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Soulful Design Reborn in Modern Optics
- Author: Sam Jorgensen
Zeiss and Cine Visuals Present: Zeiss Aatma Primes
Cinematic Heritage
Zeiss is well known as a legendary company in the world of optics. Carl Zeiss was born in September of 1816 in Weimar, Germany. He became renowned for his precision in optical design and famed for his microscopes. Upon his death in 1888, he had created a name for himself in microscopy, optics, medical technologies, and the scientific world at large. Afterward, his predecessors took his optical designs and branched out. One of these areas was camera lenses. Quickly, they became the leading camera lens optical designers in Germany. By 1925, they had crossed the Atlantic and established themselves in New York City, becoming a staple in the American filmmaking market. As with Carl Zeissโ commitment to precision and innovation using science to make dreams a reality, the company has kept this ideal as their legacy to this day.
Lenses like the Zeiss B-Speeds, the Super Speeds, the Ultra Primes, and the Master Primes have all taken their seat as lenses renowned for their character and reliability. As mentioned, Zeiss is known for their precision. Their optical designs have become scientifically perfect. Of modern lenses, Zeiss has created the most ideal and clinically perfect designs. However, many cinematographers and filmmakers have turned their heads to the past in reminiscence of vintage glass. At the time, the imperfections and limitations of the glass created unique characteristics that while many are technicallyย โflawsโ, bring an organic beauty to the image. Humans carry the dual nature of crisp rationality and deep feeling, and many filmmakers seek their tools to reflect their own experiences.
Some productions have used vintage glass with their old, often cumbersome housings, a sacrifice willingly made for the artistic results. New companies such as TLS, Zero Optik, and GL Optics – to name a few – have attempted to take vintage glass and reform them into modern housings, in order to strike a balance between artistic desires and practical on-set needs.
Zeissโ modern glass has gained a reputation for reliability and crisp functionality. While the glass is beautiful and captures images with excellent and accurate retention, some find the look has leaned into a clinical feeling. Listening to the people, they announced the Zeiss Aatma lenses. Just unveiled to the world days ago and poised for release in June, these new lenses bring an elegant revolution to the industry. Zeiss Aatmas are a completely new innovation and take on optical design. Other companies have attempted to alter their modern glass to give it a more vintage feeling, such as de-coating or de-tuning pre-existing modern lenses as is the case with the Sigma Classics or the Canon V-35s. Similar to the newly released ARRI Ensโโลs or the Blackwing7 Tribe7 (both sets available for rent here at Cine Visuals), the Zeiss Aatmas bring something truly new and yet nostalgic to the world of optical design. Instead of altering their modern glass or attempting to reinvent the popular Super Speeds, B-Speeds, or Contax lenses, the Aatmas draw inspiration from both and more while creating something new.
The word โAatmaโ comes from Sanskrit and means โinnermost essenceโ, โselfโ or โsoulโ. While interrelated, these three concepts are both the same and separate aspects of the same whole. In much the same way, Aatma achieves many faces while being perfectly cohesive. Hailing back to the beauty of the flawed vintage glass and the wisdom of perfected modern glass. Balancing the rational and feeling. A lens that doesnโt just try to mimic the emotions of a human, but captures the soul at its most raw state. Glass that can reflect the storyteller, and capture the โselfโ. A truly human lens.
Image Fidelity & Focus
Image quality nods to the classics of the Super Speeds and Zeissโ iconic look that has so deeply shaped how people feel about movies from the โ60s and โ70s. Their resurgence in popularity is no mere coincidence. The optical technicians responsible for the genius of the Aatmas describe their greatest inspiration was that of Distagon, Planar, and Sonnar glass. Hoping to capture the essence of what made these legacy optics capture life not as it was but how we remember it, was a driving force behind the design.
First, they designed the glass with optical perfection. That is seen in how each focal length despite its impressive range of primes (18mm, 25mm, 35mm, 40mm, 50mm, 65mm, 85mm, 100mm, and 135mm) match without distinction. Each lens can be trusted to behave just like any of its siblings in the set. Yet, with perfect unison comes their imperfect character. Skin tones are gentle and rendered with care. Color feels like a memory rather than a scientific recreation. Contrast is medium with extremely subtle falloff that brings balance in the image that brings a filmic quality. Zeiss is known for their careful separation of focal planes and the Aatmas bring that smooth layering from subject to background.
See the Aatma Primes in action in this short film created by Zeiss.
Handling & Adaptability
Part of what makes the Zeiss Aatma Primes so genius is their fusion of vintage excellence and modern mechanics. Not only do they think of the story, but they also think of the on-set workflow, combining both the artistic and the practical.
With nine focal lengths, cinematographers have a wide range of choices to capture the story in the exact frame they envision. The focal lengths span from 18mm, 25mm, 35mm, 40mm, 50mm, 65mm, 85mm, 100mm, and 135mm. From 25mm to 100mm each lens is either 4.70โ or 4.80โ in length with the 18mm reaching 6.40โ and the 135mm measuring 5.70โ. Storage becomes universal and simple. Camera assistants have easier lens swaps, saving time and energy on set. The 18mm and 135mm have a front diameter of 114mm with the rest of the set having a sweet spot of a 95mm front diameter. Consistency is a key factor of the modern designs of the Zeiss Aatmas. Mattebox or filter changes amongst other camera adjustments are made simple and easy with each lens having the same workflow. A front diameter of 95mm is small and compact enough to give operators freedom and large enough for camera assistants to work without tedium.
With the 18mm and 135mm weighing a cool 5 lbs and the rest of the set averaging 3 lbs, these lenses are incredibly lightweight for the amount of optical elements and mechanical housing they contain. Many vintage glass suffers from heavier weights and difficult mechanical housing while modern glass has excellent mechanical design but lacks the โinnermost essenceโ that filmmakers seek. Somehow, Zeiss has found a striking ability to contain these desires into the Aatmas and make them light enough for operators to work all day. Flexible and precise, the Zeiss way.
Image Circle
A return to the look and feel of vintage glass and motion picture film stock are some of the many growing artistic needs of the industry today. Another is large format. Over the last few years cameras such as the ARRI Alexa Mini LF, the Sony Venice 1 & 2, the RED Raptor VV, and even more recently VistaVision film have become not just options but staples of the film industry. Full Frame is here to stay. In order to accommodate the desire for vintage glass and large format, companies such as TLS have taken vintage glass meant for 35mm still photography and reworked them for cinema. An example of this is the TLS Canon FDs (available for rent here at Cine Visuals). This glass was designed to cover the horizontally exposed 35mm, which is wider than the vertically exposed 35mm film common in cinema. As a result, these lenses can cover modern Full Frame cinema cameras which in turn is inspired by VistaVision which itself is a cinematic adaption of 35mm still photography.ย
However, Zeiss wanted to do something new. With all the improvements and mechanical ingenuity of modern lenses with the soulful character of vintage glass. So, the Zeiss Aatmas were crafted to meet the demands of the modern world inspired by the artistic sensibilities of the past without simply remaking what already exists. Creating all of this for the large format era. Zeiss Aatmas have an image circle of 46.3mm, easily covering modern Full Frame sensors and VistaVision film. No vignetting, no worrying which focal lengths will cover. Yet, these lenses still pair well with 35mm formats that allow these lenses the creative essence of vintage glass with the flexibility of modern optics.
Flare & Bokeh
Zeiss Aatmas have controlled flares that offer subtle additions to the image without consuming the frame. Flares nod to vintage glass while taking a reserved painterly appearance. With color that takes on the appearance of the light, giving cinematographers flexibility to mold flares with consistency and artistry. Each flare has a subtle starring effect with gentle rolloff that feels like subtle halation. There is no sharpness in the flares, only an elegant rolloff. Bubbly bokeh brings a subtle heartfelt quality to the image. At T1.5, the Bokeh is large and yet has a refined constraint in its personality. Each circle maintains a heavenly lightness as if floating with carefree whimsy. From 18mm – 100mm they have 16 iris blades while the 135mm has 18 blades. Immaculate design in the aperture creates that smooth buttery bokeh that keeps their circular shape all the way stopped down. And yet for much of the image circle, they stay true to shape with just the most subtle of crescenting on the edges of the frame for that nod to vintage glass. No overwhelming swirl but just enough crescenting, the bokeh naturally leads the eye towards the subject of the frame. A well-defined balance between character without drawing attention to itself.ย
Explore the full Zeiss Aatma Prime set.
The Zeiss Aatma Primes are coming soon to Cine Visuals and will be available to rent worldwide. For inquiries or testing appointments, email info@cinevisuals.com or call (323) 244-2552.