Homogeneous image quality throughout the image field

ZEISS lenses are famous for their extraordinary image quality. Even with challenging subjects, perspective, color and light are optimally rendered – throughout the entire 35 mm image field. For this reason, we place great emphasis on particularly high image quality, e.g. low distortion and outstanding stray light reduction for rich colors.

Excellent image quality

The Carl Zeiss range of T* ZM-mount lenses offers the highest possible standards in terms of performance, reliability and, of course, image quality. Quite simply, they are superior in every way. You can count on highly advanced flare control for crisp and brilliant images, for example. And virtually zero geometric distortion, ensuring precise accuracy when reproducing shapes – especially useful when photographing products and architecture.

Precise manual focus

Manually focusing a lens means controlling the image result from your fingertips. A good ergonomic design makes all the difference. Carl Zeiss SLR lenses stand out with their large rotation angle which enables precise focusing. Changes are immediately visible in the viewfinder. The high-quality focusing mechanism moves smoothly without play, thus also supporting the intuitive interaction with the focal plane. The precise engraving in meter and feet, and the depth of focus scale provide additional support for manually focusing.

Floating elements design

State-of-the-art camera techniques and high-resolution digital image sensors increasingly demand more from the lenses. The modern floating element design compensates aberrations of the Carl Zeiss SLR lenses at different distance settings. This is accomplished by changing the axial distance of single lens elements or element groups to each other. The adjustment of the element distance is coupled to the distance setting so that it always results in the right correction. The mechanical design of these lens elements is very complex and the workmanship must be particularly exact – both specialties of Carl Zeiss.

Carl Zeiss T* anti-reflective coating

All lens elements in SLR lenses from Carl Zeiss feature the T* anti-reflective coating and an optical design that produces brilliant pictures even in unfavorable lighting conditions. We vacuum deposit very thin, transparent coats on the surfaces of the lens elements to make them anti-reflective. Special substances, one by one, are vaporized with very high energy in a high vacuum, which are then deposited on the glass surface as a coating with precisely controlled thicknesses to achieve the desired reduction of reflections. The first coatings were applied by Carl Zeiss back in the 1930s.