Zeiss ZE or ZF?

bill totolo

bill totolo

Veteran
I'd love to hear arguments for both sides.

I'm thinking about purchasing a set of Zeiss lenses.

Zeiss ZE would fit my 5D MKII and allow accurate focus to infinity.

ZF's would allow me to use adapter rings on my 5D MKII now and I suspect be more adaptable to other cameras, such as the Red ONE or 35mm cameras that have Nikon mounts.

The downside is that focus to infinity won't be as accurate (with the adapter rings on my 5D).

And the compact primes are going to be out of my price range.

OR, should I just bring my existing set of manual Nikon lenses into Duclos and have them modified to cine style?

Thoughts?
 
I have not heard of anyone having problems with infinity focus using adapters.

I can not speak from direct experience, but I have gathered the following information from reliable posters here.

Reasons to go with ZF:

ability to adapt to many camera systems, red etc.

manual iris ring

reasons to go with ze:

no need to use stop down metering for stills

more accurate metering due to electonic coupling

others should chime in here, but my understanding is that for stills, ze are better. For video ZF are better due to the ability to use on more future cameras and red.
 
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ZE will work on your Canon, won't need clunky adapters, will mount securely... but won't have aperture rings. So if you want to use them on anything other than a Canon body... not as likely. Plus, if you ever want to migrate over to a Nikon body, the ZEs won't fit.

ZFs will work on pretty much anything now or ever made. But yes, you'll need adapters for a Canon body. And unlike on the GH1, where the adapter can pretty much stay attached to the body and you mount the lens to the body, it's not like that with the Nikon lenses going to a Canon; you pretty much have to remove the adapter from the lens and re-mount it on the next lens and then mount that on the body (or just get one adapter per lens).

For forward compatibility, I went with the ZFs. They work on the Canon today (with the adapter, yes), they work on the GH1 today, and they will work on the Scarlet tomorrow (or any Nikon "wunderkam" or ... anything, really). I plan on having Duclos modify them so they become a permanent set of inexpensive "Compact Primes" that can be used on pretty much anything. And I do expect that my foray into the Canon world will be brief; I think the video camera manufacturers will suss out a large-sensor video camera within maybe a year.

Faced with the same decision, Kholi Hicks went with the ZEs, because they mount better to the Canon he's using today, and making money with today. So there you go, two schools of thought...
 
Another school of thought is electronic advancements

dont spend too much money at all - you have nikkors - keep em -

Who knows what is round the corner

Electronic advancement ?

What do I mean by that..

L lenses + Magic lantern +blue tooth + Iphone App + Iphone + laser disto =

Remote FF
Prgrammable Racks
Programmable Iris
Beeping marks

etc

Look at Red Primes and Scarlet primes - no electronics - look at Scarlet - Electronics = redundant lenses

-----

On the two choices you might also consider focus direction and the implication for your FF skill

If I am correct one set goes the nikon way the other the canon/cine way

S
 
bill totolo said:
... should I just bring my existing set of manual Nikon lenses into Duclos and have them modified to cine style? Thoughts?
Click to expand...

I don't know which Nikon lenses you have? I shoot with both Zeiss (ZF's and C/Y's) and Nikon lenses (Nikon zooms). As good as they are, before you spend the money on Zeiss lenses you may want to rent (beg or borrow) a few Zeiss primes and shoot some tests with the Zeiss lenses and your Nikon lenses. You might just find that the differences are not great enough to warrant the expenditure. If you can't find any Zeiss lenses to test, you might want to take a look at the Cinevate site. They did some tests with ZF primes on a Brevis adapter and they actually have some split screen footage between a Nikon prime and a Zeiss prime. Keep in mind, they sell ZF lenses, but I think their tests are worth looking at.
 
ftbt said:
I don't know which Nikon lenses you have? I shoot with both Zeiss (ZF's and C/Y's) and Nikon lenses (Nikon zooms). As good as they are, before you spend the money on Zeiss lenses you may want to rent (beg or borrow) a few Zeiss primes and shoot some tests with the Zeiss lenses and your Nikon lenses. You might just find that the differences are not great enough to warrant the expenditure. If you can't find any Zeiss lenses to test, you might want to take a look at the Cinevate site. They did some tests with ZF primes on a Brevis adapter and they actually have some split screen footage between a Nikon prime and a Zeiss prime. Keep in mind, they sell ZF lenses, but I think their tests are worth looking at.
Click to expand...

Worth a look, thanks for pointing it out:

Cinevate/Zeiss
 
Barry_Green said:
ZE will work on your Canon, won't need clunky adapters, will mount securely... but won't have aperture rings. So if you want to use them on anything other than a Canon body... not as likely. Plus, if you ever want to migrate over to a Nikon body, the ZEs won't fit.

ZFs will work on pretty much anything now or ever made. But yes, you'll need adapters for a Canon body. And unlike on the GH1, where the adapter can pretty much stay attached to the body and you mount the lens to the body, it's not like that with the Nikon lenses going to a Canon; you pretty much have to remove the adapter from the lens and re-mount it on the next lens and then mount that on the body (or just get one adapter per lens).

For forward compatibility, I went with the ZFs. They work on the Canon today (with the adapter, yes), they work on the GH1 today, and they will work on the Scarlet tomorrow (or any Nikon "wunderkam" or ... anything, really). I plan on having Duclos modify them so they become a permanent set of inexpensive "Compact Primes" that can be used on pretty much anything. And I do expect that my foray into the Canon world will be brief; I think the video camera manufacturers will suss out a large-sensor video camera within maybe a year.

Faced with the same decision, Kholi Hicks went with the ZEs, because they mount better to the Canon he's using today, and making money with today. So there you go, two schools of thought...
Click to expand...

I'm doing the same thing as Barry. Also, my I rent my ZF's to people with Canon, Nikon, GH-1, RED and 35mm adapters so ZF's make more sense. The one other annoying thing is the focus barrel direction, pretty much every other lense brand focuses the other way which can be hard for a focus puller to get used to.
 
I have done a lot of tests recently on manual focus lenses and let me say this, it's not about sharpness. What most people are really seeing is contrast, not sharpness. The little Canon 50mm f1.8 (version 1- metal bayonet) is actually sharper than Canon's 50mm f1.2 and f1.4 fully open or even at equivalent settings. The ZE/ZF 50/1.4 is not as sharp for instance as this "cheapo" Canon lens or even an old M42 Zeiss Pancolar f1.8, which can be had for around 80-100Euros. What the new Zeiss primes offer is greater internal (or micro) contrast. This is about coating technology really and it makes a difference mostly in terms of a possible projection, otherwise not so important. The older manual style Nikon's have visibly less contrast than modern lenses, and this can be a plus in some situations.

As a side note, I strongly suspect that for around 650 Euros most people could have a full set of 3-5 older manual style lenses which have better contrast than most Nikon's. (Which I have indeed tested.) It just takes a little investigation. A russian Helio's 44-2 (58mmf2.0) can be had for around 40 euros for instance, and if it is a "preset" you can have a smooth non-clickable aperture pull from wide open to whatever you choose as your hard-stop. Some of the old Pentax takumar's are great too... The Carl Zeiss M42 Flektogon (35mm f2.4) is easily as sharp as the Canon 35mm f1.4 at the same aperture settings. Check it out, there is a whole world of other possibilities out there.
 
Especially for video. I've tested enough cheap lenses against top-dollar lenses to definitively say that the video mode is the "great equalizer". But yes, the contrast and flare and coloration will be different between lenses.

(standard disclaimer: for stills, yes the sharper lens will undoubtedly deliver sharper stills. Just not sharper video).
 
I been using Hasselblad H prime lens with the 5d . It is perfectly engineered to allow full focusing to infinity without any problem. I been using this adapter:

cgi.ebay.com/Canon-EOS-to-Hasselblad-Metal-Lens-Mount-Adapter-NEW_W0QQitemZ360153945482QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLens_Accessories?hash=item53dad9158a#ht_517wt_1167

Regards
Simon Brauer
 
I shot this with a 50mm Zeiss ZF.

http://vimeo.com/9896021

It was actually the first thing I shot when I got the camera (2 days ago) so maybe it's not the best example but it might give you a good idea of the image. Someone told me that the bokeh isn't very good in this clip, but it doesn't necessarily bother me.
 
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