Any particular reason? I'm sure that if they do plan to produce AF lenses their sales will be jump like crazy, maybe?.. at least hard core AF users would love to get one of those amazing lenses from their ZF line.
I do not know much about AF and lens formula's but I am sure if you put AF or other modern new features, the glass will have to change its formula which could cause less quality from the Zeiss. Just a thought.
Market is pretty flooded with good to great AF lenses from primary and 3rd party manufacturers. Not that Zeiss couldn't and wouldn't make a splash it would take a complete revamp of factories requiring mucho money, time, etc. They've got a unique niche carved out in high-end manual focus lenses. Zeiss glass is already in a lot of the point and shoot cameras so maybe down the road there is a plan to go AF in SLR lenses though not sure if there is enough incentive.
They'd also have to give up something in the 'feel' of the lenses to make them AF. You can't do an AF helicoid that feels like the ZF line and you'd probably have to make some of the parts lighter.
There's no reason to believe that at some point in the future Zeiss won't have several different lines of lenses. The ZF line was meant to be a higher end, but affordable set of manual focus lenses. They could still do an absolute top of the line lens line (think Leica R series prices) or they could adapt their AF sony designs for other mounts.
Well ... the APO Sonnar T* 1700mm is an AF, I doubt it's an issue "can do". That however was a one off lens that pushes many boundaries of lens design. From the Zeiss perspective it may be a combination of should/would/could.
Licensing issues Herb? Did he elaborate on that? Just curious. I find it curious that Zeiss would have any licensing issue by incorporating AF. Interesting answer.
My take (ie I've heard nothing) is that licencing issues may not be too far off the truth. But it has less to do with Nikon than it does Sony. If you've ever picked up and used a Zeiss 135 1.8 or an 85 1.4 and used it on a Sony Alpha, you'll know why Sony would like to keep AF to themselves for as long as they possibly can.
That's a pretty strong alliance that benefits both companies there. Those two lenses are so nice to use, nearly made me get an A700. Image stabilized 135 1.8.... yep, it is very sweet.
Don't be overly surprised if Nikon EVER release an updated 85 or 135 AF-S VR version , that Carl Z may then in fact release their AF models in Nikon mount.
i dont shoot sports so i cannot say for that, but i found the autofocus always slower and talking too much into my work. Even though D3/00 have so many focus points that you hardly need to recompose, i find it much faster to focus with hand especially on glasses with one ring (primes and slide zooms which are my favorite).
I understand the need for autofocus on slow glass, but Zeiss? Never needed on glass under f3.5.
For those who have issues on D300 (thanks to smaller VF), get the viewfinder magnifier and for landscape on tripod works even liveview pretty superb.
Licensing is an issue, and I doubt they have the source code to Nikon's firmware. Other third party suppliers have to do reverse engineering to make the AF work, which I believe is particularly complicated when AF-S is involved. There are problems now and then (D200 with Sigma lenses if I remember correctly), and as a quality supplier, I don't think Zeiss want their customers to have "issues" with their lenses.
Another question is what kind of contract they have with Sony. Sony may well have paid them to be exclusive with Zeiss AF lenses, at least during their build-up in the professional market.
Well, let's see. Zeiss does make AF lenses. They make AF lenses for Sinar. It's not clear if Sony's agreement with Zeiss gives Sony an exclusive on Zeiss AF lenses for small format, DSLR cameras. We don't know. I guess we will know, in some way, when and if Zeiss resurrects the Contax brand (which apparently, sometime last year, reverted back to Zeiss).
Zeiss doesn't really have it's own, in-house developed, AF technology. AF technology used in the Contax 645 and Contax N lenses was Kyocera's, and Zeiss does not currently have access to this technology. I don't know the source of the AF in the Sinar lenses but it almost certainly is someone else's.
It has been reported that licensing issues have prevented Zeiss from making AF lenses in the Nikon and Canon EF mounts. Licensing issues reportedly also prevent Zeiss from producing MF lenses in the Canon mount. producing the physical Canon mount shouldn't be a problem -- the EF bayonet mount is now over 20 years old. It is the communication protocols that allow the camera to set and control the aperture that are at issue (I believe). These have continued to evolve/change over time and are presumably patented in some way and supplemented with tightly guarded trade secrets. It can be reverse engineered (like Sigma and Conurus have done) but as Sigma's experience has shown, it can be problematic -- particularly when Canon introduces new bodies. Canon could have threatened to sue Zeiss over it (whether valid or not), and I would suggest that the small market for MF Canon mount lenses (the incremental volume over those using the ZF or ZS lenses with an adapter on a Canon) wasn't worth the cost of a legal battle.
I would also point out that generally speaking you can not just take a MF focus lens and add AF technology to make it an AF lens. They are different designs. AF lenses are usually internal focusing lenses, and most of the Zeiss' MF are not. As far as I know, the only Zeiss MF design that has been made into an AF lens is the 50mm planar design (the same basic optical design for the Contax RTS 50/1.4 lens was used for the AF Contax N 50/1.4). Other lenses, like the 85/1.4 Planar have to be re-designed. It's a matter of how much glass you have to move, and with MF lenses there is usually too much glass to move effectively with AF. AF lenses, at least initially were a compromise. They had to be designed a new way and there was little experience designing lenses that way. Consequently, initially AF lenses were generally pretty poor. Today, the differences in attainable optical quality between AF and MF has been minimized. But more is still possible with an MF than an AF design. Essentially, AF lenses have a design constraint that MF do not have, and it matters.
Chris Langer wrote:
I do not know much about AF and lens formula's but I am sure if you put AF or other modern new features, the glass will have to change its formula which could cause less quality from the Zeiss. Just a thought.
Chris
Why would the optical design be any different for an AF lens?
phnelson,
I thought it was merely because if they put in more stuff some of the formula would have to move around. LIke I said I know nothing of this relam but from what it seems like, it could be another possiblity.
the 3rd party vendors reverse engineer the Nikon mount electronics required for AF. Zeiss doesn't want to do that, as well as having to abandon the Zeiss MF feel, etc. it's just another thing to add to the cost of doing so and with a small company, not worth it.
Herb...
Qranc wrote:
Licensing issues Herb? Did he elaborate on that? Just curious. I find it curious that Zeiss would have any licensing issue by incorporating AF. Interesting answer.
They seems to be keeping busy and they are developing all sorts of products. 
