Zeiss lenses on Canon EOS?

I don't miss them. I suspect sales would be extremely low and not warrant production. Besides, aren't they merely made in Japan under license from Zeiss? I'm sure if Zeiss desired to do so, they could pull a Sigma and reverse engineer the lens ROM code. No need for Canon's blessing.

You could always get a magic marker and write "Zeiss" on something else.

There's no magic to Zeiss lenses. They probably make them for Sony because Sony are stuggling along with the old Minolta lenses and could maybe use some help.

Back in 2006 Zeiss commented that there were some patent issues related to making lenses in an EOS mount, but since Sigma, Tamron, Tokina and a few others have been doing it for 20 years and Canon haven't sued them yet, the patent excuse sounds like BS to me.

The "Zeiss Lenses" I've seen are on the little Sony point-and-shoot cameras. They are tiny and aren't detachable. Does Ziess really make these lenses, or did they just sell their name? In any case, I'm guessing that they might not be appropriate for an SLR camera.

Any week you can pay 1/2 of B&H new on minty Nikon Mount Zeiss on ebay and for $10 more simply adapt it to eos bodies. Now that I finially bought a pair of f2.8L Eos made lenses I have to say insanely fast autofocus function is a Big Plus. This big plus is one you do not get with manual focus zeiss as a 3rd party manufacturer in any other mounts since they make no 3rd party glass with autofocus function that I know of other than Sony/Minolta AF.

Lindy

You get no more function from a mechanical EOS mount Zeiss lens verse one via a Nikon to EOS adpter Zeiss (ZF) lens. At lease the one with the adapter actually get a focus chip option. Zeiss lens are available in ZF (Nikon), ZK (Pentax K-mount) and ZS (M42) mount. That cover Nikon, Canon (via Nikon Adapter), Olympus (via M42 or Nikon adapter), Sony (via M42 adapter) and Penatx K-mount.

"You could always get a magic marker and write "Zeiss" on something "else.""

The people at Ebay told me to stop doing that, actually :-)

The Zeiss C/Y 28mm 2.8, the 85 1.4, and the 50mm 1.4 are amazing lenses, and I would love to see them for the Canon without the whole stop-down metering thing. The photozone results for the 50mm ZF and the 85mm ZA are on par or better than the equivalent Canon L lenses, and I like the colors on the vintage 50mm.

Why you can get a cell phone with a Zeiss lens but I need to get the adapters from Hong Kong to put them on a Canon camera is beyond me.

If Sony manages to make a small full frame 20+ megapixel camera in a few years and they get the full stable of Zeiss primes that will be tempting. I don't feel like switching systems, so I hope they come out with some EOS mount lenses.

The real Zeiss Jena lenses, not those Capitalist copies der von Westen kommt, are available in Exakta and Contax S (M42) mounts and will work beautifully with the appropriate adapters on modern EOS cameras. Use them and enjoy your genuine Zeiss lenses.

(Of course, I'm joking, but only a little. The old "aus Jena" lenses are often very good indeed, especially the Biotar)

Here's an example of an Exakta Biotar on a 20D with a picture taken with it.

Oops hit the button too soon, here's the picture.

One simple work around is to get a Nikon body. As soon as I got my Nikon D300 the Canon 5D just sits.;-)