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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott
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When mirrorless cameras first came out, the idea in many people's minds behind them was
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is that these were going to be smaller, lighter alternatives to DSLRs
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while providing similar levels of performance and image quality. Of course, as we have seen since that point, that in many cases
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lenses designed for at least full frame mirrorless cameras like the Sony A7R Mark 3 that I've got here
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They have typically been as large and in some cases even larger than the equivalent lenses for DSLRs
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But there are a few lenses that fit the original concept of what mirrorless should be, at least for some people
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and that is to be a small and light alternative. And if that is you, you're looking for high quality lenses that are going to
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to give you a much smaller form factor than equivalent DSLR, then the Zeiss-Loxia lineup of lenses may just be for you
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so long as you don't mind manually focusing. Case and point here, and while it's not the same maximum aperture
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I have got the loxia 35 millimeter F2 lens mounted on a full frame
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Sony A7R Mark 3. And here I have the Canon 35 millimeter F1.4 L mark two
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mounted on a Canon 5D Mark 4. And so yes, the maximum aperture is not exact
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However, it would not be incredibly different if I had cannons 35 millimeter F2IS
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or the Tamron 35 millimeter F1.8VC mounted on the cannon here. As you can see, this certainly fulfills the idea
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of a smaller, lighter kind of setup. Now, before I break out into individual looks at each one
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one of these lenses, which I'll be doing as a part of this review series. I wanted to just give you a few
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things as a whole about them. The loxia lenses, as noted, they are manually focusing lenses. They are
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made all of metal to, you know, Zeiss's highest grade. I mean, think of these as being equivalent
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of the Zeis Milvis lenses, except for in a very, very compact form. All metal construction
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weather ceiling, all of those things. Now, one thing about the loxia lenses is that they are designed really with somewhat of a hybrid
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approach in mind. These are particularly good lenses for filmmakers. And so not only are they fantastic lenses optically for shooting stills, but these really
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are designed in many ways around the idea of doing actual film work and video work where
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a quality manual focus lens is often preferred. Let me give you just a couple of the highlights of why that is
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Number one, you can get this little tiny tool here that will allow you to at the, on the actual lens mount, there is a little point where the tool is inserted
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And so you can very quickly make the change from either a traditional clicked aperture where each one of the stops is defined, and there are also one-third stops in between the major stops
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But you can also then rotate it to the opposite position, and there you can have a declicked aperture that will run through the aperture
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I mean, incredibly smoothly. This is as good as what I seen not surprising Zeiss does all this stuff very very very well And so you can declick the aperture For filmmakers that can be a big deal because you might want to wrap aperture or make aperture changes and you don want to introduce movement You want it to be
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very smooth. The other thing that is a part of this process is that Zice has designed for these
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lenses. This is called the lens gear. Many, the lens gear comes in a variety of sizes. But this is
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designed to provide a kind of a typical gearing size for those that want to do for a focus follow
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or something similar to where they're going into a geared system. So Zice is designed all of these
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lenses to where this can fit on there and it will give you the standard gearing size. One thing I
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really like about Zice's approach here is that this is a toolless system. There is a ring here at
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the front that you can kind of grip and holding the other. You can just rotate this and
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what it does is it tightens it down and so that you can easily get the fit and adapt it to
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different circumference sizes. And so of course once that is on, you can then have that on a focus
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follow system and it's going to help you a lot for filmmaking. And so as you can see, all of these
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lenses in the series are very compact. Now, there is one new lens that has been introduced. It's a 25
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millimeter F2.4 that I don't have on hand. I have the original four here. And so that includes
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a 21 millimeter F2.8, it includes the 35 millimeter F2, a 50 millimeter F2, and then finally an 85
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millimeter F2.4, all a part of this series. Now, in this case, these are all actually a part
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You can get them as a set for filmmakers that comes in, you know, kind of a Pelican-style hard
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case that is all, you know, kind of custom molded and fitted inside to hold all of these
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and so, you know, a very neat kind of way to bring your gear along there
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One final thing I want to note before I break out into individual and give you a closer look at each one of these lenses
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is the fact that because of this compact size, I can actually fit this entire kit in this little peak design
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everyday 5L bag that can be carried as a shoulder bag or even as a waist bag
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And so you can actually have a full frame setup with, you know
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four different lenses in a very close. compacts bag or space like that
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Okay, so let's take a closer look at the loxia 21 millimeter F2.8
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And so first of all, let's just take a look at the lens with itself, and so I can set that aside
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As you can see, all made of a metal here like everything else
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It has a like a flocked type interior to keep light from bouncing around nicely made
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And as you can see, it reverses for storage very, very compactly
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allowing these lenses to take up a very small amount of space when stored
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So looking at the lens itself, this is a Distagon design 21mm F2.8. As you can see, it has a 52
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millimeter front filter thread. Filter thread is in metal, as is, you know, per usual with these
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Zice lenses. The barrel itself is, you know, a familiar to many of us, anodized metal here
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and with kind of a satin finish, beautifully designed. The actual focus ring here itself, of all of them
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I would say this has the heaviest damping, however it not at all bad It just moves beautifully smooth you know as you would expect from a Zyce lens Focus row is also the smallest tier of the bunch You can see that as I go through that focus there is a very very minor
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I mean, we're talking about a millimeter or two extension of the lens barrel, not enough to be significant
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However, you're not going to have an issue using a polarizing filter. Nothing is rotating there at the front
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And so, as you can see, we do have a manual aperture ring here
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And unlike, you know, some cheaper lenses where you're only getting, you know, just basically a stop from F2.8 to F4, the full stops
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here you do have the ability to control in one-third stop increments
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And so that just gives you more precision for what aperture you'd like to select
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basically just like any typical lens within your camera. The actual focus ring itself is made out of this very finely ribbed
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metal here. Obviously, this is going to wear forever. I mean, it's just, it's fantastic. And as you can
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see, it's easy to grip, easy to find. The only thing that I will say, and it's true of a lot of
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these loxia lenses, all of them really, with maybe the exception of the 85 millimeter that is a little
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bit longer, is my only criticism really is when it comes to the unmounting process. Because all of this front
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area here actually rotates. It means that when you're going to release the lens, there is very
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little that you can actually grab onto to break it free. And so as a result, it is a little bit
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tough there. You can see even as I'm gripping it that things are rotating. So it's not to say that
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you can't do it, but where you kind of pay for having such a very compact lens design is that
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there is very few places where you can actually grip the lens and release it
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And so you just kind of get used to everything, kind of rotating all the way to one side before there's actually some counter resistance where you can break the lens free
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And so, I mean, minor criticism there, but, you know, it is a criticism nonetheless
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Now, if we look towards the rear of the lens, you can see it has a nice thick gasket here
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There's also some internal seals, and so the lens is fully weather sealed
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You see also electronic contacts here. And so all of the typical manual focus aids are there through this
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So, you know, if you start putting input through the focus ring
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it will immediately begin to zoom in the image in the viewfinder or on the LCD screen
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to help you aid focus. Of course, you're passing on all of the XF information there
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And so all of that happens as per usual, except for the fact that you are controlling aperture
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And, of course, you are controlling focus manually. Now, if you have the little Zeiss declick tool
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you'll see that you can insert it right here. Right now, it's pointed towards this little guide dot there
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That is the click setting. So all you've got to do is insert that tool
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rotate it the other direction. And as you can see, we have got now a fully declicked aperture
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that will allow you to just rack aperture as you like. And so really quite easy to use there
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And this tool in some ways looks a little bit like you know what you might be familiar with
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for an Apple iPhone or something for releasing the SIM card area So as you can see there are nine aperture blades However they are not rounded which is typical for a Zeiss lens And so you will be able at smaller apertures to see
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the shape of the aperture, the non-agonal shape. However, of course, with a 21 millimeter F2.8
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there's going to be very, very, very few situations where you would ever actually notice that
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This lens offers an angle of view of 91 degrees, nice and wide, and also I would say somewhat
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of a 21 millimeters is a kind of a sweet spot I find for doing landscape work. Some very wide focal
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links. You have to be very, very selective and creative and how you can pose with them. Most people
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will find 21 millimeters a far less threatening focal length, but still wide enough where you can
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get lots in the frame. This lens can focus down to 25 centimeters or 9.84 inches. However, its
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reproduction ratio is 1 to 7.7.81 and so 0.13 times magnification. So, I mean, nothing that is
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you know, particularly fantastic there. Optical formula is 11 elements in nine groups. As you can see
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the lens itself is extremely compact. In diameter, it is a little less than 2.5 inches
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62 millimeters, and its full length is 2.83 inches or 72 millimeters long
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Of course, because it's made out of all metal premium ingredients here
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it has that, you know, Zeiss denseness to where it's actually right under 400 grams
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394 grams or 13.9 ounces. And so, you know, it's not light, but of course it's still in the light range
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and, you know, it's going to balance very nicely on the cameras for which it is for
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One thing that this lens, like many other Zeiss lenses, is not as cheap
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The retail price is $1,500 US. And so it is a premium lens in terms of its performance
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and it's a premium lens when it comes to its price. And so as you can see, the 21mm F2.8 lens from the Loxias series
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is just a beautifully crafted lens. I mean, I don't know that you could ask for anything more
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when it comes to the build quality here. It's a gorgeous little lens
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It is made of all premium materials. It focuses beautifully here. here. I mean, the aperture ring, everything works as it should. It's got, you know
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it's got the weather ceiling. And of course, it is wonderfully compact when you compare it to the 21
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millimeter F2.8, Distagon lens that I have reviewed for, you know, full frame DSLR. I mean
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this is a beautifully compact alternative and really a great city kind of lens or landscape lens
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if you're wanting to travel light. If you'll look in the description down below, I've got a link
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to an image gallery where you can see a lot more images and you know check back regularly as i'll be
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adding images to it throughout this review period but you can see there the beautiful color beautiful
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sharpness beautiful rendition from this lens and of course i'll be back shortly with an image quality
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breakdown and i'll give you more details when it comes to that so stay tuned for that and of course
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as always you can find buying links for the lens if you'd like to purchase one for yourself
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you can find links to follow me on social media and of course if you haven't already please
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right here on YouTube. Thanks for watching. Have a great day
