The Zeiss Batis 25/2 for the Sony a7 series of cameras is a remarkable lens, a new lens category from Zeiss designed specifically for the Sony mount and the camera’s specifications. That means that Zeiss optimized the operation of this lens to work with the Sony a7 series, while they also created a new series of lighter, sharper lenses.
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We have been using the Batis 25/2 and sister 85/1.8 for two weeks now and are growing increasingly fond of these lenses. While the Batis series isn’t as sharp as the Zeiss Otus line, they provide a very similar image with a fraction of the price and a fraction of the size. You can get a Batis 85/1.8 for $1200 while the Otus has a retail price just north of $5000, for example.
Taking advantage of a family trip to the shore, I coupled the 25/2 with the a7II and a7R and have been very impressed with the sharpness and color rendering from this lens. The Batis 25/2 has incredible detail, when the a7 system locks on. The focus of the Batis 25/2 is obviously faster with the a7II than with the a7R, so for casual shooting I coupled the Batis to the a7II, and with face detection focus the lens is lightning fast. I’m looking forward to seeing what the focus speeds are with the a7RII.
The only negative about the use of the Batis 25/2 is the lens shade, which has been coming off in my camera bag. If the camera is in a tight pouch in my camera bag, the lens shade often gets bumped off when inserting and removing the camera. That’s not uncommon for lens hoods, but a more secure connection would be great.
Otherwise the lens is a joy to use. It’s much lighter than you’d think from looking at it, and it feels good connected to the a7 series.
We will be posting more shots from the Batis, here are some selects from our shoot at the shore. Please note, the images displayed in this gallery are rescaled JPEGs and so image quality is lower that the actual image quality. If you’d like to see the full size images, those are available on our Flickr site.
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My daily shooter is Sony A1 with a vertical grip and various Sony lenses attached like the FE 20mm F1.8. Find more gear recommendations in our shop. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.