Today Zeiss announced pricing for their new Compact Prime Series 2 lenses. With mount interchangeability between PL, EF and F, these lenses are not only more versatile, but also the price has been significantly reduced, making them even more affordable. See the new pricing information for the CP.2 lenses here. You can also place a deposit on two of the lens sets on our CineStore. Of course, to truly appreciate the lenses, you have to see them in action…

A few months ago, Zeiss approached us to do some testing of the Compact Prime lenses, and we jumped at the chance to put them through their paces. After considering all the scenarios to test them under, we decided the best way to evaluate them was in the hands of a real cinematographer. So we approached DP John Inwood and asked him if he would  shoot a short film with the Compact Primes. John and I worked together and created the following short, The Bicycle. Watch and enjoy the film, and then check out the two-part Behind the Scenes interview with John.

…continue reading Testing Zeiss Compact Primes on “The Bicycle”

Why change the mount on the camera when you can change the mount on the lens? Zeiss will soon ship a version of their Compact Primes in Canon EF mount for EOS cameras such as the Canon 5D Mark II. The Zeiss Compact Primes are designed to cover the full 24mm x 36mm image area of the stills format, and these new lenses will come with the facility to swap out the mount to PL (and who knows, maybe something else in the future?). This makes the Compact Primes the “Everything Lens Set” for use on all popular cameras. These lenses are inexpensive and lightweight, yet built to professional cine standards with integrated gearing and large scales. Stills format lenses often have weak mechanics, nearly-useless focus scales, servo drives with “infinity spin” focus dials, image shift and breathing in the focus, and axial-expansion that hampers use of accessories such as matteboxes & follow focuses. All of these issues are removed with the new Zeiss Compact Prime Series II lenses. Above is a photo of a prototype at the Zeiss factory and the lenses will debut at NAB in April (come visit our booth #C8740).

Zeiss has just recently launched two new ZE lenses, an 18mm T3,5 and 21mm T2,8. For those of you unfamiliar with Zeiss SLR lenses, please allow me explain a bit.  Zeiss makes a range of beautiful full frame SLR lenses and they come in a variety of mounts. They break down like this -  F bayonet (ZF), EF bayonet (ZE), K bayonet (ZK) and the traditional M42 screw threads (ZS). So these new ZE lenses are Canon EF mount and work fantastically on the Canon 5D Mark II and the new Canon 7D. I am especially fond of the ZE lenses because they are designed for manual focus control and have very little breathing. This is a real benefit for anyone shooting video on an SLR. With a geared ring they can easily be adjusted to work with a follow focus, and the focus ring stops in both direction for easier pulls. The 18mm and 21mm look great and will be especially nice on the Canon 7D which has a crop (APS-C sized) sensor.