Brand Partnerships

ZEISS Mobile Imaging

Strategic alliances have characterized ZEISS throughout its history. Thanks to this interaction of the ZEISS core competencies with selected companies, all partners are able to tap into new markets and to break new grounds together. As such, ZEISS can now proudly look back on long-standing partnerships with renowned companies in the area of image capturing, covering everything from the broad consumer market to Hollywood itself.

Sony
Shaping the evolution of digital imaging products together

Capture life’s special moments, everywhere you go, in brilliant quality and fluid motion: Sony’s Hi8 Handycam® CCD-TR555 camcorder set new standards for digital imaging in 1996, thanks to the class-leading optics by ZEISS in the form of a ZEISS Vario-Sonnar zoom lens. This marked the beginning of a collaboration in which both partners have strived together to push the boundaries of digital imaging ever further for more than a quarter of a century. In 1999, the Sony Cyber-shot® digital still cameras expanded the collaboration to photography, the first product being the Sony DSC-F55K featuring a ZEISS Distagon lens. Starting in 2006, ZEISS and Sony entered the market of interchangeable lenses together, first with the A-Mount lenses, later in 2011 with the E-Mount Alpha™ camera lenses. 

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In 2020, ZEISS and Sony expanded their collaboration once more into the realm of mobile photography. As a result, Sony’s flagship smartphone Xperia 1 II, the world’s first smartphone with up to 20fps AF/AE tracking burst and 5G connectivity, features ZEISS optics with T* anti-reflective coating, which reduces reflections and ensures excellent contrast. This innovative package of technologies provides users with sharpness, true colors, and a great bokeh in the compact phone form factor. Together, ZEISS and Sony will continue to innovate the field of digital imaging to provide the best possible image quality and deliver new photography experiences to the largest possible number of users. 

ZEISS and Sony have developed the strong partnership for long years while shaping the evolution of various innovative imaging products. Based on these technologies and expertise, our strategic relationship has expanded even to smartphone imaging, as its demand is soaring. Our Xperia flagship smartphone with ZEISS optics continues to deliver the exciting mobile imaging experience to satisfy the dedicated and passionate creators.

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Tsutomu Hamaguchi
Senior General Manager
Mobile Communications Business Group
Sony Corporation

vivo
Joint R&D to bring mobile imaging to the next level

A joint ambition to fulfill the highest quality standards and to drive innovation that focuses on the user, coupled with an overall fit of the brands, brought ZEISS and vivo together in 2020. Their first joint product was a co-engineered imaging system featured in vivo’s X series of premium smartphones, starting with the X60. With its superb multiple camera system, featuring ZEISS Optics, ZEISS T* coating and iconic ZEISS lens style bokeh in portrait mode, it brought premium imaging characteristics to mobile imaging devices by introducing elements essential to the ZEISS look into a mobile device.

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In ZEISS’s imaging lab, the joint research and development program will keep creating innovative technologies for a state-of-the-art mobile imaging experience by using ZEISS’s more than 130 years of imaging experience, and applying the resulting technologies to mobile imaging technologies. By combining this with vivo’s know-how in smartphone technology, software, and user experience, ZEISS and vivo are committed to continuing to push the boundaries of smartphone photography. Already, the partnership has gathered enthusiastic feedback from the tech community, influencers, media, and consumers for the flagship phones with outstanding imaging qualities. By pairing the courage to experiment with a solid technological experience, the partnership is well on course to continuously deliver the next level of mobile imaging.

For vivo, the partnership with ZEISS holds great significance. With ZEISS’s leading optical expertise and our competency in digital technologies, we innovate the field of mobile imaging and offer technical capabilities previously reserved for professional camera equipment within the intuitive user experience of mobile devices.

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Spark Ni
Senior Vice President and CMO of vivo

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ZEISS Mobile Imaging

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Brand Partnerships

Sony | vivo

R&D Competencies

ZEISS Mobile Imaging

ZEISS Photographers

Mobile Photography