Zeiss today announced two new lenses designed to be fully compatible with Nikon F mount cameras. The 50mm f1.4 and the 85mm f1.4 will be available starting Spring 2006. Digital SLR’s with their extremely high resolution sensors have placed quite a demand upon lenses and lens design and manufacture, and apparently Zeiss plans to meet this demand. The company also announced a universal mount lens variant which when used with an adapter will be compatible with Canon and other lens mounts, however these lenses will likely not support autofocus and camera-based aperture control.
Nice news for Nikon (and Fuji) DSLR users. Although I don’t see either of these lenses being that suited for UW shooting. Great for portraiture on land. Alex
I see a small chance if someone gets future ZEISS wideangle primes for topside anyway, to house them for underwater too. Zoom gear could act as manual focus gear. But agree, they won’t become popular underwater lenses.
This was the big excitement? If I recall correctly, the differences between Nikkor & Zeiss 50 & 85mm lenses are minuscule. No word on electronic compatability either. Now if Zeiss were announcing some real exotic glass I would understand the excitement. But for this, I just don’t get it.