The Zeiss ZF lens lineup at of August 2008

Introduction

In this era of plastic-barreled mass-produced lenses, the Zeiss ZF lenses stand out in sleekly-elegant fashion, with their beautiful and durable all-metal design. For the past year, I’ve used the entire Zeiss ZF lines extensively on both Canon EOS and Nikon, with outstanding results(see the diglloyd blog beginning June 2008). My Guide, Zeiss ZF Lenses, goes into depth on the lenses. This page captures my thoughts on this superb lens line. If you’d like specifications on weight, size, etc, please see the Zeiss web site; this review won’t go into that stuff. You might also want to see the Zeiss July 2008 Camera Lens News.

The unanswerable question that will invariably be asked is whether the Zeiss ZF lenses are “worth it”—are they actually “better” than an equivalent Nikon or Canon lenses? There is no unequivocal answer to that question unless priorities are specified. Here are just a few of the considerations:
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Casio introduces the world’s slimmest* digital camera with a wide-angle 4x optical zoom
Features CCD-shift anti-shake function and a large 3.0 inch LCD display

DOVER, NJ, JULY 14, 2008 — Casio America, Inc. announced today the release of the newest model in its EXILIM digital camera series — the stylish, slim EXILIM Zoom EX-Z150, which features a wide-angle zoom lens, a CCD-shift anti-shake function, a 3.0” LCD monitor and an 8.1 effective megapixel resolution.

The EXILIM Zoom EX-Z150 contains the features and functions needed to meet the demanding requirements of today’s digital camera users, all within a slim form factor.  The EX-Z150 comes complete with a built-in wide-angle 28 mm (35 mm film equivalent) and 4X optical zoom lens, at just .79” thick (.74” at the thinnest section).

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The 10.1-megapixel Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX35 has one of the widest lenses offered in a pocket-sized point-and-shoot digital camera. The 4x Leica optical zoom is 25mm at the wide end with an f/2.8-5.6 aperture and Panasonic’s MEGA O.I.S. optical image stabilization. The FX35 also features the 4th generation of Panasonic’s Venus image processing for faster image capture, start-up, and a super-fast frame rate. It’s all packaged in a very compact, attractive metal body with a 2.5-inch LCD.

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Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX35 Studio Test Images
	ISO 100 Sample >> ISO 200 Sample >> ISO 400 Sample >> ISO 800 Sample >> ISO 1600 Sample >>

Pros 25mm 4x Leica wide-angle lens Pocket-sized Panasonic’s MEGA O.I.S. image stabilization Intelligent ISO Panasonic Venus IV processing Lots of auto focus options	Cons Image quality is poor from over-processing Auto focus struggles with low-contrast scenes Face detection doesn’t work well Telephoto end is short

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