Zeiss Otus ML 50mm f/1.4 lens is now in Stock. New reviews by Christopher Frost and DigitalcameraWorld

The USA Zeiss preorders:
Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 at BHphoto. Adorama. FotoErhardt. Fotokoch. Calumet. WexUK.
Zeiss 85mm f/1.4 at BHphoto. Adorama. FotoErhardt. Fotokoch. Calumet. WexUK.

The new Zeiss Otus lenses have had a controversial start. From what I’ve heard, pre-order numbers are low and many feel that the price is just too high for what you get. Unlike 5-10 years ago when Zeiss basically had little competition, today you can get many excellent lenses for very little money.

Christopher Frost tried to dig into this new lens and highlight what makes them unique:

DigitalcameraWorld also tested the lens and concluded:

The Zeiss Otus ML 50mm f/1.4 looks, feels and performs like an utterly uncompromising lens. It’s designed and built for optical excellence, pure and simple, with no modern fads like autofocus or image stabilization, or even camera-driven aperture control. Manual-focus lenses won’t find a place in everyone’s dream team but I like that this new lens for mirrorless cameras is smaller, lighter and more affordable than its DSLR-based forebear. Even so, it’s still very pricey for a standard prime!

Viltrox AF 35mm f/1.2 LAB FE Review by Opticallimits: “impressive lens”

Preorders: Amazon USA (Click here), Pergear, Viltrox store, €1,099 at Amazon DE, Amazon FR, Amazon IT, Amazon ES, and £959 at Amazon UK.

Opticallimits tested the new Viltrox AF 35mm f/1.2 LAB FE lens and concluded:

Viltrox delivered another impressive lens – this time the ultra-fast Viltrox AF 35mm f/1.2 LAB FE. It’s not only fast, but also capable of producing great image quality. It’s very sharp at f/1.2 and reaches greatness from f/2. Lateral CAs are low. Axial CAs are noticeable at large aperture settings, although not excessive. The vignetting is typical for such a lens. Images shows a slight pincushion distortions – and our pre-prod sample didn’t have a correction profile to eliminate them. The background bokeh is very smooth and out-of-focus highlights are nicely rendered.

The build quality is up to professional standards thanks to a weather-sealed all metal housing. The focus control ring is smooth. We wished that Viltrox had used a marked aperture ring instead of “infinite scrolling” but that’s a matter of taste. A more precise aperture change per “click” would have been nice, though. The AF is quick and noiseless.

Some may find it almost suspicious that we rated many (although not all) Viltrox lenses so highly. However, most of our rating depends on data, and it matches with what we can see in sample images. So, it is once again … highly recommended!

And here is one more review from Mathieu Stern: