First time poster here, came across these lenses and starting to see some positive reviews online. Just found out how much the price has dropped. Anyone have experience with these? Thoughts? We are looking to up our lens game from stills lenses (ZE). They wont be rented so having a name (Zeiss, Cooke etc) doesn't factor into our thoughts from a rental income perspective. But we would love some mechanically uniform lenses which we can easily pull focus with!
They are sharp, have good contrast, colour rendition is normal, they are well built (the second iteration of the lenses, the first one has plastic all around)
I shot a couple of things in uni with the first series:
It appears that Carl Zeiss lenses are all manufactured in Oume, Japan (no longer made in Oberkochen). Most Sony lenses are Carl Zeiss optics construction, but I believe the CineAlta are Minolta construction, good enough to rival Zeiss glass. Anyone can confirm?
It appears that Carl Zeiss lenses are all manufactured in Oume, Japan (no longer made in Oberkochen). Most Sony lenses are Carl Zeiss optics construction, but I believe the CineAlta are Minolta construction, good enough to rival Zeiss glass. Anyone can confirm?
I agree with Miguel. I also like them which is a surprise for me as they aren't the kind of lens I would normally go for.
Miguel says the colour rendition is normal, and some people might describe them as colour accurate or realistic. I tend to think of them as being a bit more Pastel and colour soft than other lenses but then I usually like lenses with more dramatic colours but I feel that these lenses make a good contrast to the usual ones. A lot of people talk about the Cooke look etc and these lenses have less of a "look" but at the same time I do think there is something positive about them as I much prefer them over a lot of other low cost lenses. I would take these over a set of Zeiss CP2 anyday for example as I really dislike those lenses and there are a lot of cheap stills lenses that are just quite boring in the way they look too but I like these Cine Alta lenses.
However, as has already implied, avoid the first edition lenses that were once bundled with the Sony F3. They are made from plastic and have a much shorter focus throw and are generally quite poor in a lot of ways.
The new lenses are longer throw and metal and stuff.
I wrote an article about this stuff but ironically it got truncated and we lost the stuff on the Cine Alta stuff so I'm presently trying to retool it into a new article.
They are very good- as good as ultra primes optically- a bit on the heavy side but made well- I don't love the flaring characteristics, but they are sharp wide open and resolve well. Crazy how cheap they are for a set of "real" PL lenses.
They are very good- as good as ultra primes optically- a bit on the heavy side but made well- I don't love the flaring characteristics, but they are sharp wide open and resolve well. Crazy how cheap they are for a set of "real" PL lenses.
ZGC was dealing them when they came out but then refused after their tests against comparable lenses yielded disappointing results. Not sure what the issues were but you can try asking ZGC about it. I was interested in a set and they advised me against it. So maybe it's not really "crazy" how cheap they are. Perhaps there's a reason. But again, I'm not sure exactly what the issues were.
is there something weird about the mount of these lenses or are they standard PL mount?
Well they've been used on Red cameras with no worries so I believe they are standard PL. I think there may have been mount issues with the first (plastic) iteration of these lenses made for the Sony F3
is there something weird about the mount of these lenses or are they standard PL mount?
Again this was the first series of the lenses which have cast a shadow over the new set.
The original set had a digital contact pad to transfer lens metadata to the Sony F3 and this got in the way of some lens mounts, notably cheap PL mount adapters.
Hi, mount on these lenses is standart Arri PL, I've successfully used them on 435, D21 and URSA. No problems whatsoever. They are sharp wide open, contrasty and flares a little bit weird, not the nicest ones. But these are proper "cinema" lenses, not the rehoused photo glass. They breathes only slightly, nothing noticeable.
