Hello, this is marie. This time it’s on me to serve your evening reading needs. This post is about the zeiss touit lens line-up for mirrorless cameras. Zeiss Germany was kind enough to let me use the 3 currently available lenses on my trip to asia in december 2014. I just bought a a6000 so this came in very handy. Follow the link below to see what i think about them and if they made me miss my D800 and my beloved Nikon 2.8/70-200.

Since Alex had quite a hard time in 2013 on our first trip to thailand I was definitely in when he talked about getting a lighter and more portable camera system. I jumped on board buying the Sony a6000 even if i was skeptical at first.(Read Alex‘ review if you wanna know more about it) Since I didn’t really know what lens to buy right away i was asking zeiss if it is possible to maybe try their lenses for mirrorless cameras. A few days later a package carrying all 3 lenses of the so called Touit line-up arrived. This includes right now a 2.8/12mm, a 1.8/32mm and a 2.8/50mm which should become my favorite for the trip. But more on that later.

Built & optical appearance:

You can definitely say these lenses get away very understated. Apart from the soft rubberized focus ring and the blue/white zeiss logo there is nothing to distract on the outer barrel itself. All of the lenses come with a tight fitting lenshood which tends to be a little too big in my opinion, especially for the 12mm and the 50mm. The lens is made entirely of metal with a very smooth finish. The rubber of the focus ring is nice to feel and the focus ring is also very smooth in it’s movement. The lenses are built to last and I always found it quite reassuring to use them.

Sharpness, color and contrast:

Well what should i say, i’m really not a photographer zooming in to 100% when it is about my travelpictures. Sure i want a decent sharp picture but it’s not the same as if i’m doing a fashionshoot for a magazine or a commercial project. With this in mind let’s just say these lenses are sharp. Very much so is the 12mm. Is it on the same level as my 70-200? I don’t think so but does it matter? They are definitely sharp enough without making me want some more or let me miss something. But when it comes to color and contrast even wide open these beauties shine. Even right out of the camera there is little to no editing needed to make the colors and contrast pop how I want them to do.

Autofocus:

Oh boy, this one is getting tricky. Out of the box the 50mm is the best one. Or well, it was the best one. At least on the a6000. The problem is that the older 12mm and 32mm did not use the a6000s amazing hybrid autofocus -whatever-they-call-it thing due to firmware issues. Alex told me a few days ago there is a new firmware update delivered by zeiss since a few days. This means you might have to sent in your lens to let it be updated by zeiss then you should be able to get the same AF performance on all 3 lenses. If this is the case they will not let you miss a shot because of being to slow or not reliable. They may not be as fast enough as sony’s native lenses but they can hold their own quite well.

Conclusion:

I am really not much into gear. I like to have a camera that does the job without getting in the way between me and the picture I want to take. It doesn’t really matter which brandname is printed in front of it. It’s the same with lenses. And this is were you want to give these a look. They may not be right for you if you’re on a budget. Or if you into heavy post processing. Or if you’re doing action sports whatsoever. But if you want to focus on your picture and you want to save it the way you saw it then you should definitely consider throwing one of these in your bag. With their smooth optical appearance above average sharpness, color rendition and contrast they won’t let you down. Are they worth their premium price tag? I guess you have to decide for yourself but I just love the pictures I took with them, especially with the 50mm which give me quite a hard time when i had to sent it back. Since i’m not a tech-person i hope you do not miss anything in this little review. If this might be the case or you got any other question don’t hesitade to ask.

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