For The Love of the Zoom: A Brief Retrospective and Rationale On My Use of Cinema Zoom Lenses

by James Mathers
Cinematographer and Founder of the Digital Cinema Society
(Excerpted from the October 2024 Digital Cinema Society eNewsletter)

The modern zoom lens is optically complex with multiple movable lens elements, requiring intricate mechanisms to maintain image sharpness and focus throughout the zoom range, ideally with minimal ramping, (or changes in exposure.) These lens elements, together with their optical/mechanical systems, tend to make zoom lenses bulkier and slower than primes.  However, despite any drawbacks, I’ve always loved zooms. Zoom lenses have been foundational in my journey as a Cinematographer, offering creative flexibility and greater efficiency with diminishing tradeoffs as technical innovation has improved their quality over the years to a point that they now approach the performance of prime lenses. 

I came up shooting mostly documentary style 16mm and video where zoom lenses were the standard. The resolution was acceptable for the format, they offered good focal range, usually around 10 to 1 for film lenses with a stop somewhere under T3.  Video zooms were even faster, sometimes under T2, and many had built in focal expanders doubling the focal length, albeit with a two stop loss in exposure.  Importantly, they also had a form factor that allowed for handheld operation.  Specific lenses that I owned in those early years included a ZEISS/ARRI 10 x 1 with my ARRI 16SR camera, as well as an Angénieux 12-120mm f2.2, plus a 9.5-57mm f1.6-2.2 that I also used with my 16mm Eclair NPR.  Along the way, I also owned several Canon and Fujinon zooms with the many video cameras that I went through over those years.

It wasn’t until I put my own 35mm film camera package together for narrative work in the mid-1980’s that I personally ever used prime lenses extensively, and then only if the situation did not allow me to operate with a zoom. My package consisted of a well used ARRI BL3 as my A-camera and an unblimped ARRI II-C as a B-camera.  I invested in an expensive new, but beautiful, Cooke 20-100mm T3.1, which I was not afraid to shoot wide-open, as well as an older 25-250mm T4, which I usually only used when I could stop down to at least a T5.6.  I also invested in a 5 lens set of Standard Speed ZEISS primes, (16mm to 85mm T2.1).

While the 5 to 1 Cooke on the ARRI BL3 was my workhorse on the over 30 some Indie features I shot over the next decade, I often needed to reach for the primes.  This was usually due to the bulk of the camera when a zoom was mounted.  It was difficult if not impossible to handhold the ARRI BL with that 11 pound Cooke, not to mention the full size matte box, lens support and zoom motors.  You’re talking about close to 50 lbs once you add the BL and a magazine full of film.  Of course, Steadicam was out of the question in this “studio configuration.”  

Occasionally, I would need more range or a longer focal length, so I would opt for the 10 to 1 zoom, but that was usually only outdoors in day exteriors where I had adequate light.  Speaking of exposure, another use case for the primes was to gain more exposure. My primes were about a stop faster than my zoom and when I picked up a second set of ZEISS Super Speeds the differential was closer to gaining two stops of exposure. That was especially important in those days when motion picture film stocks were only rated around 100ASA.  However, when I was able to work with adequate exposure and didn’t need to go hand-held or use a Steadicam, I would always opt for the trusty Cooke zoom.

Although I thought it tacky to make jarring on-camera moves, I would often sneak a subtle zoom into a camera move.  Mostly, I just used the 5 to 1 as a “variable prime,” which can be a very fast way to work. Even with top notch camera assistants, it can take a few minutes to swap out a prime, especially if the barrel sizes differ and require recalibration of focus marks or swapping out retaining rings, etc.  It can take much longer if the camera is not easily accessible such as on a crane or remote head, and a lens swap on the Steadicam not only means a return to the sled, but can also require rebalancing .

In the mid 1990’s, I decided that owning gear was holding me back and keeping me trapped in the low-budget realm, so I sold it all and invested in residential real estate.  Taking a decade long break from gear ownership turned out to be a very good move considering the way Los Angeles real estate appreciated compared to my old film cameras, which are probably near worthless today.  Over the next decade I worked mostly in episodic TV with rental gear, both 16mm with ARRI and Aaton, plus 35mm with Panavision, as well as some HD.  It wasn’t until the RED camera came around that I got the bug to again invest in cinema gear.

I had shot a few early digital features in HD and was a few years into running the Digital Cinema Society when RED Digital Cinema approached me to do some testing of a then secret new camera system that would become the RED One.  I knew it was going to be something special, with the ability to shoot RAW with S35 cinema glass on a digital camera.  I put down a deposit to get one of the first available cameras and I immediately purchased another set of ZEISS primes, just like the ones I paired with my ARRI BL many years before. 

The value of those legacy lenses quickly shot up as shooting S35 on digital sensors came to the fore.  In fact, they are still sought after as the “vintage look” has become popular.  I only sold them recently at a very handsome profit.  (If I sound like an entrepreneurial braggart, it is only because I’m not telling you about my many equipment investment misfires over the years which are too numerous to list in this article.)

Getting back to zooms, the crown jewel of my RED One package was an Angénieux Optimo 17-80mm.  It sold for more than three times the cost of the camera body, but it was well worth it.  It’s a beautiful piece of glass, quite fast for a zoom at T2.2, and has a good focal range for the kind of narrative work I do; (wide enough for a master shot, and just long enough to also get close-ups without a lens change.)

Much to the chagrin of Jim Jannard, the Founder of RED, I wrote an article about putting my first RED camera package together entitled, “How I Spent $100,000 on a $17,500 Camera.”  RED was messaging that their $17.5K camera was capable of shooting cinema quality movies, (and it was.)  However, many naive aspiring filmmakers imagined that was all they needed, and didn’t realize that this price only included a box with a sensor in it; there was a lot more expensive gear necessary to make a working camera package.  It was mostly the glass that ran up my tab, but I believed the cost was well justified.  An image is only as good as its weakest link, so it didn’t seem to make sense to me to scrimp on the first link in this chain.  

I shot several Indie movies with this package, including one that won a Best Cinematography award at the London International Film Festival.  However, the evolution of motion picture technology means change, and in my case that meant needing to cover larger sensors.  It started when RED expanded the sensors on their first Epic cameras to cover 5K, causing my S35 lenses to vignette if I wanted to take advantage of the full size of the new sensor.  I lamented the fact that I couldn’t fully utilize my beloved Optimo to my friends at Angénieux, and worked out an arrangement where they performed a factory retrofit of the lens as a proof of concept.  They basically added a small built-in expander to convert my 17-80mm to 19.5-94mm with only a slight loss of stop from T2.2 to T2.6.  

All the beauty and performance of the Optimo was maintained, but unfortunately, so was the bulk.  Although this package served me well on several productions over the next couple of years, I was excited to discover, while shooting our DCS booth tour interviews at NAB 2012, the new Fujinon Cabrio 19-90mm.  It covered the RED 5K with a 31.5mm image circle, had about the same 5×1 zoom ratio as the Optimo, but only weighed about six and half pounds with a detachable servo.  This meant I could enjoy the advantages of a zoom and still handhold the camera just like in my old documentary days.

I will not argue that the optical quality was equal to the best primes, but like everything to do with optics there are tradeoffs, (coverage and range versus maximum aperture, etc.)  This was a tradeoff I was willing to make, plus the servo could work remotely with industry standard FIZ units, and very importantly to me at the time, it had lens metadata capability.  I was just about to start production on a pilot that took advantage of early virtual production technology.  The metadata, fed from the lens into the live compositing computer, allowed us to shoot blue screen and see the comp in realtime locked to the background volume even with zooms and camera movement.  I ordered the first generation of Cabrio on the spot, and still own it today.  (See my interview with Fujinon’s Chuck Lee at NAB 2012 where I was introduced to the Cabrio:  https://vimeo.com/745835350 )

Some traditional cinematographers were turned off by having the servo unit attached, so in order to placate them, Fujinon made it easily removable.  However, having it installed made a lot of sense to me, after spending years suffering from slipping gears and wonky connections with outboard zoom controls and motors. Also, in the broadcast lens tradition, the lenses allowed for easily adjustable back-focus with a knob on the outside of the lens instead of requiring a trip to the lens bench for painstakingly slow adjustment with a collimator.

I was sold on the Cabrio concept and invested in others as they became available, first a 25-300mm and then a 20-120mm, both T3.5.  All was going swimmingly until again sensor sizes started to expand.  RED, Sony, and ARRI introduced cameras with sensors that were referred to as “Large Format,” which my beloved Cabrio zooms no longer fully covered.  There were many prime lenses to choose from that easily covered the new larger sensors, but the available zoom lenses were then scarce. Several cine lens manufacturers soon answered the call with zooms that could cover large format.  For example, Fujinon introduced their Premista line, which like the Cabrios, were compact, had decent focal range, were relatively fast at T2.9, and were capable of being handheld.  Also covering Full-Frame, Leitz offered very high-end zooms, which were fairly comparable with some of their primes. Angénieux introduced their EZ series featuring user convertible rear lens elements to cover both S35 and Full Frame as did Canon with their FLEX zooms which opened all the way to T1.7 when only needing to cover S35.

More recently, Fujinon has developed the Duvo series which further blurrs the line between Cinema and Broadcast lenses by adding a built in expander that allows going between relatively fast S35 coverage to full frame coverage with the flip of a switch. Of course, having the expander employed results in about a stop and a half loss of exposure, but also converts the lens into a more telephoto mode. This feature enables a lot of versatility, especially for someone like me who owns both S35 and Full Frame cameras. Also notable with the Duvo line is the great range of focal lengths, from 14mm all the way to 1000mm between the 3 lenses that have so far been introduced. (14-100mm, 24-300mm, and 25-1000mm, all with expanders.)

With all these great choices, the only issue for me is cost.  I’m not saying they are overpriced, but I always like to shoot with at least two cameras, and when buying complete new camera systems at upwards of $80,000 each, it is hard to simultaneously invest in two high-end zooms, plus a set of primes which are needed in order to open up and show off the shallow depth of field that these sensors are capable of.  

That is my current dilemma, and with the downturn in work available to us in the L.A. area of late, it has me nervous to make large investments.  I’m getting by on most projects with my Cabrios on my S35 Varicam and URSA 12K cameras, and renting when I need lenses to cover my large format cameras.  However, I’ve got my eye on new lenses being introduced and saving up so that when work picks up I’ll be ready to invest and keep up with the latest cinema camera and lens technology, including my beloved zooms.