ZEISS Compact Prime CP.2 135mm/T2.1 EF Mount with Imperial Markings

The ZEISS Compact Prime CP.2 135mm/T2.1 EF Mount with Imperial Markings is a cine prime lens designed for filmmaking and video production applications. Aside from great optics and mechanics, it offers broad flexibility in the areas of camera compatibility, follow-focus compatibility, and shooting capacity.

Announced at NAB 2012, this lens is a long telephoto addition to ZEISS’s Compact Prime CP.2 family of cine primes. Like the rest of the family, the 15mm features an interchangeable-mount system that affords a major forward-looking benefit — not only can the lens now be used with cameras of different mounts, but rather it is ensured to also be compatible with most all future cameras. The system offers compatibility with PL, EF, F, MFT and E mounts. ZEISS’s website provides instructions on how to dismantle an existing mount and assemble a new one. The five mounts allow use with cine cameras and DSLRs.

The CP.2 135 is ideal for portrait shots. The long focal length allows a working distance that avoids distortion and a narrow angle of view that can focus in on the foreground. A shallow depth of field native to telephotos further isolates the foreground from the background.

The optics and mechanics are superior too. The lens incorporates two aspheric lens elements and two special types of glass with abnormal partial dispersion that exceptionally corrects for chromatic aberration. ZEISS-famous T* anti-reflective coating along with internal light traps provide advanced flare suppression. Fourteen high-precision iris blades open up consistently circular across all T-stops, allowing impressive highlights in out-of-focus areas and producing smooth bokeh.

As for high flexibility, in addition to the interchangeable-mount system, the CP.2 135, like the rest of its family, provides full coverage of full frame 24 x 36 sensors. Accordingly, it can, now or at a future time, be used with any 24 x 36 sensor camera, such as the Canon 5D and 1DC and the Nikon D800.

The lens also offers follow-focus flexibility. Across the entire CP.2 family, the front diameter is consistent, focus and iris gears are standard, and the housing is cine-style, offering thus compatibility with all standardized follow-focus systems. In addition, the CP.2 135 also offers a focus ring rotation of a manual 300° and as such allows accurate follow-focusing.

Yet back to flexibility — for anyone who wants to take advantage of the 4K shooting capacity of many of the cameras being released, the entire CP.2 family, with the 135mm included, is 4K-compatible.

The 135mm is also color-matched with the rest of the CP.2 family, and so swapping it with another from within the family can conveniently be done without correcting for changes in post.

Built sturdy and with long-lasting optics, and promising future-proof compatibility, the 135mm can be relied on for many years of use in sharp resolution.

The particular page you’ve clicked on is for an EF mount version with imperial body markings.