Will Zeiss make longer tele's for Nikon?

[johan1967]

With the introduction of the Zeiss Distagon 21/2.8 the range up to 100 mm seems to be fairly complete.

The question is what will come next from Zeiss. Will that be some longer tele's, such as 200 or even 300 mm? I myself surely hope so, because that gives me the opportunity to expand my set with lenses that give me the same sharpness, colours and contrast as the lenses I already own. Or is this only wishful thinking because Nikon already has some very good lenses in that range and Zeiss therefore will not make such lenses?

What do you think?

[Tom A]

I think Zeiss should make a ZF version of the 180f2.8 "Olympia" lens with modern glass and coating. However, I think it is somewhat unlikely at the moment. Both Nikon/Canon has an excellent line up of good zooms in the longer reaches and when you get above 100 mm, internal stabilization becomes an issue. It adds cost and complexity to the design and with manual focussing it also would require much better finders/ground glass on the camera bodies.

[Brian]

It would be a nice return of such a historic lens line. I'm not sure how many would sell, as it would be incompetition with the AF-Nikkor 180/2.8 and even faster lenses.

Again, price and performance. New M-Mount lenses such as the 85/2 are expensive, but not as expensive as the Leica offerings for the 90mm Summicron.

An SLR lens has to compete with much lower priced equipment, such as the AF-Nikkor 180/2.8 ED lens. IF the performance is better, and the lens has a better feel, it is easier to justify a 25%~50% premium, but not a 4x increase in price. And on the used market, my 180/2.8 Nikkor-P factory AI converted was $75 for a user-condition lens.

[klaju]

Here is my first post...

I have asked a Zeiss representative at the last Photokina about longer tele lenses. This was the answer he gave: "unlikely in the near future. Functions such as AF and VR are more important in this focal length range. This market is occupied by numerous lenses from Nikon/Canon and other third party manufactors."
So probably we won't see longer lenses soon, if at all.