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Zeiss LOXIA MF lenses for the A7 series
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 28, 2014 4:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gerald wrote:
"made of high-quality materials."


I'd like to see brass and chrome, a return to the quality that was standard in the 1950s and 60s.

Actually, it was the oil crisis of 1972/3 that put an end to such things and saw the cheapening of the materials used.


PostPosted: Thu Aug 28, 2014 6:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Image of Loxia 50mm posted on sonyalpharumors:



Based on the specs its a "normal" Planar.


PostPosted: Thu Aug 28, 2014 7:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

In this weeks 'Amateur Photographer' there's a mention of Sony making a curved sensor to address this corner problem.



Obviously all copyright belongs to A.P. - this is shared here for 'Fair use'.


PostPosted: Thu Aug 28, 2014 8:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mark wrote:
Image of Loxia 50mm posted on sonyalpharumors:



Based on the specs its a "normal" Planar.


Someone commented on SAR that this thing looks like a Tamron SP Adaptall 90. I would have to agree. Although I am sure the blue label will cost you extra extra. Like $900 extra.


PostPosted: Fri Aug 29, 2014 5:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Lloydy wrote:
In this weeks 'Amateur Photographer' there's a mention of Sony making a curved sensor to address this corner problem.

...

Obviously all copyright belongs to A.P. - this is shared here for 'Fair use'.


Sonyalpharumors also spread news about the Sony curved sensors. The article mentions that it is hard to develop an interchangeable lens system based on a curved sensor. As far as I remember designing a zoom is exceptionally challenging (again, from sonyalpharumors), so probably Sony will create RX* products based on this sensor. Of course the real innovation (and Leica-killer) would be the curved sensor with some Zeiss lenses....


PostPosted: Fri Aug 29, 2014 6:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

iangreenhalgh1 wrote:
Gerald wrote:
"made of high-quality materials."


I'd like to see brass and chrome, a return to the quality that was standard in the 1950s and 60s.


Brass is a heavy alloy that was replaced by aluminum in photographic lenses. Titanium would be better than brass. Titanium is a metal that has the strength of steel and the lightness of aluminum. Ah, but the titanium is very expensive ... Do you know what is the price of titanium? It's less than $10/lb!

http://www.metalprices.com/p/TitaniumFreeChart


PostPosted: Fri Aug 29, 2014 7:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I used to be in the machine tool business, did a lot of work with US aerospace companies.
Problem with titanium for these applications is machineability. Compared to aluminum or brass its a PITB.
Its hard to cast in shapes close to the desired final shape so you have to remove much more metal. You also have to run tools slowly. And there are a dozen other things to worry about.


PostPosted: Fri Aug 29, 2014 7:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I agree, Luis, but everything you said applies in certain way to optical glasses. But that does not preclude the use of optical glasses in photographic lenses. Smile


PostPosted: Fri Aug 29, 2014 7:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes, but you cant avoid glass (well, sometimes with plastic) for these applications.
And they do in fact cast glass blanks very close to the final form factor, so the machining (grinding) is fairly limited.

Titanium for the mechanical parts though, that would add substantially to the manufacturing cost, besides the slight increase in cost of materials.


PostPosted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 9:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mark wrote:
Lloydy wrote:
In this weeks 'Amateur Photographer' there's a mention of Sony making a curved sensor to address this corner problem.

...

Obviously all copyright belongs to A.P. - this is shared here for 'Fair use'.


Sonyalpharumors also spread news about the Sony curved sensors. The article mentions that it is hard to develop an interchangeable lens system based on a curved sensor. As far as I remember designing a zoom is exceptionally challenging (again, from sonyalpharumors), so probably Sony will create RX* products based on this sensor. Of course the real innovation (and Leica-killer) would be the curved sensor with some Zeiss lenses....


It could be a Nikon and Canon killer as well Wink


PostPosted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 9:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nordentro wrote:
Mark wrote:
Lloydy wrote:
In this weeks 'Amateur Photographer' there's a mention of Sony making a curved sensor to address this corner problem.

...

Obviously all copyright belongs to A.P. - this is shared here for 'Fair use'.


Sonyalpharumors also spread news about the Sony curved sensors. The article mentions that it is hard to develop an interchangeable lens system based on a curved sensor. As far as I remember designing a zoom is exceptionally challenging (again, from sonyalpharumors), so probably Sony will create RX* products based on this sensor. Of course the real innovation (and Leica-killer) would be the curved sensor with some Zeiss lenses....


It could be a Nikon and Canon killer as well Wink

Leica, like Apple, is a kind of lifestyle. It is very hard to change it. Wink


PostPosted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 10:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Agree, that`s why I think Canon and Nikon should suffer the most Wink


PostPosted: Sun Aug 31, 2014 2:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

luisalegria wrote:
Titanium for the mechanical parts though, that would add substantially to the manufacturing cost, besides the slight increase in cost of materials.

I think there is little doubt that titanium is the ideal metal for use in a photographic lens. The photographic industry has used occasionally titanium in camera parts. For example, the Hasselblad HB, which is a restyled Sony A99V, uses titanium controls. Another earlist example is the Olympus OM-4Ti with top plates and bottom made of titanium.

We were initially talking about quality of the materials and not the difficulty in working these materials. Even today there is enough prejudice and ignorance in the industry about the difficulties in machining the titanium. GMT, an industry specializing in titanium, thinks that machining titanium is as easy as machining stainless steel:

"lt is not more difficult to work with titanium than with stainless steel, which is commonly machined today.
Only Ti-alloys, with high number of alloy elements, may present greater difficulties."


http://gmttitanium.com/english_tremeny/technical_information/machining_and_cutting/

That said, the titanium it is certainly overkill for use in photographic lenses. The aluminum has proven to be good enough to replace even the brass as the material of choice for use in lenses. Today, the best materials for lenses, considering both the quality and the price, are aluminum and plastic. The problem with the plastic is not the quality of the material itself (there are thousands of types of plastic), but the engineering. Any average engineer can design a good piece of metal, but designing a really good plastic part requires an excellent design and production engineering.


PostPosted: Sun Aug 31, 2014 5:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I do find the classical Contax C/Y Mount ZEiSS lenses best looking - a silver 50-60's ZEISS doesn't fit in optical terms to a A7-Series Sony DSLM....


PostPosted: Sun Aug 31, 2014 8:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The specifications of the Zeiss Loxia 50mm emerged:
http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr5-more-zeiss-loxia-images-and-loxia-description/

Nothing spectacular. 6/4 elements/group, identical to those of a Helios 44-4, which incidentally is a clone of the old Zeiss Biotar.
Probably the performance wide open of the Zeiss Loxia will be a bit better than the Helios 44-4 because of use of modern glasses, but I doubt there will be any difference from F4 on.

The only thing I liked in the Loxia is the automatic activation of the magnification of the camera display when the focusing ring is turned. Bravo to Sony that adopted EVF in all FF cameras it produces. The automatic activation of the display is more a camera than a lens feature!


PostPosted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 12:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Looks like a re-housed Biogon and Planar ZM with the electronic aperture, closer focusing, 52mm filter size, and deeper hood (no finder blockage problem).
The price is the only real question, maybe about the same as the ZM versions so ain't cheap but both of lenses are highly regarded and perform very well.

And hopefully this means that later on it will be possible to "code" the ZM lenses for corner issues using the Loxia lens profiles(but maybe I am wrong and the design is a bit tweaked specifically for the Sony sensors).
As I think the M-mount is actually bit more 'universal' in this case - who knows, there will be a cheap M Leica Smile)


PostPosted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 8:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Indeed it looks very similar to ZM 2/50 Planar and ZM 2/35 Biogon

http://www.zeiss.com/content/dam/Photography/new/pdf/brochures/loxia/loxia_leaflet_en.pdf


PostPosted: Tue Sep 02, 2014 9:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

price announced http://blogs.zeiss.com/photo/en/?p=5313

The Loxia 2/50 will be available worldwide starting October 2014 and the Loxia 2/35 from the end of the fourth quarter of 2014. The recommended retail price of the Loxia 2/35 will be EUR 965.55* (US$ 1,299.00)* (excl. VAT) and that of the Loxia 2/50 will be EUR 713.45* (US$ 949.00)* (excl. VAT).


PostPosted: Tue Sep 02, 2014 11:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Too expensive, also the 35/2 seems to exhibit noticeable corner smearing on the provided samples.

On the A7s the Biogon 35/2 ZM seems to work very well according to this but it does not work well with the A7R


PostPosted: Tue Sep 02, 2014 12:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

At those prices, the old Contax G Planar 45 and Biogon 28 would be much more cost effective.


PostPosted: Tue Sep 02, 2014 12:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

iangreenhalgh1 wrote:
At those prices, the old Contax G Planar 45 and Biogon 28 would be much more cost effective.


even a jupiter-12 Laughing


PostPosted: Tue Sep 02, 2014 3:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Those who are seriously considering buying a Loxia lens are not interested in adapting legacy lenses.
With Loxia, Zeiss is targeting the rich buyers of Leica lenses.


PostPosted: Tue Sep 02, 2014 3:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

And we have a new, fancy design element: a blue dot! Wow, great job! Very Happy

Btw usual Zeiss pricing. Aperture de-click is an interesting feature, I am sure that some video guys will find these lenses tempting.

Have you checked their sample shots? I thought they will hire a good photographer to shoot some good pics, or just ask someone from their own official Flickr group. These shots are plain boring and show nothing....