[0.138x] I absolutely love the CP.3 lenses. The 85mm is an absolute Beauty. Having a compact, lightweight, well designed, and optically beautiful lens is a huge selling factor for me. I don't buy lenses that aren't build well and these are tanks. Zeiss did an incredible jobs redesigning these. I highly recommend. I use them on the Red Komodo and will soon try them out on the Red Raptor, although I know they will work great with it. Definitely a must buy or rent depending on your job or project. Worth every penny

[7.1" (181.8 mm)] Love everything about this lens; build quality, weight (light weight) and the optics are perfection. Elevates everything. Fantastic lens.

[8] These lenses were a dream of ours to own, quite expensive but after having them for a few weeks......wow. We really want to go back and re shoot everything cool we have ever done! The look they have is absolutely awesome......so happy with them. Super easy to work with...and the quality is second to none.

[> 50%] This lens is my bread and butter. For all of my client work I need something with a consistent look across the entire aperture range. Up until purchasing this lens my primary client glass was a sigma 24-70 2.8, which although beautiful, got soft when zoomed in to 50mm and under performed in other areas.


Aside from the performance of this lens, there are two things I adore: It's construction and color consistency. Despite being incredibly light, this lens is built like a tank. I travel frequently and it holds up very well. Because Zeiss improved the color rendition in the CP.3 line, I often rent the 85 or 100mm for my b-cam and have a easy time matching up cameras.



Much of my client work requires cropping in substantially (thanks Instagram) and I can comfortably shoot this at it's minimum aperture of T2.1 for a tack sharp image that can be scaled up in post.


I think this lens' greatest competition is the Canon CN-E line, which shoots warm and renders terrible onion skinning on the bokeh. For me this is unforgivable, and I'm happy to see a neutral, clean image coming from the CP.3 line. Assuming this is the look you need, I'm not sure you can get a better lens in this price bracket.

[8] I've had this lens for a little over one year now and it's basically lived on my Sony FX9 and FX6 since the moment it arrived to my door. The Zeiss CP.3 35mm lens is the perfect size and weight to fit in my backpack for when I need to pack light but packs the same punch as any top of the line cinema lens.


The optics on this lens are just outstanding. Beautiful color renditions matched with a tack sharp image really help get any job done.


I couldn't recommend this lens, or any of the other CP.3 lenses, more. It will definitely always have its place in my kit.

[8] This lens is the equivalent of having a set of CP.2 primes in the form factor of a zoom. There's zero focus breathing, beautiful bokeh, beautiful micro contrast. We just used this lens on an Fs7ii for a feature narrative film, and people have been commenting on how great it looks. I thought I would explain why: it's this lens. The focus is smooth, and we kept it mostly at an T4.5 except for a few scenes. You'll definitely want a focus puller if you're wide at 2.9. It's advertised at being a T2.9-3.9, but none of us could tell the difference really. It looked great at all ends of the zoom range. There was no discernible difference in sharpness wide or telephoto (like most zoom lenses out there). Just know that it's very large, and will weigh down your camera. In theory it would work for doc work, but would be a lot to carry, and would probably be intimidating toward subjects. For narrative work on a budget, I can't recommend it enough. it's better contrast, sharpness and focus breathing than the Fujinon MK series, and leaps and bounds better than any photo zoom lens. I can't recommend this enough.