CHANGING THE WAY YOU LOOK AT CINEMATOGRAPHY

PRIME ADVANTAGE
Cinematographers have long appreciated the advantages of prime lenses. Their smaller, lighter design makes them ideal for handheld camerawork. Built with fewer optical elements, primes have less glass-to-air surfaces, so images have greater clarity and brilliance and are less prone to flare and ghosting. DigiPrime® lenses have been designed to deliver pristine images that are more desirable and visually pleasing than those achieved with any other lens.

UNIFORM SIZE & BALANCE
Each DigiPrime® lens is housed in a common diameter barrel. Focus and iris gearing is uniformly positioned from lens to lens so changing lenses has never been easier. Because of their uniform size and shape, motors, matteboxes and rod-mounted accessories don’t need to be repositioned. Every DigiPrime® lens in the family from the 70mm to the wide angle 5mm have a common 95mm front diameter. With a design that puts the center of gravity near the lens mount and keeps it there throughout the focusing range (thanks to their internal focus design), DigiPrime® lenses are ideally suited to work requiring critical camera balance as with Steadicam®.

INTERNAL FOCUS DESIGN
DigiPrime® lenses employ Carl Zeiss Internal Focusing Design (IFD). With Carl Zeiss IFD, optical performance is kept at top level, center to corner, over the entire focusing range. There is no rotation of the front exterior housing. Focusing the lens moves only small lightweight lens groups within the DigiPrime® lens’ interior, eliminating any shift in the center of gravity. This ensures highly accurate focus and maximum image quality every time.

ACCURATE & VISIBLE MARKINGS
The expanded DigiPrime® lens barrel provides ample space to accommodate the unique calibrated focus scales. Featuring oversized, easy-to-read focus marks engraved and filled with long-life bright yellow enamel, they offer high visibility even under the very low ambient light levels found on many sets. Like state-of-the-art 35mm cine lenses, DigiPrime® lenses incorporate a generously windowed focus scale system. Focus marks are easily & accurately readable from either the smart or dumb side of the lens. There is ample room for taping customized focus marks. And the iris scale is viewable from both sides of the lens.

Carl Zeiss has improved on conventional focus scales, equipping DigiPrime® lenses with about 300° of barrel rotation. The expanded scales are individually calibrated for each lens to facilitate pinpoint accuracy. The standard focus ring, engraved in feet and inches, can be quickly changed to meters. The thoughtfully designed iris scales are marked in 1/3 step increments to best accommodate the tight exposure tolerances of electronic cinematography.

FIXED IRIS & FOCUS GEARS
The geared rings on DigiPrime® lenses are positioned uniformly across the set. Focus and iris scales are arranged in the ergonomically correct order: focus in front and iris behind, next to the camera. Solid construction under rigid tolerances keeps the focus and iris gear positions absolutely fixed even while focusing. There is no axial travel and no play. Positioning external lens motors and encoders is simplified, so there’s less wear and tear. Lens changes are simple, speedy and safe.

HIGH PRECISION FOCUS
DigiPrime® lenses are designed to achieve and hold the most critical focus. The focus drive mechanism has been scrupulously engineered to eliminate backlash and play. When focusing, the image remains perfectly centered. There is no tilt, rotation, or shift. Each DigiPrime® lens is designed to be virtually free of breathing, so focusing does not influence image size. Changes in aperture have no effect on focus.

ABSOLUTELY PRECISE BACK-FOCUS
Precision back-focus is critical to properly calibrated focus scales and perfectly focused images. Which is why DigiPrime® lenses were designed with a highly refined back-focus mechanism that ensures accurately maintained focus scale calibration across the entire focusing range. Back-focus scales are clearly engraved for exact repeatability. Once desired back-focus is achieved, the dependable locking feature fastens the mechanism securely in place.

INNOVATIVE IRIS
The Carl Zeiss team collaborated on a revolutionary new iris design exclusively for DigiPrime® lenses. The result is the best diaphragm system ever created for video or motion picture lenses. Free from lag, slop or backlash, the new iris utilizes nine blades to deliver circular diaphragm openings. This results in pleasing and natural-looking highlights, and detail in soft-focus areas of the image.

OPTIMUM WIDE OPEN
In minimal light situations, DigiPrime® lenses provide maximum creative control over depth of field. Like no other cinematography lens, the new Carl Zeiss design allows for shooting with the aperture fully open. It provides for unsurpassed contrast by minimizing flare, veiling glare and internal reflections, well below any other lens. DigiPrime® lenses deliver a crisp image with accurate contrast under the most demanding front lit conditions.

FLOATING ELEMENT DESIGN
While engineering their famous Ultra Prime® lenses for 35mm filmmaking, Carl Zeiss perfected the floating element design, whereby lens groups move precisely in relation to each other during focusing, to correct image area curvature & related optical aberrations. The DigiPrime® lens design effectively makes use of floating element groups to eliminate field and edge distortion, yielding sharp, high-resolution images across the field of view — even down to the closest focus.

ELEGANT CRAFTSMANSHIP & INSPIRED ENGINEERING
DigiPrime® lenses are engineered and built at the Carl Zeiss camera lens headquarters in Oberkochen, Germany. Each lens is created through a combination of precise craftsmanship and solid construction—qualities that have established Carl Zeiss as the world leader in mechanical and optical technology. The DigiPrime® lens barrel is elegant yet robust —ready to carry accessories like clamp-on shades, filters, ring lights, encoders and motors without distorting or impacting optical performance. A filter slot has been omitted in favor of a more rugged mechanical design. Scales and indices are carefully engraved for long-term accuracy and durability. Plus, smart modularity streamlines service and maintenance.

SUPERIOR IMAGE CONTRAST
Purpose built for the 2/3” CCD and beam splitting prism optical system found in current digital cinematography cameras, DigiPrime® lenses exceed an amazing 90% MTF value for the rendering of 56-line pairs/mm. This translates into unsurpassed optical performance exceeding the stated performance of all other digital cinematography lenses. Additionally, the perception of sharpness is aided by the uniform contrast and brightness across the image area. DigiPrime® images are pure and saturated, free of color fringing across the focus range, making them the ideal choice for the unique demands of green/blue screen work.

SUPER COLOR MATCHED
Carl Zeiss selects superior quality optical glass for the best color characteristics. Then individual lens surfaces receive the Carl Zeiss proprietary T* multiple layer anti-reflex coating, and the Carl Zeiss proprietary color matching treatment CMT is applied to ensure uniform color characteristics throughout the set. This minimizes costly color timing in post-production.