Zeiss Batis 2.8/18 Wide-Angle Lens for E-Mount

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I use this lens at night to take pictures of the sky. I have a Sony a7rii, which has the star eater problem. This lens renders the stars so sharply that it has mitigated the problem with the camera thinking they are hot pixels and erasing them. I took it out to Sedona last month and got absolutely gorgeous shots with it at night.

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Its wonderful for architecture, astro, and landscapes. I also like the bokeh and portraits. This is the wide angle I chose out of all of the options. The focus ring may "attract dust", but it also is just as easily wiped off. I appreciate how light it is allowing hand held shots in low light situations. Any issues are fixed with the lens profile. The only thing I find myself wanting a little bit more. I think my next purchase will be a 1.4.

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One of the best wide angle lenses I have ever used. The vignetting is minimal and it is sharp edge to edge. This lens alone caused me to sell my other lenses and purchase all Zeiss glass. It is VERY light (kind of large but still light). I didnt expect to use it as often as I do because I was afraid the amount of distortion I would get. It has ended up being my second most used lens after the 35mm f1.4 Zeiss Distagon.

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Never seen a sharper lens in my life. Im blown away every time I punch into 1:1, even at 42mpx.

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Wow, blows me away. I had been using the Sony GM 16-35 f/2.8 but found it too much of a monster to tote. This lens and another slightly longer prime makes my landscape photography much easier. Images are razor sharp at about half the price of the GM. Highly recommended.

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I run a real estate photography/videography businesses in Michigan. The vast majority of the homes that find themselves in front of my camera are not "luxury" homes but rather what we would call "bread and butter" homes. Homes less than a million dollars and less than 5,000 sqft. Since the fall of 2018 I had my eye on this 18mm Batis lens because I wanted a lens I could permanently attach to the a7s2 that lives on my gimbal. Up to this point I had been swapping my 16-35 f4 back and forth from my stills camera to my video camera. A friend of mine, Chris Miller, who had used the Batis, HIGHLY recommended it. I wanted a 2.8 aperture lens that was fly-by-wire because I shoot video in S-Priority and Auto ISO. This enables the camera to both tackle darker spaces by automatically opening the aperture to f2.8 and then boosting ISO if needed to get a balanced exposure. On the other end, if filming in a overly bright room with a wall of windows the camera can choose to drop ISO to baseline and then start stopping down the aperture to protect highlights in the windows. All on the fly. So this 18mm 2.8 Batis seemed like the trick. Unfortunately, it didnt meet my other needs. The types of homes I shoot are very classic. Smaller homes with narrow hallways that connect the bedrooms. I was used to filming at 16mm with my 16-35mm and thought that losing just 2mm of focal length wouldnt be a big deal. I was wrong. You can see from the video Ive attached that the field of view was just a BIT narrow. And this was with me trying to "back up" into spaces as much as possible. Which was very inconvenient and not something I had to deal with on my 16-35mm. Ultimately, I chose to return the lens. Not because there was anything wrong with the lens, but because the homes I find myself filming really do benefit from a wider angle lens. In hindsight I realized that most of the homes my friend was filming were solidly in the "luxury" category. Large spaces, open floor plans...that kinda thing. The 18mm field of view was find for those kinds of homes. Not so for the "bread and butter" homes I find myself in here in Michigan on a daily basis. Ultimately, I returned the lens after just this one shoot and purchased the Samyang 14mm 2.8. This lens works just as well but the wider field of view is working much better for my kinds of projects. If I end up shooting more luxury homes my guess is that it would feel a bit TOO wide. In which case Id buy this lens again in a heartbeat.

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This is honestly the only lens I use on my A7ii. I have the kit lens that came with it but never have a need. With that said I mostly shoot landscapes but it also does good general and psuedo-macro pictures! This lens takes excellent landscape photos in particular. Just about everything is in focus, and if you use peaking sometimes your whole screen will be colored on a huge shot!

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I love this lens. Very sharp at around f4 and cant beat the extreme wide angle with very little distortion. Would definitely recommend it to anyone who shoots Car Shows.

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I use this with a Sony a7r ii. It is very sharp with very little vignetting or distortion. Just what I need for landscapes.

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The lens picture quality is astonishing. while the built quality feels and looks good but internal mechanical is horrible. I bought this lens 2 months over a year ago. Without using much because i only use this lens for wide shots for my videos. I would say all together ive only used it for several days within that period. and now the cameras auto-focusing motor gets stuck on focusing and constantly making the sharp motor sound. I takes very good care of my equipment, no physical impact have done. I feel very sad about this. Because I didnt really test out this lens thoroughly when I first got it. Many people have the same problem as I do with this lens. You can google search it if you dont believe me. Heres a video.

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