LensCarl Zeiss86% by Neofiliac Team81% by External Reviewers

Zeiss Loxia 21mm F2.8 Distagon

Full-Frame Lens

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Product Overview

Zeiss Loxia 21mm F2.8 Distagon is a manual-focus ultra wide-angle prime lens for Sony E-mount. It covers the full-frame image circle. Introduced by Zeiss in 2015, it has 11 elements in 9 groups.
Manual focus may be limiting to some, but purists will find it much more engaging. There are also fewer things to go wrong on the long run. To this end, the Loxia boasts some of the smoothest focus ring ever found on a photographic lens. For incremental weathers, Zeiss is kind enough to include weather sealing.
As an ultra wide-angle prime lens that happens to have relatively small maximum aperture, it is best suited for landscape photography. Even though the lens is not stabilized, at this focal range it does not usually matter. In fact, some may be able to get cleaner corners without image stabilization.

Ratings

What we found

Neofiliac score 86%
Pros
  • Weather-sealed
  • Smooth focus ring
  • Excellent image quality
  • Declickable aperture ring
Cons
  • Some distortion

What external reviewers found

External score 81%
Pros
  • Sharp consistent across the whole frame compared to the Sony FE12-24
  • Lightroom is correcting those very well
Cons

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    Specifications

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    External Reviews

    sonyalpha[1]

    Reviewer score 81% (normalized by Neofiliac)
    Reviewers from sonyalpha have found:
    PCH Zeiss Loxia 21mm F2.8 thanks to PCH store I could test the lens. All photos, taken with Sony A7RII and without post processing are available in full size (42Mpix) in the following Flickr album. The lens is excellent at F 2.8 and does not really improve further, at F16 diffraction is visible and sharpness is decreasing. Corners are very good and becomecellent at F4.
    Pros
    • Sharp consistent across the whole frame compared to the Sony FE12-24
    • Lightroom is correcting those very well
    Cons
    • Bokeh is difficult to asses considering the very big depth of field for a wide angle, I could not get a enough blurry background to asses it

    Also Check

    Product ComparisonProducts in LensProducts by Carl ZeissKeyword e-mountKeyword full-frameKeyword loxiaKeyword manual-focusKeyword mirrorlessKeyword prime-lensKeyword ultra-wideKeyword wide-angle

    References

    1. ^ Zeiss Loxia 21mm F2.8. [sonyalpha].

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