Conclusion

The Zeiss Loxia 85mm f/2.4 is a very good portrait prime lens. Sharpness across the frame is very high, even with our A7R II test camera shooting 42-megapixel images. Shooting wide-open at the maximum f/2.4 aperture does reveal a minor reduction in sharpness, but this is resolved by f/2.8, and even at this aperture the lens is able to produce beautifully smooth bokeh and completely blurred backgrounds.

The Zeiss Loxia 85mm f/2.4 is a pleasure to use, thanks to its superb weather-proof build quality and wide, smooth focusing ring. When manually focusing the Zeiss Loxia 85mm f/2.4 delivered a very high percentage of keepers thanks to the A7R II's excellent magnification and peaking features. Vignetting is apparent when shooting wide-open at f/2.4, but quickly disappears as you stop down to f/5.6, while both chromatic aberrations and pin-cushion distortion are very well controlled.

There are a few drawbacks to the Zeiss Loxia 85mm f/2.4 lens, though. You obviously don't get auto-focusing, the 80cm minimum focusing distance is a little restrictive, it's larger and heavier than its main rivals, and the asking price of $1399 / £1199 / €1399 is a lot of money to pay for a manual focus prime lens.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4.5
Features	4
Ease-of-use	4
Image quality	4.5
Value for money	4