm f1.4 images and A900 Zeiss images.
I stress it is a mock up, I use Blurb for printers dummies and part from 2 pages the words are lorum ipsum.

http://www.blurb.com/books/1563541

p.s.
Zeiss have a great range of lenses of the shelf of which some are available in F/EF/K mount and they have releasing the Zeiss Compact Prime CP.2 cine lenses in various mounts so lets have some more lenses from the Zeiss catalogue in A mount please.

Edited by vikingodos - 09 September 2010 at 10:01

Sorry I forgot to ad 50mm Planar, I have the 85.

David

I said it before and I say it again: there are other holes in the line-up that need filling first.

There is NO need for a new 50/1.4 as long as we have a perfectly capable 50/1.4. What we do need is a good 180/200 prime - Preferable a 200/2.8, but for marketing purposes maybe a 200/2 or 200/1.8.

Also, we have the 35/1.4G that is a very specialized lens and there is room for a more general usable FF 35mm.

When, and only when, the 200mm and 35mm holes are filled, Sony/Zeiss should divert resources to a new 50/1.4 design. I'm sorry David.

I wish we would see a FF 16mm prime. Now that would be sweet!

The idea that a 135/1.8 "becomes" a 200 on an APS-C camera is, how do I put it politely, not true. If I want a 200mm, I don't want a 135mm...
By your logic, that 50mm your asking for is a 75mm on APS-C, and we already have an 85mm planar

On Contax and longer lenses: they made contax 180/2.8, 200/3.5|200/4 and 300/4 lenses. So, there is no reason why Zeiss wouldn't make a long tele. To be honest, I couldn't be bothered who builds it - I would buy a reasonable priced 200/2.8, either G or CZ.

I can see the wish for a wide of 16mm or 18mm - but I don't see any need for a 50mm as we have a very capable 50mm already. Designing a 50mm would be a waist of resources. Of course IMHO (well, not that humble )

that u think there's room for 2 35mms but not for 2 50mms is beyond me.

in any case, the fact that zeiss is making ze & zf lenses not available on as za is just stupid.

Converting the ze/zf designs for AF would probably require extensive work.
Instead, Sony should licence some CN designs because they already included ultrasonic AF.
Photozone tested a couple of them some time ago:
http://www.photozone.de/canon-eos/260-zeiss-planar-t-85mm-f14-contax-n-to-canon-ef-review--test-report
http://www.photozone.de/canon-eos/261-zeiss-vario-sonnar-t-24-85mm-f35-45-n-contax-n-to-canon-ef-review--test-report