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Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 25 mm f/2.0 ZE/ZF.2

Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 25 mm f/2.0 ZE/ZF.2
21 February 2012
Arkadiusz Olech

1. Introduction

Lenses with focal lengths ranging from 24 to 35 mm and with f/1.4 aperture are most often very expensive constructions, aimed mostly at professionals. Many amateur photographers covet them secretively as well but most often the price barrier remains insurmountable for them. Well, even if the price is not a big problem most of amateurs won’t buy such an instrument anyway, knowing fully well that, compared to the potential usefulness of such a lens in their hands, it wouldn’t be sensible to spend such an amount of money.

That’s why, following different discussions on this forum, I often comment that it would be nice if a producer decided to launch optically good full frame lenses but rather featuring f/1.8 or f/2.0 than the f/1.4 aperture, so cheaper devices a bit easier to produce. I suppose many amateur photographers and professionals as well would be tempted by such full frame constructions as a 2/24, a 2/28 or a 1.8/35.

The Zeiss company has followed that direction lately. First, cooperating with Sony, they presented the Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 24 mm f/2 ZA SSM and then they launched the manual Carl Zeiss-Distagon T* 25 mm f/2.0 ZE/ZF.2, coming in a Canon EF or a Nikon F mount. The price of the latter is still rather steep for an amateur photographer but there are also positive news – it remains a bit cheaper than the 1.4/24 Nikon device. Additionally, we get a perfectly made manual lens which has no problems whatsoever with the quality control so it can serve you without fail perhaps even several dozen years.


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As we’ve already tested 1.4/24 devices produced by Canon and Nikon and a manual Samyang with the same parameters, there was nothing left but checking out the actual possibilities of the Zeiss construction.

We would like to thank the Foto-Technika company for lending us the lens for testing purposes.

You are also invited to get acquainted with our test procedure, described in the article "How do we test lenses?" If you feel it’s still not enough, please go to our FAQ section where you can find some further explanation.

Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 25 mm f/2.0 ZE/ZF.2 - Introduction



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