In April 2015 ZEISS announced "Batis" - a new family of fullframe auto focus prime lenses for cameras with E-mount exclusively developed by ZEISS starting with the 2/25 and 1.8/85. Since then there was a lot of discussion but only few images visible on the internet so far. In June I had a first chance to take a series of pictures with a pre production set provided by ZEISS Germany. In order to classify the results you will see several comparison shots taken with some other high-class lenses.

ZEISS Batis 1.8/85

The Batis Sonnar 1.8/85 T* is designed with 11 elements in 8 groups and contains an autofocus as well as optical image stabilization. It has a length of 92mm (without lens cap / sun hood), weighs 475g and the filter thread is M67. More technical data including MTF charts can be found here.

Compared to the 1.2 kg ZEISS Otus 1.4/85 it looks quite compact:

Although there was not much time available for an in-depth shootout, we had the chance for some aperture series with the

• ZEISS Batis 1.8/85
• ZEISS Otus 1.4/85
• Leica APO Summicron 75mm f/2.0 ASPH
• Nikon AF-S Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 G (2012 model)
  

Click on the image below to see the full resolution aperture series (each titled with lens and aperture setting):

Finally - the Atomos Shogun Monitor-Recorder for 4K and HD video production is shipping! The Atomos CEO kept his word that the first batch of devices will ship before X-mas - almost finished...

Almost?