Zeiss ZF lens question

[Christopher McKay]

I have been through a number of threads regarding the Zeiss ZF lenses - and I have found many who state (as Zeiss does) that they colour-match each other quite well. I have also found a few people whose posts dispute that claim. Recently, I came across this example:

http://www.cinevate.com/website/index.php/cinevatevideouniversity (scroll down to: "The Brevis MP.1 Zeiss Lens Review and EX1 FIX Test Footage" to watch...

In this video it seems clear that not all of the ZF lenses they were using colour-match very well at all. I realize this is an older test, and the test was done outdoors which of course skews the results greatly - but the reviewer specifically mentions that when they put on the 35mm/2.0 it seemed notably cooler to them (and this happened though they had their white balance "locked down"). I believe I see some colour differences with one or two of the other lenses too - though as I have mentioned judging colour from an outdoor test isn't the greatest.... I'm curious as to whether or not that means they were using a bad copy of the 35mm/2.0 lens, or if perhaps this is a trend with these lenses that can be corroborated by anyone else's experience with them.... Just wondering. Thanks in advance,

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Well, the Zeiss ZF lenses are about the nicest lenses that you can get near their price point for film style work. They also have the best color match anywhere near their price point. The mismatch in that video is a closer match than you can typically get with Canon or Nikon primes.

That isn't to say its perfect. Far from it.

Doing better than Zeiss prime SLR lenses for color match will cost you quite a bit of money. It turns out this color matching is pretty hard to acheive, and expensive.

If you step up to Zeiss Compact Primes, those are PL mount lenses that use the same glass as the Zeiss ZF. Zeiss does try and color match compact prime sets.

There is a key word though, they try and match SETS. If you buy one lens at a time then they are just as likely to match as the Zeiss ZF glass. So better than average, but not really a match.

You too can do what Zeiss does when trying to match the compact prime glass. Just buy lots of lenses, compare the color and pick your best match. Then sell all your spare lenses.

Of course, you'll still be missing the extra testing and more careful manufacture Zeiss does when the factory is making compact primes instead of Zeiss SLR lenses.

Or, you could just buy some compact primes. Each lens in the compact prime sets run around $4600 USD. Each. A set of 4 will run about $16000, a set of 7 will run about $26000.

All that said, compact primes are not anywhere near perfectly matched. You could get better matched lens sets.

Cooke and Zeiss make much nicer lenses, and one of their features is a better color match. Of course that's a lot of money. Like a case of lenses or a nice house lots of money.

 

[Matthew Duclos]

I've seen more ZF lenses than I care to admit and I've seen VERY minor color differences. Nothing that one would notice in a controlled lighting situation.
Long running companies such as Zeiss, Angenieux and Cooke put a lot of time and research into color matching their cine-lenses. This isn't as common in still photo lenses, but the ZF series are still much higher quality and match better than most any other series of still photo lenses.

 

[Dennis Wood]

Christopher, I'm the reviewer you referred to

What we found basically is that the 28m, 50, 85 and 100mm glass were very similar in terms of very high contrast and organic color. The 35mm was a bit different in our eyes in terms of being cooler.

I've not retested the lens, nor have we asked our pals at Zeiss about that lens...however all the lenses in this review were sent directly from Zeiss for evaluation as we were not selling them at the time. Our test is what convinced us we should carry the glass for our customers. If there's interest we could grab another 35mm and check on a vectorscope using our DSC AMBI system. That's about as objective as it gets.

 

[Steve Das]

...
Or, you could just buy some compact primes. Each lens in the compact prime sets run around $4600 USD. Each. A set of 4 will run about $16000, a set of 7 will run about $26000...

The compact primes look pretty in the ads but for close to $20,000
it seems like better off with Red primes or going down
to the Zeiss ZF still lenses to save money.

Be interesting to see what Red eventually offers for FF35 since they
seem to be pretty active in coming out with new lenses lately with
the new zoom and anamorphics.

 

[jimhare]

I've owned the 28, 35, 50 f/2 macro and 85 for 13 months and I'm over the moon with every aspect. They match well, look great, and are nice and fast. The only thing I would consider replacing them with are the RRPs, but will end up spending an additional $14k to do so...

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

Dennis, did you use one of those color temperature light meters to account for changes from fast moving clouds?

I hope you do get to test them again.

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

The compact primes look pretty in the ads but for close to $20,000
it seems like better off with Red primes or going down
to the Zeiss ZF still lenses to save money.

Be interesting to see what Red eventually offers for FF35 since they
seem to be pretty active in coming out with new lenses lately with
the new zoom and anamorphics.

If literally all you are interested in is the glass, then I definitely recommend the Duclos Zeiss ZF lenses. They install a ring and "de-click" the iris ring. For cinema work they are much nicer than the stock ZF lenses.

The Compact Primes have some other advantages.

They are all the same length.
They have built in focus and aperture rings, and as that implies you can actually pull aperture on those lenses.
They all have the same filter size.
They have much reduced breathing throughout the focus range.

You are definitely getting your money's worth.

Also, when compared to the RPP lenses, Zeiss offers 7 lenses, while RED is currently offering 6. Comparing prices, the 5 lens Compact Prime set is $15000 vs $19000 for the 5 lens RPP set.

I think the RED's have slightly worse color match than the Zeiss. Countering that, the RED's have a uniform t/1.8 through most of the range, which more than makes up for things. Frankly I think its a hard choice.

I'd really love to do a side by side of the RPP's and Compact Primes before making a buying decision. No hurry on that though- because I don't expect I'll be able to buy too soon.

 

[Dennis Wood]

Roberto, the ZF lenses are all being phased out and replaced with ZF.2 versions. Once our demo kit arrives I'll test them all using our AMBI2 system. We'll output a vectorscope for each lens tested on our DSC labs combi chart as well as outdoor shots. I suspect a few folks here will find the review interesting. With the number of plays on our previous review, we'll be sure to do more comparision tests with other glass this time too.

 

[Philip Allister Anderson]

If you are looking for exact color matching I doubt you are going to find it. From what I know rental houses look long and hard to find sets that are close. I have seen two 50mm Ultra Primes with distinctly different contrast and color when viewed side by side. The nice thing about raw is the ease at which this can be adjusted and corrected. Maybe it's my experience with shooting DSLR's but I typically shoot a clip of a grey card for setups so I can easily correct for the color anomolies in lenses later. Shooting Raw means you are probably going to be coloring every clip in post anyway.