During the past ten days I had access to an early production sample of the new Zeiss Distagon ZA 2/24mm (thanks to Sony Switzerland!). I’ve been using it on a trip to Rome, Florence and Umbria, shooting with the A900 and several wideangle lenses in parallel (e. g. The Minolta 3.5/17-35mm G, the Minolta 2.8-4/17-35mm, the Zeiss 2.8/16-35mm and others).

Righth from the beginning the Zeiss impressed me because of its building quality and its handling properties. The lens ist heavy (about 500 g), but considerably less bulky and heavy than the Zeiss zooms ZA 2.8/16-35mm or ZA 2.8/24-70mm (about 900-950g). The entire lens body is made from metal, including the focus ring. The lens is a rear-focus construction (like the Sony 1.4/35mm G) with SSM autofocus. It has remarkable close-focus abilities (about 1:3.8, which means 19cm miminal focusing distance), and distortion is virtually non-existent.

I have shot many nighth scenes in Florence an Rome. Using f2 and the image stabilizer of the A900, the Distagon allows spectacular handheld nightshots.

All images shown here were taken with a Sony Alpha 900. The raw data were developped using Photoshop CS4. Sharpening was set to “50”, Radius to “0.5” and Detail to “50”. Vignetting was partly corrected to facilitate comparing the corners (Vignetting to “60” for the Minolta AF 2.8/24mm @ f2.8, to “30” for all other lenses at f 2, f2.8, or f3.5; and no correction for all apertures from f5.6 on). All other settings were standard, and no correction for Chromatic Aberration was applied. Remember that Nikon routinely applies CA correction to all lenses when using D300 and D3 DSLRs.

Similar to the two Zeiss zooms mentioned above, the 2/24mm has a perfect center resolution and contrast at f2 (unlike the Minolta lenses AF 2/28mm and AF 1.4/35mm which are noticeably soft wide open). In fact not only the center, but more than 90% of the full frame are displayed with perfect resolution and nearly perfect contrast. Only the outermost corners – about 1-2% of the entire image field – suffer from loss of resolution at f2 and f2.8. To say it simply: the image quality of the 2/24mm @ f2 is comparable to the image quality of the ZA 2.8/24-70mm @ f 11 – apart from vignetting, of course, which is quite pronounced at f2.

	The new Zeiss ZA 2/24mm has the same perfect center resolution and contrast as the previously released Zeiss zoom 2.8/24-70mm and 2.8/16-35mm. The corners at f2 are visibly better than the corners of the Minolta 2.8/24mm at f2.8 - quite a remarkable performance. And the corners of the Zeiss 2/24mm at f2 are very similar to the corners of the 2.8/24-70mm @ 24mm/f11.
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	The Minolta AF 2.8/24mm from 1985 is very good in the center, but at f2.8 the corners are quite mushy. Vignetting is strong (not visible here, it was corrected during RAW file development)
	The expensive Minolta 3.5/17-35mm G zoom from 1997 has a very similar performance as the 24mm prime - slightly more contrast, slightly less detail, cleary less vignetting and less distortion (close to zero around 24mm). Flaring, however, can be quite pronounced.
	The Zeiss 2.8/24-70mm is at 24mm the "worst" lens tested here; but be aware that only the extreme corners look like this - more than 80% of the image field is close to perfection even at f2.8.
	The Zeiss 2.8/16-35mm has a similar center performance, but better corners than the 2.8/24-70mm. Also distortion is close to zero around 24mm, and there's considerably less flaring and ghosting than with the Minolta 3.5/17-35mm G
	Zeiss 2.8/24mm @ f2.8: very similar performance as wide open; only vignetting is reduced. Similar detail resolution as the Minolta AF 2.8/24mm @ f5.6, but higher contrast
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	Very good detail resolution, well-balanced contrast
	Excellent detail resolution and contrast in the center, good detail resolution in the corners
	Excellent center resolution. even at f5.6 less than perfect in the corners - nothing new from the Zeiss 2.8/24-70mm.
	Zeiss 2.8/16-35mm @ f5.6 - excellent in the center, and very good in the corners.
	The Zeiss 2/24mm is even better than the 2.8/16-35mm - look at the church in the background of the "corner" image!
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	The 25 years old AF 2.8/24mm - at f11 as good as the Zeiss 2.8/16-35mm @ f5.6, and clerly better than the Zeiss 2.8/24-70mm @ f11.
	Even at f11 - good, but not excellent corners ...
	Excellent image quality both in the center (although resolution drops slightly compared to f5.6), and in the extreme corners