In the last two centuries, the name of Carl Zeiss has been always associated with top notch optic quality. One of the latest addition in their various lenses sets is the Supreme Prime. A comprehensive set of thirteen cine lenses designed to cover bigger sensors, such as the Alexa LF, Sony Venice & RED Monstro VV that are now readily available on the market.
Such a complete and impressive set is probably a dream for anyone in the film making industry, granted their pockets are deep enough. Greg of LensProToGo takes us on a quick stroll through the features of this optical jewels.
So as said, the complete set of lenses consists of thirteen units, ranging from the 15mm T1.8 to the 200mm T2.1. In between, there’s a whole lot of options, most of them in the T1.5 ballpark. But let’s take it slow.
These lenses come in both PL (positive lock) and Canon EF mounts. As soon as you pick them up you can see that the building quality is very good. The aluminum housing feels sturdy and the rings for aperture and focus are smooth and precise, designed to work in a wide range of temperatures.
Compared to other cinema lenses they are quite small, ranging roughly trough two and a half and three and a half pounds, although the few lenses that are yet to come on the market like the 200mm will probably be quite heavier, close to 6 pounds.
However, the dimensions are quite similar, they all align on the 4.7 inches in length. Obviously, there will be a little difference between the super wide and super tele lenses. All in all, they are quite close in size to the Sigma Cine line, so if you’re used to that you should adapt easily.
The aperture blades are super smooth, drawing a perfect circle that gives a crazy bokeh to the image, an image that, as said, is able to cover bigger sensors, and that’s because of the image circle it projects that reaches 42.6mm.
The wider circle comes with a terrific sharpness, a super high resolution so to match the huge pixel count on these sensors. The optics are quite comparable to the Zeiss Compact Primes (better known as CP.3), having a good center sharpness, although the Supremes are a little bit sharper on the edges.
The transition from focused to defocused is smooth and gentle. These lenses have two nice add-ons. The first is the useful 3/8 screw hole that supports the lens, and the second is the eXtended Data port, a connection that allows to read out a lot of metadata on the lens and the shooting settings, distortion, and aberrations of the lens. It is a very useful tool if you work in compositing or VFX.
So, yet another terrific set from Zeiss, but well, we did not expect anything less.
[source: LensProToGo]
B&H Order Link:
ZEISS Supreme Prime 7 Lens Kit of 25, 29, 35, 50, 65, 85, 100mm (Feet, PL Mount)
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