i am ordering the Sony nex-7 that lead me to hte world of Zeiss. Being used to nikopn/Canon, i find myself unfamiliar with zeiss, that , despite the optimal optics--and up there prices--, seem stuck to to the distant no man zone of phtography with weird disignation 2/25 instead of 25/2, Distagon, sonnar t , Distagon t. and the modern cameras seem not able to communicate with these newly developped lenses. Why don't they do like Sigma and to sell a lot of lenses? but at higher quality and prices?
For the same reason that BMW does not sell more cars or Leica more cameras. They have decided they want to be a niche company serving a very specific market segment. Many companies that want to expand beyond their core expertise experience what Peter Lynch a while back described as "diworsification"
GroovyGeek wrote:
For the same reason that BMW does not sell more cars or Leica more cameras. They have decided they want to be a niche company serving a very specific market segment. Many companies that want to expand beyond their core expertise experience what Peter Lynch a while back described as "diworsification"
no, but they aren't mass market. They (and other companies w/ certain 'philosophies') simply make their products the way they believe is 'correct' and you as the consumer can either accept that or reject it. If you appreciate that or believe it has value, you buy it. If not, then you don't and they don't care too much. And honestly, that's kind of the german mindset. It's not a coincidence that BMW, Leica and Zeiss all fall into that.
Products must meet price points and sales quantities to produce a profit. If Zeiss were to maintain the same optical and mechanical quality in an auto focus system for numerous camera systems I would wildassguess they would have to charge 4x what their competition does. How many lenses could they sell at this price? As far as why 2/25?... let's take care of those annoying "lense" people first.
nugeny wrote:
i am ordering the Sony nex-7 that lead me to hte world of Zeiss. Being used to nikopn/Canon, i find myself unfamiliar with zeiss, that , despite the optimal optics--and up there prices--, seem stuck to to the distant no man zone of phtography with weird disignation 2/25 instead of 25/2, Distagon, sonnar t , Distagon t. and the modern cameras seem not able to communicate with these newly developped lenses. Why don't they do like Sigma and to sell a lot of lenses? but at higher quality and prices?
Not sure why people consider Zeiss lenses to be prohibitively expensive. I paid less than $1600 for my Zeiss ZE 21mm f/2.8 Distagon, which is not from from the prices for Canon or Nikon high-end wide primes. Additionally, both the ZE (Canon mount) and ZF.2 (Nikon mount) lenses communicate with modern cameras just fine, will full auto-aperture, metering and exif. They only lack AF, and that might have to do more with a contract with Sony than it does with trying to set itself apart. Despite that they do fill a niche with superb construction and optics, and have had no problem selling them despite the lack of AF and a selling price that has risen sharply since their initial release.
Not sure exactly which Zeiss lenses you're referring to. As noted, modern Zeiss lenses do communicate with modern cameras.
Older Zeiss lenses do not because either Canon refused to license the EF specs to the lens firm, or the lens firm was unwilling to pay the high price demanded by Canon for the license. Some older lenses were manufactured before cameras contained electronics at all, and in many cases, the lens manufacturer simply didn't want to build electronics into the lens body. There are a host of other issues you run into when adapting older Zeiss lenses to Canon bodies, like register distance.
If you stop by the Alternative Gear and lenses forum, you'll find a lot of information about all this stuff and a number of discussions of the Nex camera with adapted lenses as well -
Jan 24, 2012 at 01:06 PM
Lars Johnsson Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
Like David wrote, new Zeiss enses made for Canon or Nikon do communicate with Nikon/Canon cameras. I have seven Zeiss ZE lenses with Canon mount. And they all communicate with my 3 Canon bodies. Electronics, exif data and so on.......
Can some one do some comparison of lenses: Zeiss vs NIkon/Canon or even Sigma.Same camera, same setting...
I would be curious to see the different results.
