FS7: Primes

I liken it to playing the guitar. When I was 1 year in I just wanted to know how much distortion I could wrangle out of a pedal. When I was 5years in I wanted to play as fast as I could play.

Now 20-odd years in, I hear different things in a guitar tone. I can tell the type of guitar. The type of pickups. The type of amp. Often the type of pedals. I don't just listen to the note, but also to the attack of it and the falloff of sutain...

However many years into my career in production I am now, I can see a hell of a lot more things in an image than I ever could when i was starting out. And that informs lens choices as well as exposure/composition ones.

My main personal glass is a set of modded Contax Zeiss so I do get it, and they sharing optics and coatings with older Zeiss cine primes is a consideration for me, but in reality nothing is a substitute for working with a proper cine lens. It's just that you might have to be at a point in your development where you can truly appreciate them.
 
Has anyone tried the Zeiss Milvus lenses. Reasonably priced DSLR glass and supposedly very good optically especially wide open at f1.4.
Would they cut with older - Contax, ZF?
 
Ben Scott said:
The coatings are as important as the glass. The iris is as important as the glass. The mechanics are as important as the glass.

Not to say the ZFs aren't a great low (or mid-beginner) budget option. I've owned plenty of them. But they are not a set of CP2s.
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I feel like a bit like a broken record already...

Again - I was talking about differences between CP2 vs ZF2-s - not about cinema lenses in general.
In that regard (as I mentioned before) differences between these lenses are not that big, to say one should buy CP2-s over ZF2-s.

To conclude this topic I would say this - if the original poster has the budget (+10k) to buy a set of CP2 lenses, I would suggest going for set on Canon CN-E primes instead.

Why?

* They are faster
* They produce nicer skin tones
* Their flares are absolutely gorgeous
 
A wrong broken record. You made the grand sweeping statement about only the glass mattering when that simply isn't true, and about CP2s and ZFs being the same which isn't true, and then started getting cross when people pick you up on it. Depending on the type of work someone does the differences can be very big. 100% depends not just on budget but on requirements as well.

FYI the CP.2 Superspeeds are T1.5
 
Lenilenapi said:
Has anyone tried the Zeiss Milvus lenses. Reasonably priced DSLR glass and supposedly very good optically especially wide open at f1.4.
Would they cut with older - Contax, ZF?
Click to expand...

Most Zeiss glass has a continuity of look - and to be honest only 2 of the Milvus lenses are new designs. The rest are all the same ZF/ZE designs that were also used in the Contax glass so aside from the more modern flare-resistant coatings stopped down a tiny bit you should be able to find a happy medium. I have mixed CP2 15mm, Contax 35mm and Zeiss ZF 25mm in a film before and they cut great.
 
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Ben Scott said:
A wrong broken record. You made the grand sweeping statement about only the glass mattering when that simply isn't true, and about CP2s and ZFs being the same which isn't true, and then started getting cross when people pick you up on it. Depending on the type of work someone does the differences can be very big. 100% depends not just on budget but on requirements as well.

FYI the CP.2 Superspeeds are T1.5
Click to expand...

I made the so called "grand sweeping statement" about CP2-s vs ZF2-s not about cinema glass in general.
Seems you interpreted that statement to lenses in general and have been doing so ever since.


FYI there are CP2 lenses and CP2 Superspeed lenses.
 
I've been referring quite specifically to the CP2s and their different iris and coatings and mechanics to the ZFs in relation to what you said.

The only reason I'm carrying on with this is because there is already a ton of incorrect information out there in general and on this forum as well, from people who state opinion as fact, state half-learned information as fact, and state outright incorrect information as fact.

CP2s are not the same as ZFs.
 
Well.. I'm sticking to my guns.

And I would like to quote the grand old lensmaster Matthew Duclos at this point:

If you want the nice cinematic look of the CP.2 lenses but don’t have deep enough pockets, you can still get the exact same glass in a cheaper housing in the form of ZF.2s.
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Yes, ZFs are a good budget choice. Yes it is the exact same glass. But not iris or coatings or mechanics. NOW I am starting to sound like a broken record...
 
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