A comprehensive view on the Zeiss Milvus family tested on the Sony A7 (3D-Kraft).

December 8, 2015
reviews
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Milvus 50mm on the A7 (image courtesy: 3D-Kraft ).

The new Zeiss Milvus lens comes in native mounts for Canon and Nikon DSLR. Of course you can sue it on Sony FE cameras too. But how much sense does it make to use those lenses on a Sony? 3D-Kraft (Click here) posted a comprehensive view on the Zeiss Milvus family tested on the Sony A7. The conclusion is:

“As a mirrorless shooter always striving for highest achievable image quality with equipment as lightweight and compact as possible when on the move, I must concede that I am in a kind of conflict with the Milvus line. Their extraordinary solid mechanical quality in a wheather sealed metal housing comes for the price of size and weight. Most of the Milvus lenses seem to be better balanced when used on full frame DSLRs but on the other hand, manual focusing is far better supported by mirrorless systems with in-body stabilization working in live view mode with focusing aid by zoom magnification and peaking. For Sony Alpha with FE mount meanwhile you get many native and more compact pendants from Zeiss in the same price range like the Loxia line (a Loxia 21 review will follow soon, stay tuned!) or primes including AF support like the FE 1.8/55 and Batis 1.8/85.
However, the optical quality (sharpness, bokeh, micro contrast, flare resistance, distortion control) – especially of the new designed 1.4/50 and 1.4/85 – is very good, the only weak point is their lack of apochromatic correction so that you will see some axial CAs (“boke fringing”) at open aperture especially from the f/1.4 lenses. Usually this type of CA can be removed in post processing quite easily. If you look for “no compromise” apochromatic corrected lenses, you might consider lenses of the Otus line (Otus 1.4/28 review coming soon on this site!) but those do not have features like wheather sealing or declickable aperture ring, which you find in the Milvus line.”

Read the full detailed test at 3D-Kraft

Here are the detailed Lens info and preorder links:
Zeiss Milvus 100mm f/2M ZE Lens for Canon EF at BHPhoto (Click here), Adorama (Click here).
Zeiss Milvus 100mm f/2M ZF.2 Lens for Nikon F at BHPhoto (Click here), Adorama (Click here).
Zeiss Milvus 21mm f/2.8 ZE Lens for Canon EF at BHPhoto (Click here), Adorama (Click here).
Zeiss Milvus 21mm f/2.8 ZE Lens for Nikon F at BHPhoto (Click here), Adorama (Click here).
Zeiss Milvus 35mm f/2 ZE Lens for Canon EF at BHPhoto (Click here), Adorama (Click here).
Zeiss Milvus 35mm f/2 ZE Lens for Nikon F at BHPhoto (Click here), Adorama (Click here).
Zeiss Milvus 50mm f/1.4 ZE Lens for Canon EF at BHPhoto (Click here), Adorama (Click here).
Zeiss Milvus 50mm f/1.4 ZF.2 Lens for Nikon F at BHPhoto (Click here), Adorama (Click here).
Zeiss Milvus 50mm f/2M ZE Lens for Canon EF at BHPhoto (Click here), Adorama (Click here).
Zeiss Milvus 50mm f/2M ZE Lens for Nikon F at BHPhoto (Click here), Adorama (Click here).
Zeiss Milvus 85mm f/1.4 ZE Lens for Canon EF at BHPhoto (Click here), Adorama (Click here).
Zeiss Milvus 85mm f/1.4 ZE Lens for Nikon F at BHPhoto (Click here), Adorama (Click here).