Zeiss Otus - If you shoot on a 50mm lens on a regular basis you should look at this.

I was extolling the virtues of the new Carl Zeiss OTUS 55mm lens to a highly respected photographer friend.

'Stop right there I don't want to know about it' he said

'It's another expensive piece of equipment that I'm never going to own' was his justification.

In a way I know where he's coming from 

I'm a fan of BBC's Top Gear programme.

For all its laddish behaviour and sometimes boorish comments it is still highly entertaining.

Yet when I find them reviewing some highly highly expensive car like the special super super carbon fibre version of some Lamborghini or some other daft sounding Italian high-performance car I find myself glazing over and somewhat tuning out mentally, not because I don't like fast cars, indeed I love fast cars, it’s I knowing that it's irrelevant to me, I’m not going to own an £800,000 car anytime soon.

On the face of it a £3000+ standard lens is, well, rather extreme.

Unjustifiable perhaps?

Almost certainly.

Until you use one.

If you do you will see detail that simply does not exist on lenses made by Canon or Nikon.

Make no mistake the advantage the Otus possess compared to the camera manufacturers lenses is simply crushing.

Use the lens back to back and its like one of the lens is a lens and the other is doing an impression of a lens.

The advantage is most marked from F1.4 to F5.6 and wide open it is remarkable.

I did consider using a lens chart but I decided to leave that to the guys at DXO, who describe it as a ‘peerless prime’

I instead took it out on some real world shoots, working mostly at full aperture.

I compared the lens to  a Canon 50mm F1.4 and the bargain basement 50mm F1.8.

Why not the Canon 'L' series 50mm F1.2? 

Simply because I do not own one.

I wanted one, then tried one and thought better of it, not being entirely convinced of its performance compared to its more affordable brothers.

All comparison images were shot on Canon 6d mounted on Gitzo 5 Series tripod with a Manfrotto 405 head, focused using live view to focus as precisely as possible, the Raw images were processed with the identical base settings in Capture One 7 and were treated identically.

Firstly full frame on the Otus at F1.4

Zeiss Otus 55mm F1.4@F1.4

Canon 50mm F1.4@F1.4

Zeiss Otus 55mm F1.4 @ F1.4 100 percent, of note is the bokeh which is very smooth, particularly when
you compare it to the Canon. 

Canon 50mm F1.4 @ F1.4 100 percent

Canon 50mm F1.8 @ F1.8 

Zeiss Otus 55mm F1.4 @F1.4

Canon 50mm F1.8 @F1.8

Zeiss Otus 55mmF1.4@F1.8

Canon 50mm F1.4@F1.4

                                                    Zeiss 55mm Otus F1.4@F1.4, note the excellent control of flare compared to the Canon

                                                                                 

Canon 50mm F1.4@F1.4(note purple fringing on highlights)

Zeiss 55mm Otus F1.4@F1.4

For me this is perhaps the most impressive of all of the tests, a nice clean image shot at F1.6 on the Zeiss Otus.

And then you see the detail which in my view is truly remarkable.

And Finally the portrait session with Tony Benn

Just wonderful detail.

The images are far from a full test of the Otus, I would like to add some comparative images at other F-Stops, but as I said before, wide open is where the gulf is biggest.

The advantage is most marked from F1.4 to F5.6 and wide open it is remarkable.

I did consider using a lens chart but I decided to leave that to the guys at DXO, who describe it as a ‘peerless prime’

Quite a lot has been written about the Otus in terms of its optical performance, but little has been written about its form factor.

If you are used to manufacturer 50mm prime lenses by the likes of Canon and Nikon you will be struck by its size and weight, which is reminiscent of a medium format prime lens.

Initially this could be seen as a disadvantage but in regular use I have found that the slightly longer barrel length and it's tapered shape brings ergonomic means it fits your hand perfectly, I reckon I can hold a slightly longer prime more steadily too(I wrote about this a couple of years ago)

If you have not used a Zeiss lens before the chances are that you will be struck by its build, fit and finish too, which shades camera manufacturer lenses.

Focusing with any fast prime wide open is problematic, with auto focus or not, and the Zeiss is manual focus only.

I was initially apprehensive about this but the longer throw on the focusing ring does make make manual focusing easier than you might imagine, the situation was further improved when I retro fitted the Canon EG-S focusing screen which is optimised for fast lenses making the images snap into focus much more easily than with the standard screen(I have written about this previously)

Is this a lens for everyone?

Clearly not, but it is a lens for the shooter who does not want to compromise on quality.

If the 50mm focal length is one you use regularly, and you want the very best imaginable quality then I suggest you try one out back to back with your existing lens, you may well be surprised.

BVE 2013

A busy old week.

I was presenting for Zeiss(much more of this in a forthcoming post, along with a new video short shot with Zeiss CP.2 lenses) at the Broadcast and Video Expo at London's Excel centre.

Impressions?

Well a couple stand out, but he most asked question of the show was 'What is the Black Magic cinema camera like?'

Perhaps this was because there was one on the Zeiss stand at BVE, and I was often standing next to it.

All the same it did cause a fair bit of interest.

In truth I could not honestly answer the question as I have not yet used one, but I have seen some very impressive footage from it. Have a look at 'A night in Nine Elms' a piece commissioned by Black Magic.

Pay particular attention to its tonality, and how well it holds the highlights and shadows. No great surprise here as it shoots 12bit raw, giving 13 stops dynamic range.......

All this for a whisker under £2000.

Good value indeed.

'A Night in Nine Elms' from hangman on Vimeo.

My impressions?

Well, the futuristic form factor is provoking to say the least, but it did grow on me.

It is actually intended to be part of a 'bigger set up' with parts bolted onto it such as an external recorder, monitor.

This rig for the Black Magic from Zacuto particularly impressed me, suiting the camera well.

Zacuto Rigs for the Blackmagic Camera from Zacuto on Vimeo.

There has to be draw backs with something that cost's under £2k, right?

Well to reiterate, I have not used it, but a few things did stand out as possible issues for some users.

The built in battery means that you cannot carry a spare in your pocket, you need to keep an eye on your power options.

The form factor means some sort of support system is a necessity.

The 16.64 x 14.04mm sensor has a crop factor of x2.3, meaning a 13mm lens will become the equivalent of a 30mm, an 85mm becomes the equivalent of a 200mm.

Some will find one or more of these factors a deal breaker, but many will not, if the enthusiasm of passers by was anything do go by, quite a few of whom had one (or more!) on order.

Canon missing a trick with their new cinema lenses?

Canon kicked off the DSLR revolution (it was just that despite what others may tell you...) and have progressively updated DSLR's in the line through new models and clever firmware upgrades to the MkII to dominate this segment.

They followed this impressive foot hold with the Canon C300 and have shown the C500 which when released will answer many of the (mostly unfair) criticisms levelled at the C300.

To cap this, Canon have started to roll out the release of a range of cinema lenses too which are very serious offerings indeed.

I'm delighted that Canon are doing this, I even suggested way back in 2009 to the mass of Canon representatives at 'Converge 1' held at the National Film Theatre in London that this would be a good idea.

So why do I think that Canon could be missing a trick?

I had been mulling this over in my mind for a while but what crystallised the thought was the announcement of the Canon 14.5 - 60 Cinema lens which looks to be a superb offering(check out the AbelCine Review) but has a very high estimated street price, while these figures are not confirmed I have seen numbers of anything up to $20,000 banded about.

$20,000 per zoom lens is way out of my league.

It may be of a 'modest' size in terms of cine lenses but weighing in at more than 8lb's (4.5kg's) really takes it out of 'Run and Gun' territory, even if you could afford it.

This is a zoom range which I use a lot with the C300 which leaves me little choice but to use the Canon EF-S 17-55 F2.8.

A lens which has a good zoom range, good optical quality, image stabilised (a real boon when shooting handheld) and a constant F2.8 f-stop.

That is the good news - now for the bad.

It's build quality and action of focus and zoom are shall we say, a little flaky at times.

As I'm sure Canon would admit, not really optimum for pro video use.

On occasion robbing you of very smooth actions that you need.

Not helped at all by the fiddly, tiny focusing ring.

The Canon EF-S 17-55 lens, used out of necessity

The choices open to a Canon user when the 14.5-60 cinema lens is finally launched will be to buy one of these for $20,000ish or $1000 on the EF-S 17-55.

This is further compounded by the fact that the new 'L' series Canon 24-70 lens, which even if you could live with the slightly too long bottom end focal length, lacks image stabilisation even though the new 28mm lens has IS (go figure?)

Canon are catering for the very top end cinema movie makers and the pro-sumers while, so far, passing by the large rump of C300 users( and 7D users too)

Prime lenses are all well and good, and there are some fine offerings from Canon and Zeiss but often a zoom is of much more real world use.

How about a compact 'L' series zoom lens which covers 17-55 range, with some of the features of its big brother, retaining IS which would have a street price of $3000?

Over to you, Canon, Zeiss or perhaps even Schneider?

Whoever pulls it off will have a sales hit on their hands in this so far neglected section of the market.