Zeiss is adding three new T2.9 high-end cine zooms to its Supreme family of lenses: 15-30mm, 28-80mm and 70-200mm. Featuring the same T* blue coating that helped make the Supreme Prime Radiance lenses so popular, the new Supreme Zoom Radiance lenses offer a similar look with pronounced yet consistent flaring, as well as warmer overall color rendition. Like their prime siblings, the new zooms also cover full-frame sensors and feature standardized gear placement for easier lens swaps mid-production. With the ease and versatility of zooms finding a stronghold in the market, the Zeiss Supreme Zoom Radiance set could prove very popular with filmmaking professionals across the industry.
For many cinematographers, one of the biggest challenges is finding a look that stands out from the crowd, while also creating consistency across the project. Vintage lenses are extremely popular and unique but often produce dramatically different looks even within the same line. Contemporary lenses are remarkably precise but create a standardized look that leaves most stylistic choices up to lighting, set dressing, and post-production. Zeiss Supreme Zoom Radiance lenses try to find a middle ground, with a vintage-feeling warm color cast and enhanced flares that are still controllable and reproducible. Like most other Zeiss cinema lenses, the desired look is a “gentle sharpness” with pleasing focus fall-off and “elegant bokeh.”
With the pace of modern video production continuing to increase, zoom lenses help crews get more shots in a shorter period of time by having a wide variety of focal lengths right at their fingertips, with the 15 to 200mm range of these three zooms covering the vast majority of typical setups. Uncoated modern cinema lenses have also gained a foothold by approximating vintage characteristics, but that often brings about severe ghosting, variable flares, and hard-to-reproduce abnormalities. Supreme Radiance lenses avoid these issues by still using a coating, just a different T* coating than the standard Supreme Primes. Zoom mid-shot and watch the flares change in one-of-a-kind ways, creating delightful in-camera effects.
Whether used alone, with Radiance or regular Supreme Primes or even vintage glass, the three Radiance Zooms offer a look never before seen in a zoom lens.
All three Supreme Zoom Radiance lenses are available for preorder now—individually, or as part of a set—with an expected ship date of Spring 2025. Each lens has an interchangeable mount kit for PL and LPL and should be fully integrated with the Zeiss CinCraft virtual production ecosystem at launch.
For more information about the Zeiss Supreme Zoom Radiance set, including additional features, specs, and highlights, be sure to check out the detailed product pages. Or drop us a line below, and we’ll do our best to answer all your comments and questions.
