Zeiss full-frame Android-powered ZX1 camera with onboard Adobe Lightroom editing goes up for pre-order

Zeiss is perhaps best known for the lenses it makes including for smartphones like Sony’s Xperia line as well as Nokia’s phones and, of course, third-party cameras. The company first announced the ZX1 camera nearly two years ago and it is now available for pre-order. The camera is targeted very much at professional photographers but includes some interesting features that we might see filter down to regular consumer cameras.

Although the Zeiss ZX1 isn’t the first camera to come pre-loaded with Android onboard, it is the first that we know of that also comes with Adobe Lightroom preinstalled. Naturally, this allows photographers to edit their photos on the fly for a sense of what they might look like in full post-processing -- this can be easily achieved with edited photos auto-syncing with Lightroom CC when connected to either a PC or Mac. This is facilitated by the relatively large 4.3-inch color touchscreen found on the rear of the device

The Zeiss ZX1 uses a mirrorless full-frame 37 MP sensor with a fixed 35 mm f/2 Zeiss Distagon lens. It also incorporates a 1080p electronic viewfinder and includes dials to control aperture, shutter speed and ISO. Photos are stored locally on a large 512 GB SSD and can be shared directly over the built-in Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to a connected device or network. Photos can also be transferred directly to external storage over the built-in USB-C port.

As you can tell from the embedded video below, the Zeiss ZX1’s capabilities are impressive to say the least. Unfortunately, it also costs US$6,000. As we said, it’s targeted at professional photographers but it shows there is still plenty of life left in standalone cameras thanks to innovations like those on show here.