Zeiss Otus vs Master Prime

[Nick Morrison]

I guess a large difference between the Otus and the Master prime really is that the Master Prime are a fully realised family of lenses, with uniform sizes, weights (for the main part), focus and iris locations and stops - there's 12 - 150mm all T1.3, the Otus I have seen rated at T1.6/T1.7. It is still a stunning lens by all accounts but it is one lens, not a total range.

Also, how is breathing with the Otus?

True - but OTUS covers full frame/vista vision. For s35, there's no doubt....Master Primes are world class.

But I'm sure once Zeiss gets around to filling out the OTUS line (a 24 1.4 will help)...and then puts them in cinema housings (ie CP3s)...I'm sure they will establish a very unique market...especially with Weapon VV about to be released.

 

[JayEmm]

I guess that's the question really, will Zeiss turn this into a full line-up? According to them it has taken three years to design and build this one lens. I think most productions seriously shooting Vistavision are going to go with either established FF stills glass on the cheaper end (eg. Compact Primes) or probably stuff like Panavision's 70 lenses on the high end.

I would love them to do a set of CP3s with uniform stops, but I don't see it happening. They'd probably wind up being more expensive than Ultra Primes

 

[Jiri Vrozina]

True - but OTUS covers full frame/vista vision. For s35, there's no doubt....Master Primes are world class.

But I'm sure once Zeiss gets around to filling out the OTUS line (a 24 1.4 will help)...and then puts them in cinema housings (ie CP3s)...I'm sure they will establish a very unique market...especially with Weapon VV about to be released.

New Otus will be legendary 21mm f1.4 ;-)

 

[Stacey Spears]

I love my Otus lenses too. I had the Duclos cine-mod done on both, which I highly recommend. I did get the Canon EF version, so they can't declick the IRIS like that can on the Nikon version.

The 85mm has less CA than the 55mm. The 85mm is the one I primarily wanted for documentary interviews. I am really hoping they cover the 8k sensor. At least the UHD portion, which is 7680x4320 and has a 44.06mm image circle vs. 46.31mm image circle at the full 8192x4320.

Here is another review of the Otus 85mm f/1.4. http://www.mattgranger.com/otus85mm I think the text examples really show off the low CA and the contrast of the lens.

 

[Phil Holland]

I love my Otus lenses too. I had the Duclos cine-mod done on both, which I highly recommend. I did get the Canon EF version, so they can't declick the IRIS like that can on the Nikon version.

The 85mm has less CA than the 55mm. The 85mm is the one I primarily wanted for documentary interviews. I am really hoping they cover the 8k sensor. At least the UHD portion, which is 7680x4320 and has a 44.06mm image circle vs. 46.31mm image circle at the full 8192x4320.

Here is another review of the Otus 85mm f/1.4. http://www.mattgranger.com/otus85mm I think the text examples really show off the low CA and the contrast of the lens.

I'm nearly 100% confident the Otus 55mm and 85mm will happily cover 8K FF btw. Actually I think many are going to be pleasantly surprised that many of the FF35 lenses cover. As for the upcoming wide, it's not clear yet, but I'll know shortly.

New Otus will be legendary 21mm f1.4 ;-)

Nope.

 

[Nick Morrison]

I guess that's the question really, will Zeiss turn this into a full line-up? According to them it has taken three years to design and build this one lens. I think most productions seriously shooting Vistavision are going to go with either established FF stills glass on the cheaper end (eg. Compact Primes) or probably stuff like Panavision's 70 lenses on the high end.

I would love them to do a set of CP3s with uniform stops, but I don't see it happening. They'd probably wind up being more expensive than Ultra Primes

True, but the FOV even at 24mm on VistaVision is VERY WIDE. Approx 15/16mm on s35. So even a OTUS line of 24/35/55/85 at 1.4 would be very effective.

Add an 18mm at T2, and they'd be set. Esp with a 135 at T2.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Nope.

Next one is a 24/25 1.4 yes?

 

[Phil Holland]

FOV

The way I've rationalized my way of shooting between VistaVision/FF35 and S35/APS-C-ish sensors comes down to practical shooting.

For the most part in the world of narrative S35 shooting a standard lens set is about 18, 25, 35, 50, 75, and 100mm.

This for me translated into a working method of 24/25, 35, 50, 75/85, 100, and 135mm to the larger formats of VistaVision and FF35 shooting.

The interesting bit here is I've found generally speaking most standard shooting scenarios make do with essentially two wides, one normal-ish, and three telephoto lengths. This mostly came from working on narrative feature sets and examining the shots and boards. Some make do with a 5 lens set and chop off the longest length, especially those who top out at 85mm. In fact some just make the jump from 85mm to 135mm.

That said my FF35 kit goes from 14-600mm with some specialty glass in there (fisheyes, macros, etc.) with most of my general shooting in the 21-200mm range. And I've been putting together "more" options in terms of looks and glass types. Mostly ranging from vintage through modern designs.

The Otus primes will play a role here once I'm done with my little computer project and the next two shoots. We'll have 3 lengths "this year" (fingers crossed) for this larger format. A wide, a normal, and a telephoto.

All that crazy stuff said, there's a million ways to shoot. You can shoot a whole film on either of these formats with a 35mm or you can explore some visual language options through the use of different focal lengths. I typically prefer the multi-length approach overall. If you remember that little "The World After" short I did there was 14-300mm glass used in that 4 minute short. I used specific lengths for wides, mediums, closeups, and extreme closeups. Though i went weird and opened that with an extreme wide shot at 300mm to emphasize the heat distortion in the desert which helped sell the feel of the post apocalyptic wasteland.

 

[Nick Morrison]

The way I've rationalized my way of shooting between VistaVision/FF35 and S35/APS-C-ish sensors comes down to practical shooting.

For the most part in the world of narrative S35 shooting a standard lens set is about 18, 25, 35, 50, 75, and 100mm.

This for me translated into a working method of 24/25, 35, 50, 75/85, 100, and 135mm to the larger formats of VistaVision and FF35 shooting.

The interesting bit here is I've found generally speaking most standard shooting scenarios make do with essentially two wides, one normal-ish, and three telephoto lengths. This mostly came from working on narrative feature sets and examining the shots and boards. Some make do with a 5 lens set and chop off the longest length, especially those who top out at 85mm. In fact some just make the jump from 85mm to 135mm.

That said my FF35 kit goes from 14-600mm with some specialty glass in there (fisheyes, macros, etc.) with most of my general shooting in the 21-200mm range. And I've been putting together "more" options in terms of looks and glass types. Mostly ranging from vintage through modern designs.

The Otus primes will play a role here once I'm done with my little computer project and the next two shoots. We'll have 3 lengths "this year" (fingers crossed) for this larger format. A wide, a normal, and a telephoto.

All that crazy stuff said, there's a million ways to shoot. You can shoot a whole film on either of these formats with a 35mm or you can explore some visual language options through the use of different focal lengths. I typically prefer the multi-length approach overall. If you remember that little "The World After" short I did there was 14-300mm glass used in that 4 minute short. I used specific lengths for wides, mediums, closeups, and extreme closeups. Though i went weird and opened that with an extreme wide shot at 300mm to emphasize the heat distortion in the desert which helped sell the feel of the post apocalyptic wasteland.

Totally agree! I think the VV lens set will be exacly that - 24 to 135.

That said, I also 100% agree about variety. I shoot broadcast promo, and the 18/25/35/50/85 classic prime set is often too limiting, grammatically. We often need longer (100/135/180). And wider (16 fisheye, 7.5 fisheye, 11-16). And more variety (fisheyes, tilt shifts, other weird stuff).

I think as content is getting MORE consumed across MORE platforms, there's MORE demand for diverse styles.

Narrative will often gravitate to FOV's that traditionally work best, but even here we're starting to see more experimentation.

But across smaller/shorter platforms/mediums, I expect to see MUCH MORE experimentation and acceptance of unusual FOV's and styles. At the very least as a means of differentiating from what's come before - out with the old, in with the new, as they say!

 

[Michael Hastings]

My question is how well does the old Contax Yashica Zeiss 1.4 85mm compare to the Otus?

 

[Phil Holland]

My question is how well does the old Contax Yashica Zeiss 1.4 85mm compare to the Otus?

Well they are the same focal length, so there's that.

However, when Zeiss set out on this Otus project back in 2010 they only had one target and that was "the best performance lens". Reasonably speaking that is. Otus primes are contrasty and have pretty much industry leading contained chromatic aberrations, especially wide open. They also won't flare as much. I'd say those would be the major things you'd notice. Resolving power too. There's a lot going on in the Otus primes. Aspherical elements, new coatings, special partial dispersion glass (which is one of the reasons the in and out of focus edge is so "pure"), no image shift while focusing, etc...

They've aimed pretty damn high and created something you can easily shoot with wide open without any true concerns of that effecting general image quality. The out of focus bokeh is rather lovely as well. The Otus lacks any sort of "vintage" look however. If you are trying to produce really nice contrasty, colorful, and sharp images that's what the Otus primes do.

 

[Nick Morrison]

My question is how well does the old Contax Yashica Zeiss 1.4 85mm compare to the Otus?

The MTF's show the OTUS is much sharper wide open. I imagine the OTUS is also much contrastier.

That said, Christopher Probst has mentioned Dragon get's outresolved at 100lp/mm. Which is approx as sharp as Super Speeds wide open.

So though "percieved" sharpness may exist, I think a dirty secret on Dragon is at a certain point...sharpness is less important than on other (lower resolution) sensors/cameras, as Dragon gets outresolved quite quickly.

In the end, I think tonality, look and texture are often equally important (which perhaps explains why
"organic" glass like Super Speeds, Contax, Leica R, etc are becoming popular on RED).

I think this ALSO helps explain what many people are doing INSTINCTIVELY: shooting sharper on Alexa (ie Ultraprimes/Master Primes).

And softer on Dragon: wide open, Super Speeds, more "organic" glass, etc.

 

[Phil Holland]

Glass with pleasing "character" will never die

 

[Eric Z]

Would it be possible that Zeiss come out with a a 55-85mm f/1.4 Compact Zoom with AF and VR?
Would be pretty large and heavy, yes, but very desirable, in my opinion.

 

[Alex Bros]

Someone quite a bit nerdier than I once explained to me that lenses for motion and lenses for stills are designed with very different needs in mind.
For motion it's more important to keep things like CA and fringing down,
Where with stills sharpness is more important.

This makes a lot of sense,; with a still you're looking at one frame for extended periods of time and it better be sharp.
With motion picture, you're not dealing with a fraction of a moment suspended in time forever, you're dealing with numerous fleeting moments. So things aren't as sharp anyway (on a frame by frame basis: 1/48 vs 1/60 and higher when talking about "standard" shutter speeds) but what's more important are things like bokeh, flaring/contrast retention, maintaining colour/look throughout varying circumstances (camera movement, talent walking through mixed light sources, focus/iris pulls etc)...

Full frame coverage is probably the only leg up that the Otus line has on Master Primes. Maybe sharpness by a bit, in specific situations.. but i wouldn't care.
I mean think about it, it's not random that one costs $5k and the other costs $20k.

 

[Timothy Jones]

Here's a pretty nice example or Zeiss Otus and Sigma 18-35 and Art 35 together.
I found this on James Miller's Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/122633176

Thanks,
Tim

 

[Maik Müller]

Would it be possible that Zeiss come out with a a 55-85mm f/1.4 Compact Zoom with AF and VR?
Would be pretty large and heavy, yes, but very desirable, in my opinion.

A 1.4 zoom? And Zeiss glass with AF and VR for something else than Sony? What are you smoking.

In general i doubt they have Otus Zooms on their roadmap, but i would love to see such lenses after a few more primes.

 

[JayEmm]

I get the suspicion that if an Otus Prime is $4,000 for relatively "ordinary" lenses (by which I mean a 50mm 1.4 is not exactly an unusual lens), the cost of a zoom which performs even remotely as good would probably be prohibitive - also probably too heavy for stills guys (wildlife guys are used to heavy lenses, but you can't get away with it for street photography)

 

[Doug Laurent]

My bet for the 2015 Otus release is on an odd, unexpected wide angle mm number. Probably somewhere around 25-32mm. In 2016 and 2017 i see a better 18mm and something around 35-40mm, until then the Sigma 24/1.4 and 35/1.4 are quite good alternatives. The CP2/ photo lenses in the range of 15 and 21mm are already quite good, and the 50 and 100mm macros plus the 135mm very good. Don't necessarily need Otus replacements there. I had the honour to test the first two Otus before they were announced and one test photo wide open against a flat wall that did show unmatched sharp corners did convince me. So I was among the first who did order and receive the 55 and 85, and i will blindly order the third one as well. Even Canon employees say they are a good match for the coming 5Ds. It's clear that the Otus series hardly will lose value, so all in all they are not even expensive! Just not sure if Zeiss will ever release them in Cinema housings, as it would be a major inhouse competition.

 

[Michael Tiemann]

The MTF's show the OTUS is much sharper wide open. I imagine the OTUS is also much contrastier.

That said, Christopher Probst has mentioned Dragon get's outresolved at 100lp/mm. Which is approx as sharp as Super Speeds wide open.

So though "percieved" sharpness may exist, I think a dirty secret on Dragon is at a certain point...sharpness is less important than on other (lower resolution) sensors/cameras, as Dragon gets outresolved quite quickly.

Don't forget that there's a big difference between resolving 100 lp/mm and a nice, contrasty, high-MTF resolution of 100 lp/mm. Do Super Speeds resolve 100 lp/mm at an MTF of 30%? 50%? 70%? or 90%? Those are the really important numbers.