Lens Comparison - Opinions Wanted

[Kyle Presley]

OK,
I plan to buy the FF35 scarlet after they come out. It'll probably take a while for me to save enough money to buy it, but after I graduate, I will be making pretty good money. That said, I only want to put the best glass on the front. I don't care so much about autofocus and auto exposure as the picture itself, so I don't mind using older lenses.

Traditionally, I am a Nikon man. That's all I've ever really used, except some really old Canon glass from the 70s and 80s that I wasn't too keen on. I want glass that's fast and sharp wide open, while still maintaining good contrast and color clarity and little to no chromatic aberration. I particularly want a fast (F/1.4 or F/1.8) 85mm for portraiture.

Brands I am considering:
Nikon
Canon
Zeiss
Leica

I have little experience outside of modern and classic Nikon lenses. Are old Nikon AI lenses going to give me the performance I want? That's where I am leaning... I love the look of old AI Nikkors, but have no idea how they will hold up at 6K resolution. Thoughts and experiences?

 

[Leaf Baimbridge]

Seeing as the final look of an image has a lot to do with personal preference, I would recommend renting a variety of lenses to do comparison tests to see which lenses suit your taste before making any purchases.

 

[Kyle Presley]

I really like the bokeh rendition on the older Nikon AI lenses, but a lot of them aren't coated. They're sharp, but not multicoated. Zeiss lenses to me are sharp and have great contrast throughout the aperture range, but many don't go wider than F/2 or so. Leica looks great, but it's very expensive and I don'tthink it comes in Nikon or Canon mount without special modification (I may be mistaken here). It looks like the best of the best, but I can't see spending $6000 on one lens when there are comparable lenses from Nikon and zeiss. As for Canon, I have very little experience with modern Canon lenses. I don't think they have an aperture ring, and I would want one of those.

 

[Michael Mayda]

The Nikon 85mm f/1.4 of any vintage is an excellent lens. There have been several posts about it here. I will stay with S35 and my Zeiss T/1.4 kit for the foreseeable future, however. I do use the 14mm and 30mm f/2.8 Nikkors on my Red when I have to go to those farther ranges.

 

[Liam Hall]

Nikon AI will work just fine, but get in fast as prices are going up!

Both the 50mm and 80mm f/1.4 are excellent but a cheaper option for portraiture might be the 105mm f/2.5 AI or the 135mm f/2.8 AI.

 

[Kyle Presley]

What about Leica glass makes it supposedly superior?

 

[Liam Hall]

What about Leica glass makes it supposedly superior?

If you know where to get a LeicaM to NikonF adapter...

 

[pietro jona]

All the brands you named produce great lenses. But.
Playing with my 10-22 and 28-70 Canons, that I thought would be great for a s35, I realized that manual focusing while shooting would really be a pain, at least for me. Not to talk about the hyper fast lenses like the 85 f1.2 and so on.. Most of the lenses produced for the modern SLRs are autofocus and have poor manual control in my opinion.
I remember some Zeiss Yashica-Contax lenses I had a while ago, 25, 50 and 135. Those were heavy peaces of metal with a great feeling and a very fluid focus. If I had to buy a Scarlet tomorrow i think I'l start looking for some old manual focus lenses, be it Nikkors, Leicas or Zeiss.

 

[Jerrod Cordell]

I'm not really too keen on lenses, but I do have to say that by looking at the footage on these forums, it seems like my favorite footage has come from Zeiss lenses.

What might be a good idea would be to rent lenses from each brand. I rented some Zeiss Ultra-Primes for $300 a day for a commercial shoot where I rented a Red One. I know it might be a bit steep, but it might help you out in the long run.