I find this to be an interesting development, but I wonder how it will work out financially. I love Zeiss glass, but I've never been able to justify the cost of the lenses except on the used market.
Given the high quality of Nikons prime lenses, it's going to be hard for many to justify the higher price for Zeiss lenses. I suspect that the Zeiss lenses will be significantly more expensive than their Nikkor counterparts. With the used market flooded with manual focus F-mount lenses (which the Zeiss lenses appear to be, although there's no confirmation that they won't be autofocus), Zeiss is up against some strong competition in the marketplace.
Making the lenses in F-mount makes good sense, as many Nikon bodies and most Canon bodies can meter with an F-mount lens attached. (This is one of the truly strange things about the camera market...if you want a cheap camera that will meter with your manual focus Nikkor lenses, you buy a Canon body and a cheap adapter. Nikon saves metering with MF lenses for more expensive cameras.)
Having said all of this, I'm sure there will be some lenses in the Zeiss lineup that I'll lust after. From the graphics that have appeared on the web, it looks like one of the new lenses will be a Zeiss 85mm f/1.4. Nikon makes a lens with similar numbers, but the Zeiss/Rollei 85/1.4 is an astoundingly good lens. Zeiss also makes some spectacular wide angle glass that would be fun to own.
Still, Zeiss lenses are likely to command Zeiss prices. The Zeiss 50mm f/2 in Leica M-mount goes for USD600, whereas a Nikon 50mm f/1.4 goes for less than half that much. The spread for 28mm f/2.8 lenses is even greater. I can't imagine that the F-mount Zeiss lenses will cost much less than the M-mount lenses, although Zeiss may surprise me.
I've always wanted to mount Zeiss lenses on my Nikon body, but something tells me it'll be price-prohibitive to do so. Perhaps I'll treat myself to one Zeiss lens in the future.
We certainly live in interesting times...
Be well.
Dave
