New Movie Studio/Rental Shop - What lenses for 2025?

[Zack Birlew]

Hey, everybody, so I've been looking around at additional lens options as, for those who don't know, we have a film studio development for Las Vegas we are trying to get off the ground, www.BabsDoStudios.com, and even though we have some nice options picked out for our business plan, being a big lens nerd, I've been looking at additional options with everything from vintage cinema lenses to modern options and newly rehoused still photography lens options and I'm curious about what the thoughts are for filmmakers today?

There are so many modern options that it almost becomes a question of whether we should be looking at vintage options at all but, then again, even recent Hollywood productions have been delving back into vintage, still rehoused lenses, and detuned optic editions of lenses so maybe we do need a bigger vintage mix? With newer options as well there's been a lot of excitement and then some serious drop off in discussions, like DZOFilm Catta zooms, SLR Magic anamorphics and primes, Sirui zooms and primes, Schneider Xenons, Fujinon zooms, Rokinon Xeen, Canon CN-E, etc. so what happened to these options? More specialty and anamorphic options are there to think about as well such as P+S Technik Technovision and Evolution anamorphics, Servicevision Scorpio anamorphics, Elite anamorphics, Vantage Hawk, the Gecko Cam Genesis series, and Xelmus Apollo anamorphics.

For vintage options and recent vintage options, there's plenty of known and obscure options to pick like Zeiss standard and super speeds, Cooke Speed Panchros, Lomo spherical and anamorphics, Kowas, Ultranons, Super Baltars, Todd AO, Cineovision, Sony Cinealtas, RED Pro Primes, older Angenieuxs, and, of course, various older still lens rehousing developments.

The usual picks of modern Zeiss lenses, Cooke S/i, Arri Signature Primes, Angenieux, Leica, Canon Sumire, Tokina Vista, Sigma Art, Atlas Orion, Laowa, and now more entries from Sony and other mirrorless cine options are the norm and expected for us to include. However, even some usual options like Angenieux zooms and Canon's various cine zooms don't seem to be used by anybody anymore, if at all, especially Canon's zooms, so what's the deal with these modern PL zooms? Even the 2x anamorphic Angenieux zooms I haven't heard anything about when those should be ideal for modern anamorphic productions? New vintage editions of lenses are also a factor, what's the deal? Anybody use them regularly or is it just as well to get a vintage set?

Now with medium format lenses to consider and the new lenses that have been announced already like the Series 65 from Ancient Optics and Ironglass Adapters' Soviet Medium Format set, we'll have to consider those along with Hasselblad and other medium format stills lenses to go with the Blackmagic Cine 17K cameras we will be offering.

Of course this is all without delving into the world of 16mm and Micro Four Thirds which can get a little crazy but we would clearly stick to the usual brands unless some really exciting camera options come to light for either format.

Granted, looking at camera tests, many are in HD with sometimes not the best HD cameras or they're done in S35 but not Full Frame, so when trying to evaluate certain vintage options it's hard to tell what they would look like on a 4K camera let alone an 8K or 12K camera.

So, as we're going into 2025 in a few months, more lens options are always coming but with all of these options and questions, what's the word across the filmmaking communities? Personally, I've seen both bad and good test results from Lomos and Kowas and even examples of some of the newer lenses like Zeiss Supremes and Canon Sumires don't look quite right to my eye compared to previous series lenses but then I read about how people love them so it's clearly a preference to keep in mind as we want to offer the most options for productions. What are your thoughts? Any notable experiences or stories with particular lenses? Any experiences with obscure lenses to think about even if they're stills lenses that haven't been rehoused yet (if ever)? Any advice and insights would be helpful, there's a lot of cool looking stuff out there but if there are any lemons or brands we should avoid it would be very useful to know.

 

[M Harvey]

There are indeed an incredible number of lens options available just at the moment—have we reached “peak lens”? I enjoy the bounty, but wonder how sustainable it is for small rental houses to continue to buy $50-100k sets of rehoused stills lenses—outside of some specialists, where does the business come from?

In any event, I think surveying the community here is a good start. I’d also try to focus specifically on your area and get a good sense of what type of production you will service and what their needs are. You may find that your niche has no interest in the more funky vintage stuff, in which case post-2000s Arri, Zeiss, Cooke and Fujinon zooms are probably winners. For that matter, what does your niche typically spend on a rental order? It may be that Tokina and/or Sigma are a better fit, or even the new mirrorless sets from Cooke and Zeiss. For that matter, I think it probably makes sense for a lot of places to stock Sony and/or Canon mirrorless.

I’m no expert on running a business or rentals specifically, but I do sort of doubt that there’s a lot of interest in some of the newer sets you mentioned from Sirui or Rokinon or Schneider or Sony CineAlta. Maybe you have one or two sets like this for projects that need very inexpensive options, but I see them as “in-house” lenses for owner-operators, so you may find yourself trying to convince people to rent them, despite the desirable qualities. And a number of those may not be a good fit for a rental business that needs to be able to maintain lenses with in-house repairs and replacement parts.

 

[Zack Birlew]

That's what is both difficult and exciting about Las Vegas and the state of Nevada, there are no film studios and what there is are a bunch of small shops, production companies, and rental houses, enough to do something bigger than most areas in the country but more or less a "near zero" infrastructure situation. By comparison, in Northern California where we produced our current feature film, "The Diner"(working title), that really was a whole DIY situation and according to the SAG office at the time, we were the only production in Northern California besides a commercial shoot near Roseville. So we absolutely know what to build from based on that experience because we needed so much and had to improvise and do without what would be considered normal and routine to the Hollywood area.

As for equipment, looking around we see the usual suspects, Arri Signature Primes, Tokina Vistas, Sigma Arts, and you're right, Canon EF, Sony G, and Nikon F/Z lenses are in the mix as well. Also, again, you're right, with the newer sets like DZO Vespids, which are another popular choice often talked about now, we want to have some of those in stock because Babs Do Studios will have enough facilities and equipment to support medium and small budget productions as well so we need to have a range of popular stuff and some solid vintage or still lens stuff for those projects to afford. Needless to say, the Zeiss Nano Primes and Cooke SP3's are on our list already for this very reason.