Your choice if you want them Cine-modded or not. Theyre killer tools for video, but in order to achieve maximum performance, theres a number of steps and procedures to tackle. Pm for pics. Or do what I did and find an affordable Standard Prime 16mm T2. What IS the Ninja-Star? So far I had been using adapters on them, and they sucked. DaVinci Resolve Quick Tip What Are Power Bins and Why Are They So Useful? I almost went for the wrong one with my MM obsession, but I was warned by my followers on Instagram about the edge the AE had over the MM. When designing your focus gears, keep the number of teeth constant for all the lenses. The 'Contax craze' is 15 years old and dates back to the introduction of the Canon 5D which was the first affordable full frame sensor. You can also tell their place of manufacture based on whats written on the lens! In this guest post, Vancouverbasedfreelance filmmaker and an anamorphic lens freak TitoFerradans,is exposing us to hisContax Zeiss CineTune-Up Guide. It was the most expensive lens in the set and it shares a lot of the beautiful look of the 28/2 Hollywood. Im a fan of DIY, so I decided to install the mounts by myself. They get quite slow in the wides (the 18 is an F4, the 15 a 3.5). Are usually 2.8. thanks for the info! The Contax 25mm 2.8 is good, but you may want to consider the 28mm 2.8 which is cheaper, and "technically" better. These are way more common in AE, but I was lucky enough to find a MM coming straight from Japan. It all started when I stumbled upon a post on Craigslist from a guy selling his Contax Zeiss set. Contax I. . I'll definitely look into my adapter. The 135 mm 2.8 MD lens can keep up with the big boys, some say it is one of the best tele lens of all time. I shipped all of them to SIMMOD for declicking and a quick checkup. What's the word on that lens? The Zeiss ZF is phenomenally sharp and modern, which I found good for general and macro photography but I found unpleasant of for portraiture. For a little over a year, this was enough. Would love to check out the Hollywood, but $$. I started with the 28mm. This is a guide for people that love handling gear and tweaking little things here and there. My favorite lens switched to the 85/1.4 after that, though. Give the AC a good follow focus and a . Copyright 2007-2022. Plus, fitting these is never a one-slip move. For further details, see our Privacy Policy. Th 85 1.4 at an F2 for portraitsis KILLER. But on CERTAIN LENSES (with wide barrels) you def see it prominently at your SECOND and THIRD F-stop position (counting wide open as your FIRST position), For example, I notice it by far the most on my 35 1.4 and 85 1.4. Now Im gonna move into streamlining it for shooting and making it the best possible lenses to handle on set. You can see, Ryan de Franco called my bluff recently, and he let me sit in on his informal test looking into how similar Contax in FACT areto Standards and Super Speeds. And. Badass thread, been looking around for a guide like this. This gave me a great set of lenses ready for action, all I missed was a way of getting them to said action. Only correction I did to this photograph was to increase RAW color temperature, that's it. Another trick is to heat them up with a blow dryer or even your house heater. As always very much appreciated. I plugged in the focal length in white so theyre easy to read in dark sets. By the 1960s, competition from the Japanese led to the eventual shuttering of both subsidiaries - even as the larger Zeisss stayed in business. These have less elements (6?). or Sign Up Log in with Search in titles onlySearch in Lens Tests only Search Advanced Search Forums Groups New Posts Today's Posts Member List Forum Shooting RED Every time I had to pick a lens I went for the 35mm f/2.8 instead. They also look more modern and clean. The 135mm f/2.8 was a great lens. Canon FD's are the predecessors to Canon L glass, and have a superb pedigree. Contax Zeiss Survival Guide - REDUSER.net You can unsubscribe at any time via an unsubscribe link included in every newsletter. These lenses thread the fine line between organic and sharp, a line as thin as depth of field on an 85/1.2 wide open, only second to Leica. Back then, not all C/Y Zeiss lenses could be adapted for EOS cameras . some lenses required minor surgery to make them useable. . If you want something ready to use from the get-go, Id say this is not for you. Contax rangefinder - Camera-wiki.org - The free camera encyclopedia (Heres where I beleive the Leica Rs have a clear advantage, their 19mm is a 2.8which is pretty amazing). The process turned out alright and the gears worked great, but later on I learned some useful tricks. In my experience, the gears never fit on the first try. This will ensure a constant outside diameter, which means you dont have to adjust your follow focus every time you change lenses. Againthis is just a hunch on my part, dont shoot me 5) HOW TO SHOP FOR THEM - DON'T GET "G", "N", or "645". AEs and MMs all color match. The f/2.8 never really impressed me, even though its regarded as one of the best budget 28mm out there. The price was pretty good and Im the type of person that can buy something just because the price is good. A) They are FULL FRAME and will cover Dragon, and it would seam, even VISTA VISION WEAPON. DxO PureRAW 3 aims to come to their rescue without totally reinventing your workflow! B) They share very similar designs as the ZF/ZE/CP2 lenses, but for or the price This means that not all MM lenses are made in Japan. Standard lens, cant really make a set without a 35mm in it, right? Are not only the slowest, but frequently the most classic. Momentum picked up and I saw myself getting ready to DP a webseries pilot. For a little over a year, this was enough. PDF ZEISS Mutar 2x T* Its agreed that MM lenses perform better and have cleaner results than AE lenses, theyre also less prone to flaring. I still dont know when to use them, though! Wide open the 1.4 is great, but the focusing ring just feels very clunky on my copy. 18mm is way too close to 21mm, plus lots of reviews mention its not-impressive performance. If youre not a DIY spirited person or you dont like getting things from a million different places -, I worked with Ron at SIMMOD so he can provide caps with stickers already on them. Yupthey go as far 500mm. You could use it an any focal length and not really have any compromise relative the prime lenses of the time. Happy with 35-70(macro too) 3.4 & 85 1.4 on a6300(with speed booster). These last two are challenging to adapt to EOS because of their. Can't Attend? I already talked about the mount replacements and focus gears, so Im left with standard fronts and de-clicking. Plus, fitting these is never a one-slip move. Because Contax is actually one of the most storied names in photography. As photography slowly shifted from rangefinder to SLR, Contax was. This makes life easier when grabbing gear to go out and renting it as well. I got all my standard 80mm fronts from him, as well as slip-on lens caps. You can either build a $1500 set or a $10000 set and youll always impress with the results. Time. Contax Zeiss Survival Guide. This gave me a great set of lenses ready for action, all I missed was a way of getting them to said action. It had five lenses: 28/2.8, 35/2.8, 50/1.4, 85/1.4 and 135/2.8. In my experience, Japanese and German lenses are equally good. The process turned out alright and the gears worked great, but later on I learned some useful tricks. Check out his own blog here and Patreon here. I took this question to Instagram again and got really good arguments for both sides. DxO PureRAW 3 review: Give Adobe's apps a much-needed boost with modern AI algorithms, The best cameras for family and friends photos in 2022, Best affordable cameras for sports and action in 2022, May 2023 Part 1 This Month Through Your Adapted Lens. But if you guys love circular bokeh and find this bit of personality too intrusive, then do yourself a favor and skip it and get the MMs. For that reason I had to make a super tall focus gear that would not slip off when travelling from infinity to minimum focus. Then, near the end of last year I decided to round out the set and make it suitable for renting. I went for the fastest lenses and snuffed out the AEGs I had, in favor of the prettier bokeh of the MMJs. Having them separate also gives me versatility on pricing, since the main set can still go out without them for a more accessible price. The questions get dizzying. But I now have the 200 and I have to admit, the bokeh is very pleasing and captivating, and I prefer it. Filter. Speaking of good prices, many links in this post will take you directly to eBay searches of each specific lens! ZF/ZEs only go as far as 135mm. It offers the advantage of one of the most sophisticated fully automatic through-the-lens exposure control available during the late seventies. Live with it. I was just ahead of the game, so it wasnt necessary on my case. Look for an MM with serials in the 8's. What an amazing amount of learningand research condensed and shared. Nick, awesome thread. If you wanna follow this path, theres no way to dodge reading the Survival Guide. Because the wides are slow, you will almost certainly need to compliment your kit with a Tokina/Duclos 11-16 2.8. But dont expect them to have the even performance of a set of Ultraprimes or Masterprimes (where many of the primes are not only similar in size and weight, but also perform similarly at matching T stops!). Its also quite similar to the modern 15/2.8 ZF/ZE offered by Zeiss, just a 2/3 stops slower. I like to add 0.3mm to the measurement to give me a little wiggle room after printing. By giving you that extra latitude in the blacks and highlights, they were letting photographers dial in how much black and contrast they wanted later in the dark roomwhen they were printing. MM's from 1984 to 2005. I then redesigned and printed new focus gears for these and ordered more Leitax mounts and that was good for another five months. One thing that the push-pull nature of the zooms helps with, is snap-zooms. Each page with eight stickers costed me about $10. My 21mm CP.2 is probably my favourite lens that I own, lovely, lovely piece of glass. We look into whether it offers more than your smartphone. It all started when I stumbled upon a post on Craigslist from a guy selling his Contax Zeiss set. Wide open it's one of the sharpest F2.0 wide angle lenses available and it has very little distortion. You have to admit they look sexy. When designing your focus gears, keep the number of teeth constant for all the lenses. Heres the full line of glass. I'm planning on building a Canon FD or Contax Zeiss C/Y set (I read the Contax Survival Guide, thank you Nick Morrison!!!) Zeiss has their own language, their own nomenclature, for lens designs that is very useful to be familiar with as you start hunting for lenses. This one was only made in Japan and it doesnt exist in AE, just MM. Thoughts? But Leica Rs are certainly more expensive, so take that into consideration if you are on a budget. I started using these lenses casually. The 15mm is a gorgeous rectilinear super wide angle, it shares the same optical formula as the Leica Super-Elmar 15mm f/3.5, with different coatings. Generally speaking, these fall into 3 lens types, categorized by how fast and complex they are. The 85 is ridiculously fast with combo. I own them both. Luckily for me, out of the five lenses I only messed up really bad on one (the 85mm, which was also the first one I tried). Ron also offers the full mod service for great prices, including focus gears and lens mounts. Since the filter threads across the set are wildly different (from 55 to 72mm), standardizing the filter threads to 77mm allows you to own one single set of filters which can quickly switch lenses without the need for tons of step rings. A) They are FULL FRAME and will cover Dragon, and it would seam, even VISTA VISION WEAPON. And they all have a very wide focus throw compared to other still lenses. You can also tell their place of manufacture based on whats written on the lens! The Super Nettel was based on the Contax I, with the same kind of shutter but a folding body, a fixed lens, and a short-based rangefinder. Under enormous pressure from the West, Eastern Zeiss eventually relinquished the naming rights to CONTAX to Western Zeiss. 06-22-2022, 04:47 PM Hey, everybody, I know we have the awesome Contax Zeiss Survival Guide but looking at building a set of Zeiss lenses myself from bargain finds and fixer uppers I've collected, I wondered what anybody's experiences might have been with mixing Zeiss lineups together? Tito Ferradans spent the last six years researching, writing and making videos about the anamorphic format and how to achieve it without breaking the bank on low-budget productions. The Contax dont look vintage to me, but they also dont look modern. In Contax, that corresponds to all lenses 35mm and wider (down to 15mm). The rubber grip on the focus ring of the lenses is awesome because it prevents the gears from sliding, but its also a pain because it makes the fitting a lot harder. Since the filter threads across the set are wildly different (from 55 to 72mm), standardizing the filter threads to 77mm allows you to own one single set of filters which can quickly switch lenses without the need for tons of step rings. We've been taking a look at what it offers and what it's like to shoot with. That's what I'm thinking, though no official sources have been cited on the tests, it may have been pulled from articles or done independently, not sure. This page was generated at 05:50 PM. That would be asking a lot of these budget lenses. Time. The last decision I had to make was between the 18mm f/4 and the 15mm f/3.5. They are much more closer to a Super/Standard speed look then the modern zeiss glass including the Cp2s. I havent tested these much yet, and I ended up not doing standard outside diameters. I think its safe to say all these lenses from this era of Zeiss optics have remarkably similar coatings and magic. Contax Zeiss Survival Guide - REDUSER.net Evin Grant's comprehensive lens database Login or Sign Up Logging in. - Contax was created by Zeiss subsidiary Zeiss Ikon. Copyright 2023 Vintage Lenses For Video. You can skip ahead and read that HERE. In fact, they MOD better than ZF/ZEs believe it or not. I had a feeling Nick was up to making a guide like this. The downside of such magnification is that the focus ring travels a lot, pretty much doubling the physical length of the lens. One last note on their generations, MMs were mostly made in Japan, so theyre called MMJs, while AEs were made in Germany and named AEGs. I dont want to get into a German war over which is better, Leica R or Contax. Theres a lot of discussion whether the 135mm f/2.0 has a clear advantage over the f/2.8, especially when you take into account the price difference. You can tell them apart because MM have their last aperture number painted green, and they have a small tab on the mount that doesnt exist on AEs. If you want to get in the same room and do a test to compare the 50/1.4 to a ZE/ZF, I'd be more than willing; just shoot me a line. When the AE's flare, they generally flare white, evenly, and when overwhelmed by a direct source, can reveal a touch of green ghosting. You have to admit they look sexy. Regards. The 50 should be among the easiest to get right because the optical path is among the simplest. Contax Zeiss 60mm f/2.8 Macro AEG: Infinity focus on the left, minimum focus on the right I know I stopped mentioning how sharp these lenses are, but the 60mm is worth highlighting. Im still weighing if I need it or not. These are stills lenses, and as Ryan De Franco correctly points outare designed to MAXIMIZE their resolution at F4 or 5.6. to use on my Komodo. Then Nick Morrison went on and on and on about the 35-70. 250 g approx. The one main difference I can see isas stated aboveI think the Contaxes cinemod slightly BETTER than ZF/ZEs (because they ALL focus the right way, and ALL have an aperture ring), and also ALL they have that wonderful older T* coating that I believe looks better on digital than the newer T* coating (renders more organically). This is an endeavor Ive been working on and off for the last two years and now I can see the finish line. Total newbie question about connecting Zeiss Contax lenses to BMPCC Check it out: Copyright 2007-2022. Anyone who tells you otherwise is full of shit. Whenever I started thinking the Soviet lenses were sharp, Id pop one of the Contax on the camera and stare in awe. The Carl Zeiss Distagon 2.8/28 T* enjoys a very good reputation and it is a bit more expensive at around 250. I shipped all of them to SIMMOD for declicking and a quick checkup. 80mm is the outside diameter of the rings, and that number is so specific because its a standard size for clip-on matteboxes. Finally found the old MTF charts for each of the Zeiss Contax lenses. I still dont know when to use them, though! Thats NOT to say all the designs are the same. Chris Ware Media - Cinematographer, Photographer, Journalist I know I stopped mentioning how sharp these lenses are, but the 60mm is worth highlighting. I remember years back when it was Pebble Place, Fred Miranda, a few random flickr pages and foggy lens tech folklore for figuring out this old glass. Leica Rs are much prettier. Next up was the 35mm, two stops faster at f/1.4. 15 3.5, 16 2.8 FISHEYE, 18 f4, 21 2.8, 25 2.8, 28 f2, 28 2.8, 35 1.4, 35 2.8, 45 2.8, 50 1.4, 50 1.7, 55 1.2, 60 2.8 Macro, 85 1.2, 85 1.4, 85 2.8, 100 f2, 100 2.8 Macro, 100 3.5, 135 f2, 135 2.8, 180 2.8, 200 f2, 200 3.5, 200 f4, 300 2.8, 300 f4, 500 5.6, 500 f8, 1000 f8, 28-85 3.3-f4, 35-70 3.3, 35-135 3.3-4.5, 80-200 f4, 100-300 4.5-5.6, 40-80 f4, 70-210 3.3.