It was a joy to take the entire Carl Zeiss lens kit out on a shoot last month for a couple of test shoots as well as some work for current clients. We experimented with the 18mm, 25mm, 35mm, 50mm and an 85mm Carl Zeiss lenses from our friends over at Cleveland Camera. There’s not space here to cover all of these extraordinary lenses but we’d like to take the opportunity to discuss the 50mm f/1.4.

The 50mm Zeiss lens is nothing short of amazing. The build quality of the full metal just screams quality as this lens is made of brass with a chromium-plated front bayonet. This is a substantial piece of glass and we felt our AF100 was the right piece of gear for which to try it out.

All we needed was a micro four thirds to Nikon F Mount adapter and we were ready to go. Our first stop was a day break shoot at the prestigious Metedeconk National Golf Course in Jackson, NJ. Director of Photography and Owner of Strohl Digital, Andy Strohl hit the links at sunrise with a Manfrotto tripod, his Panasonic AF100 and five different Zeiss lenses strapped to his back.

The 50mm worked well in the low light of the morning sunrise and provided me with sharpness and clarity needed for these landscape shoots. I did notice that the “sweet spot” of this lens (as described by some full frame users) is not wide open but rather at the f/2 stop of this lens. Stopping down to f/1.4 produced less sharp image but with no barrel distortion. I enjoyed the weight and handling of this lens immensely… it was a true joy to work with.

-Andy Strohl, Director of Photography

Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm 1.4 Screen Shot with no color correction:

The 50mm Zeiss also works terrifically well as an interview lens as demonstrated in this screen shot below during a shoot with Don Halaburto, Vice President of Jet Aviation, one of the world’s largest charter aircraft providers in the country. We stopped the 50mm down to around the  f/2.8 point and yielded some great “interview style” footage from Don for their monthly aviation blog:

The biggest test for this 50mm Zeiss lens for us was how well it works in low light since many of our shoots are at night in concert space or low light “mood generating” lighting scenarios for short films, docs or music videos. The first screen shot below is from our latest music video shoot from our client Barnaby Bright starring James Allerdyce and Mallory Hawks. Our crew had some limited daylight and a small Arri 650w Fresnal to capture this intense moment in the narrative of the video and again, the 50mm was the perfect choice for this shot.

Again from Director of Photography, Andy Strohl:

I had a choice between going with a 24mm f/0.9 Voightlander Nokton or the 85mm Zeiss for this shot but it just seemed to work with the Zeiss 50mm. I feel like the 50mm gives the viewer distance in a way, a distance and clarity that I can’t replicate with other lenses. This shot of Mallory Hawks called for a detachment from the audience and from her co-actor James Allerdyce in a way that just called for the 50mm.

Screen Shot From the Music Video “Old Coats” (coming soon!) with no color correction.

Carl Zeiss cinema lens packages are available for your next shoot. We include 12mm, 25mm, 50mm and 85mm Zeiss glass with this package to shoot your next short film, commercial, event or music video.

Send us an email to inquire about pricing: strohldigital@gmail.com.

It’s remarkably easy to focus now with the newly enhanced on-board monitor and EVF settings which are widely customizable to varying degrees of frequency adjustments. The only focus options we miss on this camera is the ability to toggle the EVF completely off or on just to be able to reference some shots against the current settings. Why no EVF toggle as an option for one of the four customizable presets?  We would also like to see the “focus-in-red” option carried over from the AF100 as an option for those of us used to using that feature for sharp focus adjustments.

The biggest physical change in this model from it’s predecessors is the intergration of an iris ring instead of the bothersome iris wheel which has been a part of these Panasonic cameras dating all the way back to the time of the DVX lines. Our hope is that Panasonic integrates the iris ring into all of their cameras going forward. In the age of DSLR and interchangeable lenses, the standard should be an iris ring instead of the annoying, hard to reach wheel. Kudos to Panasonic for listening to their customers and improving their lines on a consistent basis. We are huge fans and loyal customers for that reason!

Here’s the finished product from the shoot at Teterboro Airport:

http://youtu.be/UeLexFvXd1o?hd=1