Zeiss Announces Manual ZK Lenses for Pentax DSLRs

Carl Zeiss is giving Pentax/Samsung DSLR owners a helping hand in the burning matter of available lenses with a new series of special K bayonet primes to be sold under the ZK name.

Although future owners will not benefit from autofocus capabilities, they will be able to enjoy the excellent Zeiss image quality.

The first lens to be available for the K bayonet will be the Planar T* 1,4/50 ZK, slated for August 2007, followed by five others: Distagon T* 2.8/25 ZK, Distagon T* 2/35 ZK, Planar T* 1.4/85 ZK, Makro-Planar T* 2/50 ZK and Makro-Planar T* 2/100 ZK. These will be released in the forth quarter of 2007.

As the press release informs, the manually focused ZEISS SLR lenses (with their transmission elements) for the K bayonet fulfill the SMC-A standard and thus permit the utilization of the shutter priority, aperture priority and programmed auto exposure on all camera models with these features.

Pentax is the second manufacturer to get Zeiss manual focus lenses, in October 2006 the German glassmaker announcing the ZF series for the Nikon SLRs. The ZEISS ZF range includes 6 different lens types with focal lengths ranging from 25mm to 100mm.

In fact, you might notice that four of the Zeiss lenses announced for the two systems are identical, namely the Distagon T* 2/35, Distagon T* 2.8/25, Makro-Planar T* 2/50 ZF and the Makro-Planar T* 2/100.

Despite the fact that Zeiss units have a reputation for excellent optical and build quality, Pentax and Samsung owners are short of autofocus lenses and they sure could use some of the Canon and Nikon fast-focusing glass. The K10D is an excellent performer, but its reputation is marred by the limited number of available glasses and by that I don't mean old manual-focus M42 lenses.

Back to the Zeiss ZK units, as expected, they have pretty steep prices, the Planar T* 1.4/50 ZK being available ?503.36, the Distagon T* 2.8/25 ZK for ?671.43, the Distagon T* 2/35 ZK for ?671.43, the Planar T* 1.4/85 ZK for ?881.51, the Makro-Planar T* 2/50 ZK for ?881.51, and the Makro-Planar T* 2/100 ZK for ?1.343,70, all excluding VAT.

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