The Zeiss Lenses Everyone Forgot About

The biggest thing regarding Zeiss and photography that photographers are speaking about are the recently released Zeiss Otus lenses. But perhaps the best lineup that Zeiss had are the Milvus lenses. The Milvus lenses were originally designed for DSLRs and were a fascinating option for Zeiss. The company back then didn’t give any sort of weather resistance or sealing to their Otus lenses. But the Milvus lenses got it. In fact, they were the highest end option to have weather resistance. While the Batis lenses had it, they were kind of an odd entry for the company. And Zeiss Loxia lenses had it too — but only at the mount. So what were the best Zeiss lenses?

The Phoblographer has a very unique place in the world of photography. I’m the founder, Editor in Chief, and publisher. And I’ve been that person since the site started 15 years ago. With that said, I’ve also done a lot of the camera and lens testing. So, without a doubt, perhaps moreso than most folks in the industry, I can say with certainty that these were some very special lenses.

Obviously, what I’m talking about are the Zeiss Milvus lenses. But the best ones were the Zeiss Milvus 25mm f1.4, 35mm f1.4, 50mm f1.4, 85mm f1.4, and the Zeiss Milvus 135mm f2. I’m not just choosing those lenses because they’re all boasting very fast apertures — but instead because they had a look to them that was otherwise hard to get. It has to do with micro-contrast and sometimes even leans into the look that you get with Leica Apochromatic lenses.

With the world’s economy becoming a very crazy situation, I think that photographers should surely consider dipping into retro lenses. Luckily, the Zeiss Milvus lenses are around 10 years old. And even more luckily, the 24MP sensor is still the standard in the world of full-frame photography. Sure, we’ve got 60MP sensors and a lot of sensors in the 40MP range. And all of those will look great with lenses from this era.

If you’re thinking that newer lenses are all that much better — well consider the reality: does it really matter? With so many photographers making images for social media, people aren’t really pixel peeping your photos. They’re seeing them in a feed and either liking or scrolling past because of how social media algorithms work.

100% critical sharpness doesn’t matter with modern day photography unless it’s not going on social media.

To speak even further to the Zeiss Milvus lenses, they’ve really held their value. Even on eBay, you can get them at very fair prices.

Just keep in mind that if you’re not familiar with working with manual focus, then you probably won’t like these lenses. But if you don’t mind shooting far fewer frames to get photos you really like, then these are very hard to beat.