Carl Zeiss has announced the Distagon T* 2,8/15, a super-wide-angle lens for Canon EF and Nikon F mounts. The lens can focus from just 25cm (10") and offers a 110 deg; field of view when mounted on a full-frame camera. It uses aspherical elements and abnormal partial dispersion glass in order to control distortion and chromatic aberration. It features an integrated lens hood and accepts 95mm threaded filters. It will be available from May for an MSRP of: €2,148 or US$2,948.
Minimum focus of 250mm looks pretty useable (considering it is quite a long lens too).
Although I am not sure it will fit through the throat of all ports.
Alex
Yeah, it looks pretty incredible from the shots I've seen so far. Definitely interested in seeing it head-to-head with the Canon 14mm. For DSLR film makers, I suspect this lens will be a new darling. That 95mm thread will be interesting for diopters, ND filters and, as you point out Dome ports. Is there anything out there currently (besides your "megadome") that this would work with?
10" dome??
That would only raise the price to about 5000$.
Now if I could only swim through the water with such a rig.
It's 103mm in diameter. I think the Seacam port opening is 110mm but there'll be no space for a focus gear of any kind. I can't think of any manufacturer that will fit the lens. I'm afraid it'll be a prefixed focus deal if anyone wants to shoot with this lens. Still a very cool lens.
55° focus ring rotation is awesome for video.
I can see the appeal for Canon users, However for Nikon users, not sure how much of an improvement it'll be compared to the 14-24.
It is only 103mm OD at the extreme front. Focus gears would be placed behind that on the narrower parts of the lens, and there is plenty of room for a gear on popular systems.
The opening in Seacam and Subal T4 ports is 97mm, and 98mm for Nauticam and Sea & Sea. The large front diameter of the lens won't fit through the port openings on either. Custom options would be possible, though.
Thanks Ryan for the correction. Good to hear about the custom options.
If you have one of the old thread-mount Aquatica 8" domes you could mount extension rings and a Seacam-to-Aquatica adapter first. Then mount the lens onto the camera body. And last add the Aquatica 8" dome. I did this to first try the nikon 14-24 prior to Harald shaving a fraction of a mm off the inside diameter of his super dome to allow this lens to be mounted. But even with this done, i need to mount a 60mm or 65mm extension ring to the housing prior to mounting the lens onto the camera body. Harald may also have shaved that fraction of a mm off an extension ring, but because the extension rings are delrin, not aluminum, I'd be very concerned about the loss of strength that "thinning" the delrin might involve.
But Ryan is correct when he says that the Zeiss lens, at 103mm would never make it through the port opening.
Fred
Ultrawides are all going to suffer from the problem of being behind simple concentric ports no matter how good they are. As port diameter increases so do the problems of shooting closer to the port. Quite apart from physically fitting such lenses into ports I'm honestly doubtful that they will perform any better except in their central region than existing ultrawides which do fit into housings and ports already. Also the idea of using a diopter of this size is not too good - it will reduce the field of view (effectively increasing focal length) and add more optical problems even if one can be found (very large diopters have been made in the past - I think one I had was 122mm).
