In the penultimate installment of our PhotoPlus Expo 2015 coverage, we visit the Zeiss booth to see what the hubbub over those Batis OLED displays is all about, and get our hands on the just-announced Loxia 21mm f/2.8.

Unless you live under a rock (which you don’t, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this), you know that the imaging equivalent of “that-Hansel-is-so-hot-right-now” (from the movie ZOOLANDER) is either Sony…or Zeiss.

Maybe both.

Yep, Sony’s a7 series is a runaway success, and Zeiss has created two new, Sony FE mount lens lines – Loxia and Batis – along with a third, APS-C coverage-only line, Touit (though it appears Zeiss has de-emphasized the Touits).

With a reputation for German precision and innumerable reviews and tests to back it up, Zeiss suffers from the enviable position of not being able to deliver these lenses fast enough.

Maybe it’s not hard to figure out why. In an era where camera bodies are being updated annually like smartphones and cars, it’s probably glass – great glass – that is the single best investment you can make these days. Suddenly, high-priced Zeiss glass makes more sense than ever, and Zeiss has you covered: old-school (manually-focusing Loxia) and the future (fly-by-wire focusing, OLED depth of field displaying Batis).

On the other hand, it just might be the opposite: with the three Loxia and two Batis lenses averaging $1,250 a pop, you get state of the art (however you choose to define it) at prices a third or a fourth of Zeiss’ own Compact Prime CP.2 or Otus – with close-enough optical performance that you can feel you haven’t compromised much, if at all.

That’s a pretty compelling proposition...

You can read the rest of this post on planet5D where it first appeared