Zeiss Loxia 35mm F2 review: a classic street photography lens for Sony E-mount full-frame cameras

The Zeiss Loxia 35mm F2 manual-focus lens combines a classic focal length with classic looks and handling.

Zeiss Loxia 35mm F2
(Image: © Zeiss)

Digital Camera World Verdict

I find that the Zeiss Loxia 35mm F2 has an ideal focal length for street photography. As a manual-focus lens with a focus distance scale and depth of field markers, it’s also ideal for ‘zone focusing’, so I can pre-focus and shoot at will, helping me to avoid missing definitive moments. Image quality is lovely, with the exception that edge-sharpness could be better at wide apertures.

Pros

  • +

    Beautiful image quality overall

  • +

    High-end handling characteristics

  • +

    Click/de-click aperture ring

Cons

  • -

    No autofocus

  • -

    Edge-sharpness drops wide apertures

  • -

    Pricey to buy

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The Zeiss Loxia 35mm F2 certainly ticks a box on my wish list. The moderately wide perspective of a 35mm lens on a full-frame camera is often favored for street photography. Historically, photographers specializing in the genre would focus manually, using a lens’s focus distance scale and depth of field markers to set the ‘zone’ of a scene that would be rendered sharply. That takes any time involved for autofocus or manually focusing out of the equation, so you can snap up a defining moment the instant you see it. The flip side is that the vast majority of recent autofocus lenses have neither a focus distance scale nor any depth of field markers, making zone focusing impossible.

Specifications

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Mount optionsSony E (FE)
Lens construction9 elements in 6 groups
Angle of view63 degrees
Focus typeManual focus
Minimum aperturef/22
Minimum focus distance0.3m
Maximum magnification0.17x
Filter size52mm
Dimensions62x59mm
Weight340g

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Matthew Richards

Matthew Richards is a photographer and journalist who has spent years using and reviewing all manner of photo gear. He is Digital Camera World's principal lens reviewer – and has tested more primes and zooms than most people have had hot dinners! 

His expertise with equipment doesn’t end there, though. He is also an encyclopedia  when it comes to all manner of cameras, camera holsters and bags, flashguns, tripods and heads, printers, papers and inks, and just about anything imaging-related. 

In an earlier life he was a broadcast engineer at the BBC, as well as a former editor of PC Guide.