These ARRI Standard Speed MKII primes were made in West Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall and before the breakup of the USSR! Our lenses were made in the early 1980’s (we suspect 1983) when ARRI was then known as Arriflex, and MJ’s Billie Jean was no.1 in the charts! They are small, solid, lightweight, fast enough at T2.1 and have an organic sharpness and fall-off bokeh which is different to modern lenses, they also have slightly more contrast too. The Standard Speed MKII primes have plenty of character, personality and history. They bring an additional filmic aesthetic to modern digital cameras.
We have 7 x ARRI Zeiss Standard Speed MKII primes available:
16mm T2.1
24mm T2.1
32mm T2.1
40mm T2.1
50mm T2.1
85mm T2.1
100mm T2.1
The ARRI Zeiss Standard Speed MKII primes were in direct competition with the Cooke Speed Panchro primes and were considered to be optically superior to the Cooke Panchro lenses. The older Standard Speed MK1 lenses had a different coating and a different physical design and look, which was more subjective, however the Standard Speed MKII primes were released with various improvements, including the newly introduced T* coating, which is still in use today on ARRI Zeiss Ultra Primes and CP.3 primes. The Ultra Primes were actually the replacement for the Standard Speed primes, so the Ultra Primes have their heritage with the Standard Speed primes, whereas the Super Speed Primes were replaced by Master Primes. The Standard Speed MKII primes have a similar look to the Ultra Primes, just ever-so fractionally less-sharp in the corners and more contrasty, which is considered desirable on vintage lenses, that’s the whole point in shooting vintage! The Standard Speed lenses match the Super Speed lenses perfectly when aperture matched, T2.8, T4, etc and with an identical coating. So they are ideal to be paired with Super Speed primes or when the budget suits Standard Speed primes but the desirable look is a vintage, different aesthetic, a Super Speed look, still very popular today. Lots of established cinematographers actually prefer the bokeh on the Standard Speed MKII primes over the Super Speed primes. As was often common at the time, the 16mm, 24mm and 32mm ARRI Standard Speed MK2 primes have been close-focus modified, so they are excellent macro lenses too, they have a minimum close focus which is literally almost touching the front lens element in Macro mode, The mighty Roger Deakins talked about these lenses on his forum, and said: ”I often shoot with Standard Speed T2.1 Zeiss lenses wide open. You need to watch for those annoying flares off a highlight or a point source but they are otherwise excellent lenses.”
The set also includes: Matte box with filter holder for 7.5sm/ 7.5sm filter size; ND 0.3; ND 0.6; ND 0.9 and Polarizer filter.
