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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Are these Zeiss lenses any good?

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Frank_L

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I'm talking about Zeiss Compact Primes...

Anyone know? Thanks in advance.
 
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I bought a set and although I don't have PL mounts for them yet, (they're coming), I am really impressed with them. I'll post framegrabs from the red when the pl's come in. With an eos mount the 5d almost works like a real camera in that you can actually pull focus with them. Lots of marks and very sharp.
Stay tuned.
Shane.
 
Do you like the look of the Zeiss DSLR lenses?

Because that's the look of the Compact Primes.

The Compact Primes are improved over the DSLR lenses.

They have better housings... so focus, marks and all that is better.

More blades in the iris, so the already nice bokeh is nicer.

Most importantly there is less breathing. It isn't eliminated, but its much better.

I'd say they are great lenses.

Like the DSLR set the lenses do not have a uniform maximum aperture. Unlike the DSLR set the 50 and 85mm are artificially slowed to t/2.1 (The lenses are actually t/1.5)

Very good lenses, and I am very happy to use them when I can.

If you are using PL only, I recommend trying to get one of the older CP sets as opposed to the new CP.2 set... the older set still has the t/1.5 50 and 85mm lenses.
 
Cp.1's or CP.2's?
 
Ive used both. The mismatch of apertures is a pain, but not the end of the world. They flare purple in the sun (kinda cool), and are very sharp.
 
Would appreciate some screen grabs with the CP.2's if anyone can spare the time please... Thinking of moving into that direction. Thanks in advance
 
A lot of people complained about the irregular maximum apertures. So, with the CP.2's, Zeiss hobbled the 50 and 85 from F1.4 (~T1.5) down to T2.1. I guess that's OK, but seems a bit funny when we know they already have a great design that can do better. I would have much rather seen them re-work the other lenses to give larger apertures and lower measured T-stops. Even if it raised the price on the set a bit. But I can't help feeling that they took a certain direction in order to preserve the markets for the Ultras and Masters.

FWIW, the 18mm Compact Prime is the one most criticized. It's the weakest lens in the set, IMO.
 
CP.2 lenses are simply re-housed Zeiss ZF.2/ZE optics. Everything stays the same optically other than slightly nicer bokeh due to a more round aperture. Breathing is unchanged and can be an issue as they are based on still lens designs. The aperture is restricted in some of the CP.2 such as the 50mm which is a f/1.4 as a ZF photo lens and a T2.1 as a CP.2. The optics are still very nice. You can see samples of the image quality all over the internet. Simply search for Zeiss ZF photos. The CP.2 add a level of usability for motion picture. The larger more robust housings are very cinema friendly with uniform dimensions, focus and iris gears, and large expanded focus marks. A great option for budget shooting and an even greater, cheaper option in the form of ZF.2 with a few modifications.
 
Optically speaking when lens design go faster than f/2.8 could be posssible of dropping deeper in a hole of many lens

lateral aberrations like a CA (chromatic aberration), fringing, ghosting, coma, diverse flare aberrations, losing sharpness, etc.

Btw, one of my favorite lenses is Carl Zeiss C Biogon 35mm f/2.8 ZM (made for Leica M mount) that has very less lateral lens aberrations.

This gorgeous little lens is FF35mm, sharp, contrasty throughout whole range and gives you less possible headache than many other lenses especially in available and low light shooting.

zeiss_c_biogon35mm_01.jpg

Shot on GH2 with Carl Zeiss C Biogon 35mm f/2.8 ZM @ wide open f/2.8, ISO 1600, 1/50,
image intentionally desaturated and additional Kodak stock film grain look added in the post-processing.
 
Matthew Duclos said:
CP.2 lenses are simply re-housed Zeiss ZF.2/ZE optics. Everything stays the same optically other than slightly nicer bokeh due to a more round aperture. Breathing is unchanged and can be an issue as they are based on still lens designs. The aperture is restricted in some of the CP.2 such as the 50mm which is a f/1.4 as a ZF photo lens and a T2.1 as a CP.2. The optics are still very nice. You can see samples of the image quality all over the internet. Simply search for Zeiss ZF photos. The CP.2 add a level of usability for motion picture. The larger more robust housings are very cinema friendly with uniform dimensions, focus and iris gears, and large expanded focus marks. A great option for budget shooting and an even greater, cheaper option in the form of ZF.2 with a few modifications.
Click to expand...

Wait ... no improvements to breathing?

Were there improvements between the Zeiss ZF and the Zeiss ZF.2 ? Because the CP.2 lenses I compared to the Zeiss ZFs I too often use had less breathing. Especially the 50mm.

Could that just be set to set variance?
 
I haven't used the CP.2's but my guess would be the aperture was changed on the 50 and the 85 because they were not sharp enough wide open to justify the CP versions' quadrupled price. Hell, I don't think they were sharp enough to justify the ZF versions' price...

That 21 2.8 though...oh man...
 
Btw, Cooke locked new Panchros with "conservative" speed @ T2.8 but not without the reason that I already mentioned above.
 
Matthew Duclos said:
CP.2 lenses are simply re-housed Zeiss ZF.2/ZE optics. Everything stays the same optically other than slightly nicer bokeh due to a more round aperture. Breathing is unchanged and can be an issue as they are based on still lens designs. The aperture is restricted in some of the CP.2 such as the 50mm which is a f/1.4 as a ZF photo lens and a T2.1 as a CP.2. The optics are still very nice. You can see samples of the image quality all over the internet. Simply search for Zeiss ZF photos. The CP.2 add a level of usability for motion picture. The larger more robust housings are very cinema friendly with uniform dimensions, focus and iris gears, and large expanded focus marks. A great option for budget shooting and an even greater, cheaper option in the form of ZF.2 with a few modifications.
Click to expand...

i'm not sure about this.
I had a set of CP2s and a set of ZFs in my hands this weekend. I did a sharpness and a "blur" test up against my canon 50 1.2 and my canon 85 1.2 (im a stills photographer, and these are my most used lenses). obviously i only tested the faster lenses at 1.2 and 1.4.


my conclusions after testing was this-
at 1.2, the canon 1.2 was significantly sharper than the ZF at 1.4. The canon was even better at 1.4. I got the same result, the canon 85mm 1.2 was significantly sharper than the zfs.
The sharpness was so obvious that i could "see" the difference when using live view at 10x.

heres 100% crops of the shots-

open-sharpness.jpg



dont ask me why the camera data says "50mm" on the zf rather than "85mm", it definately was a 85mm lens.

open-sharpness85.jpg



But the CP2s had quite a different result. Ill post these pics if any one is interested.
- the 50mm CP2 was very similar to the sharpness of the canon, but the canon had the edge.
But the 85mm CP2 was quite a bit sharper than the canon at f2.0.

So my conclusions are the CP2s are far sharper than the zfs i tried. They are very slow, and I didnt like the "blur" they had. a weak amount of blur and kind of unpleasant blur- reminded me of the HC hasselblad lenses have, like a photoshop gaussian blur.

They are definitely somehow a different design than the ZFs.

paul
 
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In a ZF there are actually 2 x 50mm lenses available. The faster yet cheaper f/1.4 is pretty crappy, especially wide open, but the f/2.0 macro is one of the sharpest lenses I've ever used. Absolutely gorgeous. Worth considering when making comparisons.
 
The CP.2 are great lenses, and when stopped down can intercut with UP's. They would not perform well at 1.4 at all probably why they set them at 2.1. The ZF's have similar CA and Fringing as Supers wide open at 1.4. I have ZF's, CP.2's and UP. Classic zeiss covering all budgets.
 
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