The Batis lenses are the first autofocus lenses made by ZEISS (not counting the Sony / ZEISS co-branded lenses marketed by Sony). This is definitely a helpful guide as other measurements are missing on the lenses entirely, and it gives you an idea about “where you are” just by making a very short glimpse at your lens. The additional numbers show you the range of depth of field, which is useful as well. Once you switch to manual focus, it lights up and shows the focus distance, which is constantly adjusted in realtime if you change the focus on the barrel and/or the aperture (with is controlled through the camera). This is new on a lens, the Batis come with a built-in display. Both the 25mm and the 85mm lens sport a pretty consistent look when shooting wide open. And when I took those lenses to my vacation with my A7s to get to know them before our shoot, I was amazed by the quality of the bokeh, which is hard to put in words … but judge for yourself on some of the photos I took. However, the fact that ZEISS developed two relatively short and very lightweight new lenses from scratch at a price that is in the reach of many (they are much less expensive than, for instance, a CP.2 lens) made them sound interesting. They are predominantly photo lenses, even more than their “older siblings”, the ZE/ZF primes, for various reasons. Sony A7s with ZEISS Batis 2/25, in the hands of Nino Leitnerįirst off, let’s put this straight – these two new lenses (Batis 2/25 and 1.8/85) are not made for shooting video. ![]() It wasn’t easy to adjust all of them to the follow focus and matte box due to different diameters, but we did what we could in the very tight shooting schedule that we had on that day. The aim was to use very decent photo lenses that can be hired or bought for much less than the CP.2’s, and give them a go for video production. Apart from the Batis 2/25 and 1.8/85, I used ZE primes (15mm, 18mm, 21mm, 28mm, 85mm, 100mm Macro, 135mm) on a Metabones Speedbooster (EF-E) and the Loxia 2/35 and 2/50 on the Sony FS7 and Sony A7s on this shoot. ![]() I organized a great camera and lighting crew as well as a great group of behind-the-scenes filmmakers and photographers (full credits at the bottom).įor the shoot, we had a full set of ZEISS photo lenses as we didn’t want to include any higher-budget lenses like the ZEISS CP.2’s which I usually use on shoots like this one. Within very little time, the director Nicola von Leffern and “Those Goddamn Hippies” were able to pull together a great ensemble of extras, two great dancers and the beautiful location of an old bread factory here in Vienna, Austria, which can be hired for all kinds of events. Here’s the behind-the-scenes video shot by Patrick Zadrobilek and Gunther Machu (edited by Patrick): It’s always a challenge to find the right type of project for gear reviews – so when I had the opportunity to test the new ZEISS Batis lenses on a video project of my choosing, it sounded like a great fit when director Nicola von Leffern asked me to shoot her new music video for “Those Goddamn Hippies” (English solo artist Tom Marsh).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |