philip_pj
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Now to your points. Zeiss were justifiably proud of their 1993 15 element lens, an ultra-complex lens that is now 33 years ago, so very much 'vintage' for most. I've seen the extraordinary lens structure diagrams. Asph and ED were known long before, in the 50s and 60s. At this stage let me add that I research all I write, often with citations, but not always due to space. And people hate to read, I understand that.
Cost, in Carl Zeiss' own words, was not a big issue for this lens. It's an unbelievable lens even by today's standards. So it's not accurate to say they had primitive or technical limitations. And we see that film era lenses do just great on modern wide DR sensors.
However, it is not a 3D king! We have very different people doing lens design these days, a very different generation, all seemingly hellbent on eradicating their one real enemy - chromatic aberration.
Cine lenses are always striving for the best results, and back in the days of the Summ-C etc and even today, that means complexity. Did you know cinema attendance has dropped 50% over the last 20 years? People dislike the look of modern lens design even in cine applications. I read this material too.
Chinese lenses, I believe, have plenty to brag about. Most here are very serious about their work, and you see the consensus building that they see very fine results from Viltrox and Thypoch. Thypoch have access to DZO specialists (parent company) inside the Shenzhen technology zone - they do both modified M lenses and cutting edge designs of their own. You can look at the results and see for yourself. FM is close to being a CV stronghold, so not many Thy users are here. DZO make several (many in fact) lens ranges which feature advanced coating tech.
'Using advanced multi-layer nano-coating technology, the Arles series features a specially calibrated blue coating that ensures precise flare control with minimal stray light and ghosting, plus exceptional color accuracy across the spectrum.'
You can take a look:
https://store.dzofilm.com/products/arles-ff-vv-prime-cine-5-lens-set-arri-pl
..and read reviews from experts in the field.
We need a different conversation of what exactly constitutes a 'flaw' in an artistic field whose very existence relies on the production of appealing imagery, be it cine or stills. Flat lenses are obviously 'flawed' and the cine industry is now responding.
The race is on to see what is the best mix of optical strengths and weaknesses (putting it in sheer tech terms) that can deliver the best aesthetics. Designers like Iain Neil market 'add-on' that dial in aberrations, he designed the Summ-C series. ARRI will tear apart a $25000 lens to move element spacing around, just to obtain a 'better' look the cinematog/director want. Zeiss just released a 'soft' range - the Aatmas, and Leica has the great Thalias and Hektors, then there is Cooke.
ZEF series were arguably a step down from CY/N due to their overly harsh macro-contrast, not least in the 21/2.8. They do better nowadays thanks to greater DR, which Sony pioneered.
I'm delighted with my low element count lenses WRT 3D, for the reasons I've outlined above: slow apertures, few glass-air surfaces, greater saturation (lead), more pleasing coatings, less optical work for correction, no ED.
No one needs to agree of course, but the middle Simeras are far from knock-offs, and that is why many M users opted for the 50/1.4 in place of the M lens it uses as a source design. In time, the 28mm will take its place as a classic lens, it's already on the way. All have very different MTF than the M source lenses, which again you can look up if your impartiality stretches that far.
https://thypoch.com/en/
I've been through a lot of lenses, some fancied ones too, and the Simeras are outstanding in my work environments, far better for me than all but the CY optics.
And f1.4 /FLE / weight / size / structure retaining bokeh / 14 blade irises, and more besides..a funny story, I got interested in them when I saw members laughing at the unusual spacing of aperture ring markings, which is actually carryover from cine lens practice - those folks know that most effort is needed at wide open and near to it, so they provided more precise rotation. cheers.
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