New 35mm Tilt/Shift Lenses

Here’s an interesting news item from Luminous Landscape:

Hartblei is a Ukrainian company that makes some weird and wonderful lenses. Their latest offerings are three tilt / shift lenses called SuperRotators, a 40mm Carl Zeiss Distagon f/4 T*, 80mm Carl Zeiss Planar T* f/2.8 and a 120 mm Carl Zeiss Makro-Planar T* f/4. Yes, you read that right – Zeiss! Hartblei is now using Carl Zeiss glass and formulations for these lenses along with their own mechanical assemblies.

These three lenses will be available in mounts for Canon and Nikon cameras, and because they are based on medium format designs, are able to cover full frame 35mm film and digital. (My review of the medium format Hartblei 45mm f/3.5 Super-Rotator from a few years ago may be of interest with regard to these lens’ unique construction).

This is particularly good news for Nikon owners (such as myself), as Nikon’s offerings are substantially less capable (and very hard to find). If the 40mm lens for the Nikon mount comes out for a price that’s not completely unreasonable, I’ll probably buy one.