Zeiss Digiprimes - Anybody test these on 8K?

[Zack Birlew]

Hey, everybody, while waiting for VFX renders, I went down a cine lens rabbit hole and read up on the Zeiss Digiprime lenses and saw many movie and trailer examples online that used them and most of those works were with old Sony F900 or Viper 2/3" camera setups but there were S16 and S35 expanders made that gave these lenses some life extension but I haven't seen much in terms of recent examples. Does anybody use these currently or have tested them on newer 6K/8K/12K cameras? I know with the adapters they end up being more like F4 lenses, slow set for S16 or S35 but supposedly still very nice F4 lenses. Also, any thoughts on the possibility of newer and brighter expanders being made to help on the aperture drop?

 

[Phil Holland]

To give you an idea of how much of the image circle you would need to "expand" via magnification (expanders), here's Raptor 8K S35 against Broadcast 2/3" sensors:
https://phfx.com/tools/formatCompar...st&modelB=2/3&formatB=UHD+2160p&focalLengths=

Lots of people do use B4 to S35 adapters/expanders, but I can say on solid ground optically there are far better solutions and much faster in terms of light transmission.

Digiprimes were excellent in their time.

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

I did a bit of research on these and found that they have superb image quality. They are very well matched, they have almost zero CA, no breathing, and seem to have zero vignetting. I wonder if they are telecentric?

I've seen two films on which they were used: Collateral and Zodiac.

 

[Zack Birlew]

I know that even stopped down with the adapter they would end up looking more like they do on 2/3 than what we’d expect with native S35 lenses, so DOF control wouldn’t be the draw for these save for going longer with the 70mm and more telephoto B4 options. However, for VFX purposes and many filming styles, a stopped down look wouldn’t be a problem and there are still 2/3” cameras out there, Sony in particular has 4K models and now an 8K model or two.

Even though I wouldn’t opt for a 2/3” camera over S35 or FF or even MFT, with expanders the option for experimentation is there. In the case of MFT, I wouldn’t have considered the format seriously until I saw footage of the MFT Mitakon 0.95 Cine lens set and now I know there is an option in case I need to use MFT, even if it’s just for a scaled down high frame rate mode on my FF camera. The Zeiss Digiprimes seem to fit into that little special category so if they could be useful for something, it’d be interesting to know what’s possible so that’s why I asked.

 

[Nick Morrison]

I feel like every year someone goes down this rabbit hole, haha. For their time, they were great. But odds are a Sigma Cine Prime (or EOS version) will be just as good, and cover FF.