Carl Zeiss 35mm f/1.4 Distagon prototype

I’m anticipating arrival of the new Carl Zeiss 35mm f/1.4 Distagon tomorrow; Zeiss has graciously allowed me use of a prototype lens for a full week. You can bet that it will see some use. See my September 1 notes for details. Technical data such as MTF and so on will have to wait until late this year with production lenses.

I’ll be shooting a prototype; the 35mm f/1.4 Distagon won’t go on sale until next year (2011). And for that reason, all evaluation is preliminary.

A full review of the production version will of course be found in my Guide to Zeiss ZF / Zeiss ZE Lenses once I have a production units late in 2011, but I’ll be discussing and showing as much as I can using the pre-production lens, to the extent that Zeiss is comfortable with pre-production discussion. A lot will go into this blog, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, users looking for a top-flight prime lens kit should be getting the 21/2.8 Distagon, the 50/2 Makro Planar, and the 100/2 Makro-Planar. That gap is nicely filled by the 35/1.4 Distagon, but the 35/2 28/2 would also be a very nice choice. See my handy Zeiss list for Canon and Zeiss list for Nikon over at B&H Photo.