Zeiss 15mm T2.8 – an impressive new lens, but it’s unaffordable

This information has been floating around, but it’s a lens so impressive it deserves our attention.

A 15mm ultra wide angle lens that covers a full frame sensor. That alone is an impressive perspective. But usually such wide angle glass is prone to distortion and poor image quality due to the extreme field of view.

Apperently not the Distagon 15mm t2.8. This fine lens from the Zeiss labs has some special, “abnormal” glass that will control distortion “extremely well” and allegedly even at wide open aperture the nasty chromatic abberation is “virtually not there“.

They had me convinced until I saw the pricetag of $2950. Urgh. That’s a lot for a photo lens, but then again this surely isn’t an ordinary one.
As usual it’s available as Distagon 15mm ZF for Nikon and Distagon 15mm ZE for Canon.

babyPrimes – Zeiss ZF.2 in a new body [UPDATED]

Dante from Italian company kelvinkamera+ told me today that his babyPrimes are finally finished and soon to be ready for sale.

Basically Dante says that these are Zeiss photo primes (ZF.2) housed in a new shell and the Zeiss Compact Primes we know (see image on the left) are one step higher in class. And his version is 35-40% less in price, but has all the filmic compact primes goodness (fixed gear rings, 2 sided scales for focus and iris, consistent 95mm front diameter)

Dante Cecchin says:
To reach this price and offer a serious re-housing we spent months on testing and building many different solutions and the point is that they are not 100% primes (CP.2 is one step higher and anyway not 100% true primes) but for a lot of people the Carl Zeiss lens quality and a Primes feeling with 2 side scales (also for iris) and a rock solid front mount of 95mm is a workhorse choice for digital cinematographers.

These will be available for EF, F, E and MFT mount.

We will keep you updated on these special lenses. Dante says he will visit us and show us his case full of babies. If that happens you will be the first to know.

www.babyprimes.com

[UPDATE]:
Statement by Zeiss:

- Carl Zeiss is in no way involved in the babyPrimes project or product of and does not maintain a relationship to the manufacturer.
- Carl Zeiss cannot confirm that the optics used in the advertised product line are from Carl Zeiss, nor can we confirm that these optics meet the typically high standards of a Carl Zeiss lens
- We would like to emphasize that Carl Zeiss cannot accept any liability for products that have been altered through unauthorized modifications. Therefore these products cannot be covered under the international warranty of Carl Zeiss.