Zeiss is going to make ZF for N***N

Interesting point, didn't think about that. I bet Nikon's real happy about it

I figure Canon will think that way, but the more I think about it, the less likely I think it is. Canon's L-series zooms from moderate wide to telephoto are the best in the world, and I doubt the Vario-Sonnars would provide much improvement. The Zeiss Planar normal lens is no improvement on the Canon 50mm lenses. Where Zeiss has been superior all along is in their Sonnar designs and in SOME of the Distagon designs. The Sonnar has a particular rendering quality that is quite special, but it is certainly no sharper than the Canon short teles. At the high end, I doubt the Sonnars would provide noticeable improvement even in rendering over the 85/1.2L (which is sharper than the Sonnar 85/1.4) and the 135/2.0L (which is sharper than the Sonnar 135/2.8 ). The 100-300 Vario-Sonnar is excellent, but no match for the L zooms. And they would be more expensive and without autofocus, and without the special features offered by Canon, including IS.

Of course, there are (far) cheaper ways to get the Sonnar look, if you are willing to give up automation anyway.

That leaves the Distagons, and this is where Canon's line is vulnerable to competition. But I doubt those who buy Canon ultra-wide zooms will forego doing so to get a 21mm Distagon, and I doubt very many people buy the Canon 20mm prime enough to put much of a dent in Canon's top line. The Canon 24 beats the 25mm Distagon (which is by far not the best Distagon). The 35's are about the same. All according to test data for the Zeiss lenses made for the Contax RTS line.

In short, there seems to me a reason why everyone mentions the 21mm Distagon but not much else.

In medium format, Zeiss is dominant but not demonstrably better than the best of the Schneider, Mamiya, or Pentax lenses. Some of them have a particular look that sets them apart, but those are special cases.

I'll give up automation to get that Sonnar look if I can do it for a hundred bucks (as with the Zeiss Jena Sonnar 135/3.5 for example), but I won't pay more than Canon's L-lens price to do so.

And then there's the question of whether our sensors are up to showing a difference between a Photodo rating of 4.4 and 4.5. I rather doubt it.

Rick "thinking with Canon's best lenses we are still limited by film/sensor" Denney

I still think it is interesting to see what Zeiss will offer the Nikon mount that Nikon don't have already in its line-up. Maybe I'll be eating my words when they introduce a 50 f1.2!!! YIKES!!!

Ro1

Nikon have had a 50mm f/1.2 in their line up for 25 years. I believe buze from these forums uses one on his Rebel XT.

Zeiss doesn't need Canon's permission to manufacture lenses compatible with its mount. All it has to do is reverse engineer the mount and they are free to make all the EF-compatible lenses they want, just the same as Tokina, Tamron and Sigma do. I'm not sure where y'all have this idea that somehow Zeiss has to come crawling to Canon for permission.

I guess its the 50 f1.4...............so now I could care less.

Ro1

Is the intent really for DSLR or simply SLR's--and DSLRs work by default?

Maybe the 1D's are different but I hate manual focusing the viewfinder in the Canon DSLR's I've used, and the Eos3 though better wasn't a peach either. Maybe a screen swap was in order?

That said don't Noink film SLR bodies offer all kinds of goodies for the veiwfinder, they likely work very will with all the Manual Nikkors too.

A big reason in going Eos film for me was the AF, if I wanted to manual focus my FD gear would have been just fine.

And seeing the prices of some of these Ziess lenses if you want a bag of them, isn't a Nionk body the cheapy who cares part of the system?

It depends on which parts of Canon's mount are patented. I'm sure the bayonet is not--that would not be original enough. But the electronics are. Do Tamron and Tokina reverse-engineer Canon's signaling, or did they pay a license fee to Canon to get their specification? I don't know. Rumor had it that Sigma refused to pay the license fee before 2001, with the result that Canon designed the 10D and subsequent cameras to require something different than Sigma provided, but still within their own interface specification. But you know how rumors are.

The unique parts of Canon's mount are certainly patentable and if patented would certainly still be protected. In fact, they are in U.S. Patent 4,862,208, dated 1988 (meaning it won't go away until 2016). That patent reads pretty generally, and it would not be easy to avoid an infringement. I suspect Zeiss wouldn't see the same need to run that risk as would, say, Sigma, or expect enough sales to cover the reverse engineering and legal costs.

Rick "who found Canon's patent in five minutes of searching" Denney

rdenney said, "Sigma reportedly didn't license from Canon until 2001, but they apparently didn't violate Canon's patent before that time. Canon fixed them, of course, by making a change they could not accommodate without licensing."

Rick, I was under the impression that no-one licences anything from Canon.
I thought until last year that Tamron did but was then informed by someone from Canon that no-one had purchased rights to use the mount at all - in fact I got the impression that Canon hadn't been approached by ANY of the third-party lens manufacturers (and wouldn't be interested if they were).

So, if anyone knows the true position could they please post here and let us all have the definitive infomation on this subject.

I think it's this company or Lecia that sells the M-7 or something like for $10,000...it's a like a amateur camea looking thing.

That could well be. I'm not sure who would tell us if otherwise, though.

Rick "thinking Canon would likely keep mum about it" Denney