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Super Speed footage?

Roberto Lequeux

Roberto Lequeux

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Is there any Zeiss Super Speed footage out there? I seem to be missing it yet these are very popular lenses as far as I understand.

I am curious to see their color, breathing and hear about their focus ring mechanics. And anything else that may be important to know.
 
Not to be annoying for the sake of it but:

Maybe as much as 50% of footage shown on this forum seems to be on Super Speeds.

Have a search and there is loads of examples.

Their characteristics are fairly well discussed as well. Search?

to try and prove I'm not simply annoying by asking you to search I'll give a brief outline:

T1.3 to just over 2 they are a bit creamy
They are pin sharp by 4
They flare more than more modern lens (but are pretty good for most situations)
There are sets available that are stripped and used because of their flaring qualities
They breath a bit more than UP and allot more than MP
They are than colder S4s and very slightly colder than UP.
There is 3 or 4 generations of the Lens and they mechanical differ between generations
They are often a bit battered as they are popular and getting old.
They are nice and small.
They are more telcentric than standards at the wide end.
They are helical driven and the threads can cause focus errors.
I believe they are relatively easy to service.
They used to be cheap then expensive now there price seems stable (for how long?)
They don't make them any more because of some health regulation on??
They have a limited range of focal lenths campared to modern lens series (only 18,25,35,50,85)
The 65mm is rare.
They have a smaller imaging circle than the lens that replaced them.
They are technically trounced in every way by the lens that replaced them (apart form cost/size)
This will make nearly no difference for most!

regards

Michael L
 
No offense taken man and thanks for the long dissertation on them!

On my defense not always do people mention the lenses on the first post, and unless you drive deep into the thread you don't find it. I was hoping people would randomly post links to threads, grabs or footage in this one thread.

What do these mean:
1. They are more telcentric than standards at the wide end.
2. They are helical driven and the threads can cause focus errors. (what kind of errors?)

Again, thanks for the great list man!
 
Jose Poernomo said:
Oops...sorry
this was 10mm Zeiss standard prime mk.II
:(
Click to expand...

lol, you shameless sandal wearing bastard :)

take these off this thread though please, and replace them with super speeds man! I want to see these puppies in action, but super nice wide!!! You should certainly throw them on your thread, for sure. And let us know where to catch the movie when it is done.... and dubbed cause I want to understand :blush:
 
Michael Lindsay said:
They flare more than more modern lens (but are pretty good for most situations)
Click to expand...

Michael forgot to mention that their flare is much nicer than the one S4s, UPs, Standards and MPs produce. Infact, I think it is the nices flare on any lenses I worked with. It's great to play with praticals in this regard.

Shot wide open they are soft but still have a dedicated focus - a bit like if there was light diffusion added - still different though, very nice for portraits.

They don't show the contrast modern lenses deliver.

They don't porthole.

Only the second gen. Mk2s and the Mk3s have full turn focus throw. The half turn models can be an extra challenge for the focus puller when shooting with shallow DOF and distances of 2-10 meters.

I'm biased. I shot in the last 15 years a lot with them and own a set. I love the ability of shooting at T1.3. They are a nice counterpoint to the RedOnes's clean, digital image.

Hans
 
Would that be described as whites being more diffused than blacks? Or otherwise? I am planning to have whites all over the screen for a large part of the project.
 
USlatin said:
Thank you for yet an other info packed, and clear post Hans!

One question: What is portholing?
Click to expand...

Like the round shape of a porthole of a boat portholing of a lens does create a rounded dark vignette due to the fact that the lens does not cover fully the sensors size. Standard Zeiss primes are prone to that - and if you look at their bottom you will see that the back-lens of a SuperSpeed is significantely larger.

Portholing can be seen best when shooting with a clean lens an evenly lit white back-drop.

You have that badly when using 16mm lenses on a 35mm sensor/gate.

Classic vignetting is different to portholing because any lens can vignette by using something in the front to create a vignetting effect or by incident when the filterholder in the mattbox comes in the way of the lens' focal-lenght, e.g. the mattbox is not setup properly.

Hans
 
I thought that portholing was specifically vignetting due to non-telecentric lens design on a digital sensor - ie. light not hitting the sensor perpendicular to the sensor plane.

Can portholing be used to describe any severe vignetting?

(sorry for the threadjack)
 
Here's a commercial i've shot with Superspeeds MkI (or B-Speeds as they call'em), shot 100% wide open (at 1.4 as B-Speeds are 1.4 instead of 1.3).
You can notice the diffuse/creamy effect clearly on the timelapse at the beginning. It's a 720p version but you can still notice it.

http://lumavfx.com/movies/RAMAZZOTTI_30SEC_HD_H264.mov

If you output to SD all goes unnoticeable (also missed focus becomes nearly invisible), as you can see here:

http://lumavfx.com/movies/RAMAZZOTTI_30SEC_SD_H264.mov

cheers!
 
Excellent... thank you so much for posting it. I see what you are talking about now... very pleasing really.

Can I ask you about the exterior of the girl running? What lights did you guys use on her? What was the ISO? All 4k right? You wouldn't happen to have a 1080 version somewhere would you?
 
Here's a music video I shot on a set of Zeiss MII Super Speeds...
http://www.evingrant.com/flicks/sep.mov

And another Music video shot on Zeiss Standard Speeds (T2.1)...
http://www.evingrant.com/flicks/AllINeed.mov

Over all I find the two series to be very similar in look but the standards are much sharper at T2 and T2.8. Of course if you need T1.3 there isn't really a choice. I personally prefer to light up the scene rather than open up to WFO but there is definitely a look (lower contrast, very nice veiling flare) that the Supers excel at.
Beware of the 18mm Super Speed though, that lens is the softest of the bunch and requires a bit of post sharpening to match the other focal lengths, at least when projected theatrically.
 
I am wondering now, is the contrast I see from the Standard Speeds not possible when shooting on Super Speeds? Please correct me if I am wrong. It is so hard to tell on small www sized renders. It might be similar on the shots against the light blue wall which might have easily been shot at an aperture well beyond f2.8 perhaps as small as f5.6 or smaller.

This obviously isn't a big deal budget wise, Standard Speeds are the same exact rental cost but I do need to get to see more footage, understand the looks of the lenses through their range.

An other thing I noticed is that the $300 set of Standards can include a 14mm! Anything wider costs more but there is a 10mm! ($175 all by itself) There is also a 135mm which can be included in the set at no additional cost and may come in handy to pull in the opposing shore a bit closer.

I certainly need to look at more footage of both sets to get to know them better. Thanks for posting the videos Evin!
 
USlatin said:
Can I ask you about the exterior of the girl running? What lights did you guys use on her? What was the ISO? All 4k right? You wouldn't happen to have a 1080 version somewhere would you?
Click to expand...

hello there, the girl running is with just available light, which consisted of street lamps with horrible green/yellow spike, 320 ISO (actually RAW view mode) wide open. This means there's quite a lot of color/image restoration done in Shake. There are some tricks i would like to share when i'll have the time :)
80% of the ad is at 3K as i was shooting 50 fps.

no 1080 version ... could share some stills later?
 
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