I’ve touched on Zeiss’ success over the past decade, all based on their old Zeiss ZF and ZE line of lenses. The ZF lenses started to become extremely popular with the VDSLR revolution and low point of entry into the world of motion picture acquisition. The ZF lenses were updated and replaced with the ZF.2 line which made using them on modern Nikon cameras easier and more feature rich. Zeiss proceeded to take those same internals and implant them into bigger better housings in the form of Compact Primes, their first new cinema lens in quite a while. The compact primes were good but they had a few problems. The speed from one lens to another was inconsistent and the mounts were fixed. Zeiss addressed both of these issues by limiting the entire range to T2.1 with the exception of the already slower 18mm, 21, and 25mm and introducing their interchangeable mount system. This pleased most users that wanted a versatile set with consistent aperture throughout the set. But where did those faster primes go? Continue reading “Do Your Speeds Need to be Super?”
Tag: CP
Zeiss Teases New Lenses, IBC 2012
Zeiss has been on a roll over the past few years. Their ZF.2 lenses became an overdue success and with those came the Compact Primes CP.2 and the Light Weight Zoom LWZ. They’ve recently announced their short line of high speed CP.2 lenses deemed Super Speeds as well as their new 70-200mm Cine-Zoom and even a range of professional anamorphic primes at NAB this year. Their product line-up just gets better and better with no hint of stopping anytime soon. Continue reading “Zeiss Teases New Lenses, IBC 2012”
New Zeiss CP.2 Macro Duo
Zeiss recently announced the addition of Nikon (official), Sony, and 4/3 mounts for their Compact Prime series. I expected this since it’s a simple mount and the interface was already interchangeable. I also expected new focal lengths which they announced just this morning. The adaptation of existing ZF/ZE 50mm f/2 macro and the 100mm f/2 macro. These are two of my favorite lenses in the series. The 50mm macro has far better image quality than the 50mm f/1,4 and focuses down to about 10 inches (1:2) but it does lose that little bit of speed over the 50mm f/1,4. Meh… And then there is the insane bokeh of the 100mm macro. With a close focus of 18 inches (1:2) the background is thrown so far out of focus, it’s gorgeous. I can’t wait to get my hands on this macro duo. Continue reading “New Zeiss CP.2 Macro Duo”