Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Why no Zeiss ZE's with manual aperture control?

Samir Patel

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 8, 2012
Messages
1,981
Reaction score
0
Points
36
Location
Miami, Florida
So I was looking for an answer to this question:

For those of us that like to focus in the Canon direction but want to control aperture on the lens. Why did Zeiss not come out with a ZE version of the lens with manual aperture control? I know some will say they did (it's a CP.2) but to jump up in price $2000+ for this is too much for me. Is there another answer besides making people jump up in price to the CP.2?
 
Zeiss Contax. Your welcome : )
 
I've already posted this theory in another thread, but it's topical here as well:

Zeiss's Touit lenses for X-mount (Fuji) have an aperture ring because Fuji cameras are capable of sending aperture value to the lens when aperture ring is on 'A' OR accepting aperture value from the lens when the aperture ring is set otherwise. Zeiss's lenses for E-mount (NEX) lack an aperture ring because NEX cameras can only do the former. Zeiss could've included an aperture ring on the E-mount Touits, but it would've had to be solely mechanical (ie reporting no aperture information to the camera, crippling certain exposure modes and limiting the usefulness of EXIF data).

I believe it is for the same reason that ZF.2 have aperture rings while ZE don't. I don't know that for sure, though. Does anyone know if aperture value is reported to the camera by the EF-mount CP.2's? That would tell us.
 
Ah sorry Samir, I thought you somehow didn't know about them. I'm sure you are aware that the MM versions of contax are newer designs than the AE versions, but if not, well there you go. Cheers : )
 
I believe it's because Canon cameras use a fully electronic aperture control with no mechanical linkage. While I'm sure a workaround could be made to allow manual aperture control while maintaining electronic control via EF mount, it's not as easily accomplished as it is with F-mount lenses.
 
Back
Top