After ZEISS announced six members of the new Milvus lens family in September 2015, we had the chance for an in-depth view on five of these lenses:

• Milvus 2.8/21 (Distagon design)
  
• Milvus 2/35 (Distagon design)
• Milvus 1.4/50 (Distagon design)
• Milvus 1.4/85 (Planar design)
• Milvus 2/100 (Makro Planar)

We tested the ZF.2 version (for Nikon F-mount) that comes with a dedicated aperture ring whereas the ZE version (for Canon EF mount) has an aperture controlled electronically by the camera or an adapter. The rubber coated focus ring provides good grip and allows smooth control over the focus. Other technical details like weather sealing or the declickable aperture ring were already explained in my earlier article. I was curious especially about the redesigned Distagon 1.4/50 with floating elements and one aspherical element, as well as the 1.4/85, a new Planar design with solely non-aspherical lens elements (including some floating elements) in order to prioritize a creamy bokeh.

As you can see in this example of the Milvus 1.4/50 attached to the Sony A7, the lenses are quite massive due to their solid construction and excellent build quality. The barrel design and the metal sun hood follow the design of the successful Batis and Otus families:

Milvus 1.4/50 (ZF.2 version) adapted to Sony A7

Let's start with the

If you already followed this site for some time, you may have noticed that its articles usually concentrate on gear like cameras, lenses, recorders etc. and do not care much about accessories. But while searching for a flexible and comfortable solution when travelling and walking around for hours with my mirrorless camera plus some lenses and filters, the Cosyspeed Camslinger bags attracted my particular attention. In 2014, Cosyspeed started with the Camslinger 160 and 105 bags designed to be carried on the hip like a holster. It provides very quick one-hand access to the camera like a sling strap but with much better protection against bumps, rain, dust and views. One of its unique features is the adjustable size in order to customize it to different camera types.

Enjoy "Feuervögel" performed by Caro and Kathleen from "Duo Flammenspuk" at Hagenbecks Tierpark:

Please select fullscreen in the player's button bar for best viewing experience.
The video was recorded in 4K using Sony A7S with Atomos Shogun

For more information about "Flammenspuk", please visit http://www.flammenspuk.de

Early in the moring in Hamburg's Hafencity...

Shot with Sony A7RII in 4K. Available as download on Vimeo. You can also play it directly in 1440p and 2160p on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrOIix3_Css . Please switch player to full screen mode and choose highest available resolution.

See the BTS (behind the scenes) at : https://www.flickr.com/photos/hhackbarth/albums/72157655471506733/show

For more information please visit www.KopterKraft.com.

August 2015 - A little low light comparison of the Sony A7RII 4K Super35 crop mode to the Sony A7S in fullframe mode.

The A7RII was set to Super35 (APS-C) crop mode and internal XAVC-S 4K UHD recording with 100 Mbps, lens was the Zeiss FE 2.8/35 @ f/4.0.
The A7S was set to 4K mode with external recording to Atomos Shogun (ProRes HQ 4:2:2), lens was the Zeiss FE 1.8/55 @ f/4.0 (providing about the same viewing angle as the 35mm lens in crop mode).

In order to evaluate the details, please download the original file here: https://vimeo.com/135731718 (Download -> right-click on "Original 3840x2160 / 548 MB" - choose "save as...").

You will notice, that both cameras produce a very clean 4K image at ISO 2000. The image from the A7RII shows some more detail due to its downscaling from a 15 MP sensor readout. At 25600 ISO there is a slight advantage for the A7S. Regarding noise, the A7RII is not far behind the A7S but the A7S is able to keep up more details at very high ISO.

Picture profile used for that test was "Cine gamma 4" with "Pro" gamut.

The fllowing aerial video was recorded in 4K (full frame mode) at XAVC-S 100 Mbps. You can download the original 4K video file at Vimeo (Download -> right click on "orignal 3840x2160" -> "Save as..."):

It is available on YouTube as well, providing an option to stream the 2160p and 1440p version directly to the player: http://youtu.be/zAR5K3HZu0A
For evaluation purposes I recommend to download the original 4K 100 Mbps rendering from Vimeo due to the loss in detail after the reencoding in YouTube.

(view as fullscreen slide show)

Complementary to my "first look" comparison here you will find an in-depth review of the new ZEISS Batis 2/25 and 1.8/85 with many more photos, most of them available in full resolution when you click on images.

ZEISS Batis 2/25

Some technical information where already given in my former article. Now let us start with some "unboxing":

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):

Please select fullscreen and the desired resolution (available up to 2160p) in the player's button bar for best viewing experience.
You can find the original UHD file (5GB) for download at https://vimeo.com/124041563 (Vimeo account required).

Some technical information:
This video shows the potential of recording in UHD 4K with Atomos Shogun and Sony A7S but it shows also the lack of stabilization when you use the camera with the Zeiss FE 1.8/55. Most of the footage could only be recorded handheld and neither the Sony A7S nor the Zeiss FE 1.8/55 used for the portrait shots is stabilized so there was quite a lot of shake that had to be reduced by digital stabilization in post processing. Depending on shake, the resulting resolution varys somewhere between 2.5K and 4K. So here you should focus more on mask art and scenery than on technical perfection. Scenes that were taken from a tripod provide almost full resolution. Picture profile used on the camera was cine gamma 4 with cinema gamut.
Equipment: Sony A7S, Atomos Shogun, Zeiss FE Sonnar 1.8/55, Zeiss FE 16-35mm f/4 OSS and a Tiffen variable ND.

This a slideshow with still frames taken from the video. If you click on it, you can navigate to the full resolution images: