Introduction
Zeiss offered a wide variety of manual focus lenses for Nikon F-mount and Canon EF. Many of these lenses have been famous not only for being purely manual focus lenses, but also for being pretty big compared to the competition. Sitting inbetween the huge Zeiss 15mm 2.8 and 21mm 2.8, this Zeiss 18mm 3.5 was Zeiss’ “compact” ultra wide angle prime. It also has a reputation for being the worst of them, is that justified? Let’s find out in this review!
Sample Images
Most of the sample images in this review can be found in full resolution here.
Contents
Specifications / Version History
This Zeiss 18mm 3.5 has been available for Nikon F-mount and Canon EF-mount. For Nikon F-mount it came in two versions, ZF without electronic contacts and ZF.2 with electronic contacts. This is a review of the ZF.2 version and it has the following specifications:
-
- Diameter: 87 mm
- Field of view: 99° (diagonally)
- Length: 59 mm
- Weight: 463g (without hood [46g] and caps)
- Filter Diameter: 82 mm
- Number of Aperture Blades: 9 (rounded)
- Elements/Groups: 13/11
- Close Focusing Distance: 0.30 m
- Maximum Magnification: 1:13 (measured)
- Mount: Nikon F, Canon EF
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Handling / Build Quality
These Zeiss ZE/ZF/ZF.2 lenses are solid manual focus lenses that seem to be made mostly from metal. All the markings are engraved and filled with paint.
The focus ring has a nice resistance and travels exactly 96° from the minimum focus distance (0.30 m) to infinity.
Being the F-mount version of this lens there is also an aperture ring and as is typical for F-mount lenses it is located right at the bayonet. It has half-stop click-stops between f/3.5 and f/16 and a full-stop click-stop between f/16 and f/22. When you set the ring to f/16 it also locks itself, you have to press that small button to be able to change its value again.
There is also a pretty bulky hood available for this lens. It is of the bayonet type, made from metal and has felt on the inside.
If it wasn’t for the huge 82mm filter thread, this would actually be a small lens, not bigger than the old Tokina 17mm 3.5 SL. Due to its all metal construction it is also a bit on the heavy side and weighs more than the much bigger Nikon AF-S 18-35mm 3.5-4.5G zoom lens.
Being an all manual lens this Zeiss 18mm 3.5 ZF.2 can be adapted to pretty much all the modern mirrorless cameras. Sadly I encountered some issues using it via the FTZ II adapter on a Nikon Zf. First the focus confirmation is not supported (which was also the case for the Zeiss 28mm 1.4 Otus I tried), second the Exif information are wrong, that is unless you attach the lens to the adapter when the camera is already powered on. Pretty weird…
Vignetting
| f/3.5 | 3.4 EV |
| f/4.0 | 3.3 EV |
| f/5.6 | 2.9 EV |
| f/8.0 | 2.0 EV |
| f/11 | 1.7 EV |
Zeiss lenses rarely shine in this category and this is one more example of this rule. At f/3.5 it shows the same high amount of vignetting as the Tokina 17mm 3.5 SL from 1979, meaning about 1 EV more than the Tokina 17mm 3.5 AF AT-X Pro and the Nikon AF-S 18-35mm 3.5-4.5G. This simply isn’t good, especially considering this isn’t a particularly fast lens in the first place.
At least stopped down the vignetting figures are comparable to the competitors.
It is recommended to have a look at this article first to get an idea how this brightness graph works.
Sharpness
MTF Graphs
These MTF graphs promise a good performance in the center of the frame, but quite significant Astigmatism and not that great corner performance. What is also interesting, stopped down the performance actually looks worse than wide open. I wonder if someone at Zeiss mixed up the graphs in the data sheet, because this doesn’t make a lot of sense and also doesn’t fit what I saw in the field.
infinity (42mp Sony A7rII)
When it comes to ultra wide angle lenses this is a very important category to me. Generally this lens shows good contrast and high resolution – as you would expect from an expensive manual focus Zeiss lens. At f/3.5 we see a notable midzone dip and the corners also benefit from stopping down to f/8.0.
This is a solid, but not an amazing performance. If we stay in the F-mount world the Nikon AF-S 18-35mm 3.5-4.5G shows a very similar performance, slightly worse corners at wider apertures, but no midzone dip. Looking at mirrorless designs, also the Tamron 17-28mm 2.8 looks better and I would be surprised if the small and lightweight Sigma 17mm 4.0 DG DN C didn’t do, too.
As this lens features a floating elements design the correct flange focal distance is of utmost importance to achieve optimal performance with this lens, so when using too short adapters it may show worse image quality.
close (0.30m, 1:13)
Sony A7rII | Zeiss 18mm 3.5 ZF.2
This Zeiss 18mm 3.5 doesn’t offer a particularly high magnification, but the quality in close focus scenarios is decent from f/3.5. Interestingly the Nikon AF-S 18-35mm 3.5-4.5G offers a noticeably higher maximum magnification at its 18mm end, despite only focusing a few centimeters closer.
Flare resistance
Some of the Zeiss lenses do really well in this category, but I read reports that this is one of the worse ones, so I was really curious what I will encounter here.
Nikon Zf | Zeiss 18mm 3.5 ZF.2 | f/3.5
With the sun close to the corner of the frame or slightly out of it some bigger artefacts can appear, but at f/3.5 I still consider this a good performance for an ultra wide angle lens.
Nikon Zf | Zeiss 18mm 3.5 ZF.2 | f/11
Stopped down some more ghosts can be found, luckily they are mostly small.
Compared to the Tokina 17mm 3.5 lenses this is a great performance, compared to the Nikon AF-S 18-35mm 3.5-4.5G the situation is a bit different. With that zoom lens you may encounter a ring flare with the sun in the dead center of the frame, but apart from that it is extremely hard to create any unwanted artefacts.
Nevertheless, even though there are some lenses out there that do better, this is a good performance.
Coma
100% crops from extreme corner, focused on center
Correcting Coma in ultra wide angle lenses without the usage of aspherical elements is pretty difficult, maybe even impossible. As this lens does not feature any, there is unsurprisingly noticeable coma visible in the corners at f/3.5 and still a almost the same amount at f/5.6. From there on the situation improves, stopped down to f/11 this aberration is pretty much taken care of.
If you are looking for a lens for astrophotography there are better options available for that task .
Distortion
This Zeiss 18mm 3.5 shows a pretty nasty wavy distortion pattern. A correction profile is needed to properly correct this. Luckily there is one available in Lightroom, I used it for most of the sample pictures in this review.
Bokeh
Now obviously this is not a lens you should buy if you are into shallow depth of field photography. Nevertheless, in close focus scenarios you can actually create some bokeh, but it isn’t particularly nice, as is typical for many ultra wide angle lenses.
Sunstars
33% crops from center, A7rII
Zeiss decided to use 9 rounded aperture blades for this lens. For creating well defined sunstars stopping down to f/16 or f/22 is needed. Personally, in a slow ultra wide angle lenses I would have preferred straight blades, maybe an even number on top of that. Zeiss used a diaphragm made of 10 straight blades in their Zeiss 18mm 4.0 for the M-mount creating more defined sunstars, even at wider apertures.
If you want to learn more about sunstars have a look at this article.
Chromatic Aberrations
lateral
Not too uncommon for ultra wide angle lenses this Zeiss 18mm 3.5 shows a noticeable amount of lateral CA. The correction e.g. in Lightroom does a very good job here though.
longitudinal
As this is a very wide and rather slow lens bokeh fringing is nothing to worry about.
When it comes to purple fringing there is also none to be found, already at the maximum aperture.
Conclusion
good
|
average
|
not good
|
Older portrait lenses can still have some appeal today, if you are after creating a certain look. Bubble bokeh, soft rendering, nervous rendering, if there is something specific you are after, you may find an old vintage lens being a better fit than the latest and greatest.
But when it comes to ultra wide angle lenses, I am not really seeing that. What do we expect of ultra wide angle lenses? I expect high contrast and resolution, good flare resistance, good Coma correction and preferably nice sunstars, low vignetting and easy to correct distortion.
In most of these categories newer lenses making use of aspherical elements and other special glass simply perform better. Here mirrorless designs also have a significant size advantage.
Because of the Zeiss tag this lens is also more expensive on the used market than it should be, making it not exactly great value. So the only real reason I see to still consider this lens is if you need an 18mm lens for your manual focus analogue SLR, where you need that aperture ring – or if you are a collector of Zeiss lenses of course. Everyone else have a look at the alternatives section.
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Alternatives
SLR Designs
Talking about primes we have the Tokina 17mm 3.5 SL, Tokina 17mm 3.5 AF AT-X Pro and the Nikon AF 18mm 2.8D. None of these lenses is a great performer, so deciding between all these I would go for this Zeiss 18mm 3.5.
Nikon AF-S 18-35mm 3.5-4.5G:
In my opinion the best alternative is the cheap Nikon AF-S 18-35mm 3.5-4.5G though. The Zeiss is only better in two categories: sharpness at infinity in the very corners and build quality. In every other category the Nikon lens either performs the same or better. It is better in terms of vignetting, flare resistance, distortion, coma, CA, minimum focus distance and weight – yet costs noticeably less.
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Zeiss 18mm 2.8 Milvus:
When making the switch from these now called “Classic” to the Milvus lineup in 2016, there were two types of lenses: those where only the casing design has been updated and those that saw a complete redesign. This is one of those where Zeiss thought the optical quality is not up to snuff anymore, so instead of this reasonably sized 18mm 3.5 we got a huge and ridiculously expensive 18mm 2.8. I am sure it is a well corrected lens offering superior performance compared to this lens being reviewed here, but if you have 2.3k to spend on a 18mm 2.8, please get in contact, I have plenty of better ideas what you could do with that kind of money.
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If you are not that weight and size conscious, the Nikon AF-S 14-24mm 2.8G as well as the Sigma 14-24mm 2.8 Art are also viable alternatives.
Mirrorless Designs
You can find many of the modern ultra wide angle zoom as well as prime lenses discussed in our Guide to Ultra Wide Angle Lenses for the A7 Series. There are two lenses worth mentioning though:
Zeiss 18mm 2.8 Batis:
I am not a huge fan of the Batis lenses for various reasons, but in my opinion this is probably the best of them. It easily outperforms this old DSLR design in every regard, not everyone will enjoy its more plasticky lightweight casing though. And look for a used one, new from dealer it is way overpriced these days.
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Sigma 17mm 4.0 C DG DN:
The Sigma 17mm 4.0 C DG DN is very lightweight at only 220g and I actually expect it to outperform this Zeiss lens in every category. Maybe one day I will get the chance to check it out.
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Sample Images
Most of the sample images in this review can be found in full resolution here.
Further Reading
- Guide to 9-18mm Ultra Wide Angle Lenses for Sony fullframe E-mount Cameras
- Review: Laowa 9mm 5.6 – The World’s Widest fullframe lens
- Review: Sony FE 12-24mm 2.8 GM
- Review: Zeiss 18mm 2.8 Batis
- Analogue Adventures
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Really love the contrast and colors of this Zeiss lens, even if it is dated.
Also, curious about your experience with the Nikon 18-35mmG. I had two of them: a decentered one and then one with a dysfunctional AF system. Both “near mint” condition on eBay. Otherwise beautiful performance. Would’ve loved to keep it if it worked properly, but I will be turning to the very nice sigma 16-28/2.8 eventually instead. Did you encounter any issues like these with your copy?
Had two copies of the 18-35mm, none of those issues.
Thank you for the great review! I have been curious about this lens. This lens would make sense if one wants vintage feeling MF lens without problems associated with too old lenses. (Like haze and too much flare) And it has superb build quality. Zeiss lenses are joy to use if one cares about haptic. I do own aforementioned Milvus 18 which is a great lens. Essentially a Loxia 21 quality at a wider focal length maybe tiny bit more flare. I picked that one up second hand at reasonable price. Although the asking price new is just ridiculous there aren’t many sub 20mm MF lens that has both the IQ and the build quality.
Perfect as always.
I deliberately did not take the Nikkor 14-30 f/4 and instead took the 18-35 f/3.5-4.5 as new and the Viltrox 16mm f/1.8 for the z7ii. I may not have come across the best Viltrox and, conversely, an incredible 18-35, but I don’t see any fundamental difference between them in terms of sharpness (yes, there is a difference between 16 and 18mm). They are literally the same and both are very good. But what I see for sure is that at the same apertures, for example at f/4, Viltrox is darker than Nikkor 18-35. Why didn’t I take 14-30? Because the 18-35 is perfect for the f90x, and when traveling, I can use it on both the z7ii and the f90x. Thanks to Nikon for that.