a blog by Matthew Duclos
Chinese lens manufacturer Zhongyi has ported their photo lenses over to three new cine lens housings, much to the delight of speed freaks given the ultra fast aperture of their new T1 Speedmaster series. I’ll go over a bit of the history, product lines, and future of their latest line of cine lenses.
Continue reading “Zhongyi Debuts Mitakon Cine Primes”
Boutique lens manufacturer Tribe 7 has added a brand new 20.7mm prime lens to their current Blackwing line of primes. This brings the Blackwing set to a total of 8 high speed, full frame prime lenses. I never really covered the release of the original Blackwing primes back when they came out – mostly because they were shrouded in so much mystery and there weren’t too many firm details at the time. Since then, Tribe7 has gone on to become a fixture in the world of cinema optics. Let’s take a quick look at their story and the newest prime lens to join the family.
Continue reading “Tribe7 Adds 20.7mm to Blackwing Primes”
As of late, the DZOFILM brand is creating quite a buzz in the cinematography community. I can’t recall a lens release that created so many inquiries. Who is DZO? Where did they come from? Are their lenses any good? Let’s explore…
Continue reading “DZOFILM Scales Up with Pictor Zooms”
For owners of the ZEISS CP.3 XD, Supreme Prime and Supreme Prime Radiance lenses, the latest firmware is available now which will include minor bug fixes and compatibility improvements.
Continue reading “ZEISS Firmware v1.71 Now Available”
Tokina has been adding focal lengths to their Cinema Vista line of high speed, large format cinema prime lenses ever since they were first announced back in 2016. Let’s take a quick look back as well as a peek forward at the Vista Primes.
Continue reading “40mm T1.5 Joins Tokina Cinema Vista Primes”
DZOFILM is creating quite the buzz as of late (pun unintended – read on to understand the pun). They’ve tackled MFT zooms, S35 zooms, and now they have introduced their first Full Frame lenses: Vespid Cinema Primes.
Continue reading “DZOFILM Announces Full Frame “Vespid” Primes”
Just less than a week after announcing the Canon RF mount for their cinema lens line, Irix now announces that they’ve added another two: Nikon Z and Leica L mounts – totaling seven mount options.
Continue reading “Irix Adds Two More Mount Options to Cine Line”
It’s obvious at this point that Coronavirus has swept any social gatherings such as NAB or Cine Gear under the Social Distancing rug. NAB waited until the last minute to cancel their show which left a lot of exhibitors in an extremely difficult position. Cine Gear Expo took a more aggressive approach and announced they were pushing their show date well enough in advance for exhibitors to coordinate properly.
Continue reading “Cine Gear Expo 2020 Postponed”
Veydra was a startup lens company with a solid idea that met its demise far too soon. As is the case with any ambitious idea with a lot of potential, there were curves and pitfalls that couldn’t be avoided. I had a front row seat to the entire adventure as a design consultant, a vendor, and a customer. The following is that account from my perspective.
Continue reading “RIP Veydra: 2014-2019”
With the cancellation of this year’s NAB Show, Canon was left without their expected platform to announce new cinema-related products. Back on April 6th, Canon shared a simple image to invite fans and press to a live stream event. The teaser image only had the words “Imaging Unleashed”, which is rather vague, and really could be anything. The only thing that leads me to believe the announcement is lens related is the background – iris blades.
Continue reading “Is Canon Announcing a New Cine Lens?”
Rokinon announced their XEEN refresh back in September 2019 with only a few focal lengths. As promised, they’ve added two highly anticipated focal lengths to the XEEN CF line – a 16mm T2.6 and a 35mm T1.5
Continue reading “Rokinon Adds 16, 35 to XEEN CF Line”
Duclos Lenses is pleased to introduce a brand new service – 1:1 Demo Sessions. This service is an answer to our customers asking for personalized lens demonstration and consultation in partnership with the leading motion picture lens manufacturers. Get your hands on the latest, greatest cinema lenses in private, no-pressure environment. Scheduling begins January.
Continue reading “Duclos Lenses Begins 1:1 Demo Sessions”
On Thursday November 7th, Zeiss announced their newest line of lenses: the Zeiss Supreme Prime Radiance. They feature an all new T* blue coating that allows cinematographers to create beautiful, consistent and controlled flares while maintaining high image quality for which Zeiss is known. Other attributes include large-format coverage, high speed, robustness and smooth reliable focus – all in a small, light-weight package.
Continue reading “Zeiss Continues to Shine with New Supreme Prime Radiance”
The new XEEN CF primes feature a brand new compact, lightweight body and the same glass XEEN owners have come to appreciate. Rokinon is a perfect example of how a lens can evolve over time. Their new CF line is the culmination of customer feedback over the course of nearly a decade. Throughout this post, we’ll take a quick look back at the evolution of the Rokinon line and preview their upcoming CF line of cinema primes.
Continue reading “Rokinon Refreshes With New XEEN CF”
Right on the heels of their 150mm Cine Macro announcement, Irix is obviously hard at work filling out their new line of cinema lenses. Newest to the family is the 11mm T4.3. The lens will feature several cine-standard features as well as some clever notable new ones. Let’s take a closer look.
Continue reading “Irix Adds 11mm T4.3 to Cine Line”