While I’m not an avid E-mount camera shooter myself, the lovely people at Zeiss and RedShark News thought I should test the manual focus, Zeiss Loxia lenses and give my humble opinion about them. So, here I go! Or go straight to the review video.
One of the first things you’ll notice when picking up a Loxia lens is just how sturdy they are built. In typical Zeiss fashion, the lens barrel is made from machined aluminium inside and out. The lenses ooze quality and it feels like they’ll last multiple lifetimes if you treat them well. The blue plastic ring near the mount seals the lens, but Zeiss themselves do not claim the Loxia’s to be weatherproof. I would not have an issue using the lenses in light rain, though I did warn you that they are not weather sealed 😉
One of the key features of the Loxia’s that will appeal to film makers is the fact that you can choose to manually declick the aperture. Most photography lenses have hard stops, which are useful if you want to blindly ‘feel’ the stops. For film, it’s great to have a smooth, no clicks aperture to adjust for immediate lighting changes. The fact that Zeiss built in a feature that will only take you 10 seconds to go from hard stops to smooth aperture changes really tells me that they had the hybrid photographer/ videographer in mind.
Visually, the lenses are true to the typical Zeiss look: sharp & technical with a fair amount of contrast. There’s not much distortion on an FS5 (which has an S35 sensor). I did see some reviewers testing the Loxia’s on full frame A7SIIs who did seem to suffer from some distortion and vignetting. Because of time constraints, I was not able to test this. The lenses do suffer a fair amount from breathing. Depending on your shooting style this could be an issue that might be a dealbreaker. In my daily filming, I do not have too much of an issue with the breathing of lenses, as I don’t do many focus pulls.
All in all, I think Zeiss has made an interesting set of lenses with the Loxia’s. To an EF and PL glass shooter like myself, the lenses feel very compact, without losing the premium touch. The aperture ring near the mount makes it feel a bit like Leica glass which, to me, is a good thing. In the video below, I try and make sense of what I think of the Loxia’s and why you should consider them if you’re an E-mount shooter.
Please bear in mind that I had only one day’s worth of filming with the Loxia’s. You should always try and test lenses before buying them. That being said, I really like what Zeiss did with these lenses and I believe the Loxia’s can be real winners in this particular field.