There had to be a catch, hadn’t there? I mean, what do you expect when you buy a lens for 600 €, claimed to be in mint condition, which has a list price of almost 900 €?

I’m talking of my new Zeiss Biogon 28/2.8 ZM of course, which seems to have that infamous “Zeiss lens wobble” going on. It’s fine otherwise, but the inner lens barrel, containing the optical elements and the aperture mechanism, doesn’t sit 100% tightly inside the outer lens barrel, containing the bayonet and the focusing mechanism. This means that the inner part of the lens will “wobble” on the horizontal axis when you touch it, and also when you’re focusing.

So far it doesn’t seem to affect image quality (which is superb btw), but it is a bit annyoing, and I’m worried it might get worse in time. So I inquired with Zeiss Germany what to do about it, and what an eventual repair would cost me. (I don’t know if the lens is still under warranty, since I bought it from private and from abroad).

We’ll see, I’ll keep you posted. Until then, I’ll continue using this little gem, hoping the wobbling doesn’t get worse.

UPDATE: I received a reply from Zeiss the day after I sent my inquiry, which was saturday. Man, they’re working even on sundays? Anyhow, they told me that “slight tolerances in the mount of ZM lenses is normally non-critical and doesn’t affect image quality.” Well, the tolerance in this case is more than “slight” … They also wrote that I could send the lens in to be checked, and they could then calculate the costs for repairing the lens. They would also check if the lens was still under warranty.

Hm. I’m not sure what to do now. Sending it in means paying for shipping, and in the worst case for shipping twice, if it turns out the lens is no longer under warranty. If it is, though, it’ll be repaired and shipped for free. Also, while the wobbling really doesn’t seem to be much of a problem technically, it does annoy me. The lens somehow feels cheap. So, maybe I’ll just send it in next month, when finances are in the black again …