[0.425 lb] As far as affordable S35 cine lenses go, this one is the top dog. Unlike a lot of other popular lenses in its price-range, it has character; not a super-sharp clinical look. It flares nice, and has a great bokeh.


HOWEVER: I wish I would have known that Meike has no intention of releasing the other focal lengths anytime soon, which is a major negative. It's pretty absurd to release only one lens of the set and put the rest on the back-burner. So if owning the set is important to you, I would hold off until Meike releases the rest...whenever that may be.


Based on that, I would give a 0 star review, but the lens alone is outstanding.

[Nikon F] I haven't seen this anywhere, but the mft version has painted on marks while the FF version's are etched in. These S35 do in fact also have etched in marks/numbers. That plus the overall build quality and picture quality really make this an amazing lens. Added it to my BMPCC 4K with a Fotodiox Variable ND adapter and it's perfect.

[0.425 lb] The 50mm is out!

[0.425 lb] 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

[0.425 lb] 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.

[0.425 lb] I love the look it gives on my bmpcc6k pro

[Nikon F] I LOVE this lens. It gives you a beautifully wide angle, but it doesn't give you any noticeable distortion. In the attached pictures you can see my go-to rig and you can see a screenshot from a recent shoot I did. That screenshot hasn't been colored yet, and there was a ndfilter over the image. You can just see how much width you get, without getting that warped distortion look. Don't get me wrong, I like that look sometimes, but it's really nice to be able to pull off a beautifully wide look like this, without any distortion. Also the build quality of this lens is AMAZING. It feels incredible to wrack focus, and I just love the buttery smooth background blur you get. Thank you DZO Film. I love you guys!! And thank you B&H for always sending me my gear super quick and super well packaged.

[0.425 lb] solid construcction, great design, smoot focus, and an amazing image, go for it!

[0.425 lb] 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.

[0.425 lb] Feels real solid. I used to love the old Veydra mini primes and this is a worthy successor. Smooth focus and exposure rings. The flare is pretty decent in my opinion. The Bokeh is nice. For under $600 I couldn't ask for more.