All Roads Lead to Zeiss

Jun 13

Zeiss is my lens of choice for cinematography for many reasons. Color, contrast, 3d dimensionality, performance, handling, these lenses are the king of their field. Some will prefer lenses with character and look past these lenses for their clean sharp look, but these lenses have a rendering that is so much more. They are definitely not your typical clinical lens, especially as they are designed to perform so well wide open, turning into a different lens. The Otus in particular have an impressionistic rendering at f1.4 while becoming a near optically perfect lens stopped down. Photography lenses are clinical. These are not the same. They have clarity, but the fall off and out of focus transition distinguishes them from actually clinical optics.

What makes them better than the competition? Responsive manual focus, accurate color, rich contrast, little distortion and chromatic aberration. The only real negative with these lenses are their mediocre minimum close focusing distance and maybe lack of weatherproofing on some models. If you think the heavy weight, size and lack of autofocus are cons, well then you’re optimizing for photography and not filmmaking. In an age of autofocus hybrid mirror cameras, people rush for autofocus lenses, which have plenty of sharpness but not the 3d depth necessary for immersion in film. These lenses will give you that look, making life-like visuals you can almost touch through the screen. What I believe characterizes this modern Zeiss 3d look are the T* coatings and optical design. The blue coating allows the lens to control flares so that it will retain contrast and saturation even when filming straight into direct light, a differentiator between DZO Arles. You also have a dramatic focus fall off at f1.4, which provides extreme separation with the background, but pleasing creamy bokeh that makes out of focus shots also very beautiful, which differentiates with typical sharp lenses like Sigma Art. Finally the contrast, color, high resolution amplify a true to life 3d pop that makes images jump off the screen. I also think the color separation and clarity is one of the main attributes that make it difficult for me to use other glass. Things like color fringing and distortion control and more valuable than you think.

Because they have strong clarity and sharpness, these lenses maybe suit certain projects better such as commercial, sci-fi, or any narrative film where you want to reproduce your background with pristine clarity. There’s a certain bite and brilliance to the rendering that draws a lot of attention to itself as if to say, “look at me! This is an expensive lens!” Its a premium look that might look out of place for a period price and may suit modern or dramatic tones better.

Although Arri Signature, Zeiss Supremes and Master primes are out of reach, Zeiss Otus and Milvus lenses get very close and are exceptional value. Other possible alternatives include Leica, Cooke, DZO, then you have compromises like Sigma Art, Canon and Nikkor lenses. Other considerations are the EF or Nikon mounts. I’d suggest EF because all cameras can adapt to the longer flange of EF, however there is no physical aperture ring, which has to be controlled electronically. But most cameras and adapters support electronic connection and you won’t have the reversed focus direction from Nikon. According to DXO, the EF version also captures more light at t1.5 compared to t1.7 of the Nikon one(?). Finally, these are photography lenses that have renderings more suitable for video, this means they are comparatively lightweight and great for handheld manual focus, but you will need to rig and buy other equipment for focusing gears and the different filter threads and sizes if you want to use them professionally on a job. I have never been contacted by Zeiss, I genuinely believe they are the best lenses possible for cinematography. Here is some of my content showing why.