E-Mount Family Expands – ZEISS Loxia 25mm F/2.4 Announced

NewsLenses

by Tim FokFebruary 15^th, 2018

ZEISS has announced the fifth member of the Loxia family. The ZEISS Loxia 25mm F/2.4 is the second widest lens in the all-manual, smooth operating E mount lens line.

The 25mm focal length is somewhat of a stalwart to ZEISS – Master Primes, Superspeeds, Milvus, Batis, ZE, ZFs all sport a wide 25. It’s no surprise therefore that the Loxia line follows suit.

photo by Bernd Ritschel

With the Loxia nametag comes an all-metal housing, smooth manual focus and iris rings with de-clickable aperture, as well as T* coating.

Being a compact wide angle the ZEISS Loxia 25mm f/2.4 falls under the Distagon moniker. It’s a full frame lens, so fully compatible with all Sony Alpha Mirrorless cameras.

The f/2.4 aperture, whilst not considered slow, is ‘less-fast’ than other ZEISS 25mm lenses, yet follows a similar path with other Loxia lenses that all reside in the f/2-2.8 max aperture range – so, no surprises there.

Designed primarily for Sony E-Mount allows the overall design of the lens to be small. The flange distance of E-mount is very shallow, giving mount-specific lenses like these free reign of compact design.

Ten lens elements in 8 groups make up the internals. Here’s the rest of the specs:

• Focal Length: 25mm
• Aperture Range: f/2.4 – f/22
• Mount: Sony E
• Format: Full-Frame
• Angle of View: 81.25°
• Min Focus Distance: 9.84″ (.25 m)
• Magnification: 0.16x
• Maximum Reproduction Ratio 1:6.4
• Elements/Groups: 10/8
• Diaphragm Blades: 10, Rounded
• Filter Thread Front: 52 mm
• Dimensions (DxL) Approx. 2.44 x 2.93″ (62 x 74.5 mm)
• Weight 13.86 oz (393 g)

The Loxia line is great for compact stills and video. The all-manual design means build quality takes priority, and this makes up a very nice in-the-hand feel; I own the 35mm f/2 and it never comes off my A7RII.

The 90-degree focus rotation, hard stop focus barrel and de-clickable, 10 round blade aperture help contribute to a very decent video-capable stills lens.

Availability is looking like March, pricing below.