to zeiss or not to zeiss

chris f

chris f

Veteran
I've never used Zeiss lenses before, so pardon my ignorance.

I'm gearing up for a short film and was planning on using my Tamron 28-75 f/2.8 for the whole thing. Besides the focus throw on the Tamron being ridiculously short, I'm curious about the IQ advantages in using Zeiss primes instead.

The main scene is outdoors in low light (nighttime). We'll bring some additional lighting, but I see us shooting at iso 800 or higher, especially for the wides.

That being said do you think the image quality will be noticeably better if I rent two zeiss primes instead of using the tamron? Will the high iso and less than desirable lighting offset/cancel out any IQ that would be gained from using the Zeiss primes?

Here's some grabs from the location without any additional light at iso 1600 with the tamron lens to kind of give you an idea:

4272813675_8dce5fde8e.jpg

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Prime lenses are better in low light. The higher the ISO the higher the noise. Or am I wrong about this?
 
You are correct Polanski, and Chris, the Zeiss primes are some of the best lenses you can put on a 7D, optically speaking it doesn't get much better than that. Yes, you will see a difference in sharpness and contrast with these lenses and you gain a stop or two using them thus allowing lower ISO and a cleaner image. Focus throw on the lens is a great deal longer than with the zoom so that is a plus as well.
 
Those stills look fairly noiseless for 1600 iso on the 7d. It looks good without any additional light. Another options are old Nikkor primes, but get them while you can!
 
The Cinevate folks have some test footage of Zeiss ZF lenses used with a Brevis adapter. If memory serves me, they also compared a Zeiss lens to a Nikon in a split screen. Very insightful. (Of course, they sell ZF's, so you have to keep that in mind.) Probably worth taking a look:

http://www.cinevate.com/website/index.php/cinevatevideouniversity

With that said, I use Zeiss 21/2.8, 28/2.0, 35-70/3.4 and 100/2.0 on my 5D2 and 7D and I am very satisfied with the performance of the lenses.
 
I've shot Zeiss and if I was shooting my own short I would stick to my Nikkor's on a strictly aesthetic level. My reson for this is that the Zeiss are high contrast and cold and sharp and too pristine. I like some grit and ugliness in my stuff though.

Don't get me wrong, Zeiss are great, but I prefer the other.
 
We do sell Zeiss lenses..but we didn't start selling them until we did the test shoot linked here. In terms of contrast and organic colour, we've never tested anything better, although we've got some vintage LOMO cinema prime lenses here that give the Zeiss a run their money.

We invested nearly 10K into DSC charts and their Ambi illumination system to make sure we weren't just going by eye on issues related to lenses, cameras and our adapter optical systems.

Very cool 3D stuff coming using the Zeiss glass.

Cheers,
Dennis
 
For the light levels in this application - Canon primes - 24mm 1.4L, 35mm 1.4L, 50mm 1.2L and 85mm 1.2L will yield lower ISO's than the Zeiss ZE's.
 
Yes, you will see a difference in sharpness and contrast with these lenses and you gain a stop or two using them thus allowing lower ISO and a cleaner image.
Click to expand...

I went to the local rental house today and tested out the Zeiss primes and was surprised to find that even at the same f-stop, the Zeiss primes allowed me to go with a lower iso and still have the same exposure than with my tamron 28-75mm. it seemed like I gained at least 2 stops, does this sound right? (or did the lighting change mysteriously when I was changing lenses?)
 
Jay H said:
For the light levels in this application - Canon primes - 24mm 1.4L, 35mm 1.4L, 50mm 1.2L and 85mm 1.2L will yield lower ISO's than the Zeiss ZE's.
Click to expand...

1.2s and 1.4s might get you lower ISOs but most likely you'll have dof so shallow that, for some, might be too distracting or not appropriate for the shot.

I don't know why so many people have the Canon 1.2s for video. IMO, f/1.2 is way too shallow for motion and stopped down these lenses aren't better than their 1.4 and even 2.8 counterparts.
 
chris f said:
I went to the local rental house today and tested out the Zeiss primes and was surprised to find that even at the same f-stop, the Zeiss primes allowed me to go with a lower iso and still have the same exposure than with my tamron 28-75mm. it seemed like I gained at least 2 stops, does this sound right? (or did the lighting change mysteriously when I was changing lenses?)
Click to expand...

Zeiss Compact Primes are T-stopped. That is, they measure the actual amount of light transmitted (as in T!) through the lens rather than using a mathematical and hypothetical number, as in the f-stop.

Many times (thought not always), a T2.8 will be be appreciably faster than an f2.8 lens.
 
Michael Olsen said:
Zeiss Compact Primes are T-stopped. That is, they measure the actual amount of light transmitted (as in T!) through the lens rather than using a mathematical and hypothetical number, as in the f-stop.

Many times (thought not always), a T2.8 will be be appreciably faster than an f2.8 lens.
Click to expand...

So in short a T is more accurate than an Fstop, because one is based on approximation and one is based on the actual light source?
 
Wiki

T-stops
Since all lenses absorb some portion of the light passing through them (particularly zoom lenses containing many elements), T-stops are sometimes used instead of f-stops for exposure purposes, especially for motion picture camera lenses. The practice became popular in cinematographic usage before the advent of zoom lenses, where fixed focal length lenses were calibrated to T-stops: This allowed the turret-mounted lenses to be changed without affecting the overall scene brightness. Lenses were bench-tested individually for actual light transmission and assigned T stops accordingly (The T in T-stop stands for transmission),[3] but modern cinematographic lenses now usually tend to be factory-calibrated in T-stops. T-stops measure the amount of light transmitted through the lens in practice, and are equivalent in light transmission to the f-stop of an ideal lens with 100% transmission. Since all lenses absorb some quantity of light, the T-number of any given aperture on a lens will always be greater than the f-number. In recent years, advances in lens technology and film exposure latitude have reduced the importance of t-stop values. So, F-stops are for focal ratio, T-stops are for transmission.
 
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