If you’ve been considering the new Zeiss Otus lenses or even something older, then know that the Phoblographer has reviewed pretty much all of them over the years except for the new Otus glass. And more importantly, we’re very aware of all the big differences between them. If you’re curious, then we recommend that you check out this very short guide in a nutshell.
Here’s what you need to know about Zeiss lenses:
- Loxia: The Zeiss Loxia lenses are manual focus only and meant for the Sony E mount. We’ve reviewed pretty much all of them. They’re weather resistant only at the mount and have a fully working aperture ring too. The problems with these lenses, however, is that over the years, they’ve broken down considerably. At times, you need to replace the entire aperture translation mechanism or else it will go all over the place and throw off your camera’s exposure. I learned this after buying the 35mm f2.
- Batis: The Batis lenses were the first of a kind in many ways. They had an LCD screen on top of the lenses that showed various pieces of information like focusing, aperture, or other things. These had more weather resistance and also had autofocus. One of our favorites was the Zeiss 40mm f2 Batis. They’re made only for Sony E mount.
- Touit: The Zeiss Touit lenses are meant for APS-C cameras for Sony and Fujifilm. The image quality is nice, and that’s all that’s worth saying about them.
- Otus: The Otus lenses were originally developed for DSLRs but in more recent times, the lenses have also been made for mirrorless cameras. These are the highest end lenses that Zeiss makes. The lenses for mirrorless cameras have weather resistance while the older DSLR lenses don’t. For what it’s worth, when the 55mm f1.4 Otus was launched, Sigma nearly matched it the following year. So overall, they didn’t hold thier innovation crown for a long time.
- Milvus: The Zeiss Milvus lenses are our favorite for the reason that they’re weather resistant and still have great image quality overall. Seriously, the Zeiss 85mm f1.4 Milvus still has some of my favorite images that I’ve shot for a review.
- Classic: These are the lenses that came out before mirrorless cameras did, for the most part. I currently own the Zeiss 50mm f1.4 for Nikon F mount. And my favorite from this time is the Zeiss 135mm f2 Apochromatic.