Zeiss announces new high-end Zeiss Otus f/1.4 55mm lens for full-frame DSLRs

Zeiss lenses have a well deserved reputation for extermely high image quality — and at a matching cost. The newly announced Zeiss Otus 1.4/55 pushes that even relationship even further, with a $3,999 price, but the promise of unparalleled optics.

Zeiss has revealed the Otus 1.4/55 on its blog, as well as through a press release. Designed for full-frame cameras, this high quality 55mm lens has an aperture range of f/1.4-16, and features 12 elements in 10 groups. The company has been working on this lens for more than three years, and the descriptions of it sound like a laundry list of everything a photographer could want.

Perhaps most impressively, Zeiss is billing it as having "no visible chromatic aberrations". According to the blog post:

However, because the Otus 1.4/55 is an apochromatic lens, longitudinal chromatic aberrations are corrected by its lens elements made of special glass with anomalous partial dispersion. Color aberrations are practically absent. Bright/dark transitions in the image, and especially highlights, are rendered free of color artifacts.

This is in part due to Zeiss bringing the Distagon optical design, which had only previously been used for wide-angle lenses, for the Otus. The manufacturer is also billing it as having no visible color fringing and distortions, as well as high sharpness and contrast all the way to the edges of the lens, even when it's wide open.

You can see some full size sample photos here, and find out more on the technical side of things from its page on the Zeiss site, or the data sheet. The Otus 1.4/55 will be available in either F bayonet (ZF.2) or EF bayonet (ZE), starting later this month. While some early reviews have already landed, we can't wait to see more, and tell if it lives up to expectations.