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Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 (Sony) - Review / Test Report |
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Lens Reviews -
Sony NEX
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Page 1 of 3
Review by Klaus Schroiff, published October 2014
Earlier this year we reviewed the Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 in Fujifilm X-mount. For obvious reasons we'll reuse portions of the article here.
Introduction
Zeiss lenses are no novelty among DSLR and even MSC photographers anymore. Canon and Nikon users can choose between a variety of manual focus prime lenses and Zeiss provided lots of designs in the scope of the Sony partnership for Alpha and NEX cameras. However, it seems as if this wasn't enough ... which is good news, of course. In late 2013 Zeiss released a new series of lenses for APS-C mirrorless cameras (Sony E- and Fuji X-mount). These lenses carry the "Touit" name tag. Being German myself I feel eligible to state that German companies should really stick to numbers or letters (e.g. Porsche 911 or Mercedes S-class sound cool) rather than exotic names. A Touit is actually the name of a parrot ... feels a bit like a result of a LSD experiment. Anyway, let's stick to the more important aspects then. As of the time of this review there are three Touits available. This review covers the Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 in Sony E-mount. Given the usual ~1.5x APS-C crop factor, this is equivalent to a "50mm" normal lens. The 32mm f/1.8 is a modified Planar design which is supposed to deliver a highly corrected images on a flat (German "plan") focus field.
The build quality of the Touit is very good thanks to a tightly assembled combination of (mostly) metal and plastic parts based on a metal mount. The physical length remains constant although there's an inner lens tube that moves during focusing. Unlike its X-mount cousin, the E-mount version does not provide a dedicated aperture ring - which is also in line with the other native E-mount lenses so there's nothing wrong about this, of course. The focus ring is nicely rubberized and operates smoothly. A plastic lens hood is supplied.
The AF is comparatively slow but this may be also related to our current test camera (NEX 7 & A6000). The focus accuracy was generally fine. The AF noise level is noticeable albeit still very low. Manual focusing works "by wire" so you actually trigger the AF drive when turning the focus ring. We weren't especially thrilled by its accuracy and smoothness but it is "good enough".
| Specifications |
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| Equiv. focal length | "50mm" (full format equivalent) |
| Equiv. aperture | "f/2.8" (full format equivalent, in terms of depth-of-field) |
| Optical construction | 8 elements in 5 groups |
| Number of aperture blades | 7 (circular) |
| min. focus distance | 0.3m (max. magnification 1:9) |
| Dimensions | 58x65mm |
| Weight | 210g |
| Filter size | 52mm |
| Hood | barrel-shaped, bayonet mount, supplied |
| Other features | - |
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