Arri Ultra 16

[Jared Christopher]

Why can’t I find these anywhere? I’m building out my Aaton XTR kit and want to add a few of these but they’re impossible to find! https://www.oldfastglass.com/arri-zeiss-ultra-16

[Travis Shannon]

1 hour ago, Jared Christopher said:

Why can’t I find these anywhere? I’m building out my Aaton XTR kit and want to add a few of these but they’re impossible to find! https://www.oldfastglass.com/arri-zeiss-ultra-16

For the same reason that there aren’t a bunch of 416s floating around, these were the most advanced s16 primes Arri ever made and the price tag and quantity produced matches that, most are in rental houses like the one you linked. 

[Robin Phillips]

very few sets were made, relative to other zeiss glass. story is almost all of the spare parts were thrown away when the Red One came out and the interest in s16 plummeted. It took me years to put together my set, and I almost never rent them because if they get damaged they are instantly trash. Optically their only replacement is the Master Prime lens series, but 1 those dont fit great on an SR given its viewfinder arrangement (not an issue on an aaton), 2 they're expensive as all hell, and 3 they dont go as wide as the U16 line did.

Basically the only way to find any these days is to constantly be checking ebay and a few other trusted vendors who sometimes have them. if you're really lucky some of the lenses can be had for around $5k /each. Usually through brokers they're around 11k/ea. The only other real alternative is to buy out a rental houses collection, which is probably doable with the right amount of cash, but I'd expect you'd need to pay a hell of a premium to get anyone to do that these days.

[Marcel Zyskind]

Arri Media in the UK only bought the wides and used Ultra Primes to round out the set.

[Dom Jaeger]

Very high end lenses that were unfortunately released only a few short years before the industry transitioned to digital. As someone else mentioned, they suffered the same fate as the 416.

I enquired with Zeiss recently about parts for one, they have nothing. 

The only other really nice, modern S16 lenses are Cooke SK4s, but they are only T2 and Cooke only made three focal lengths to extend their S4 range down to 6mm. Also quite rare.  The Century 6mm is also excellent.

[Kemalettin Sert]

On 9/17/2022 at 6:01 PM, Jared Christopher said:

Why can’t I find these anywhere? I’m building out my Aaton XTR kit and want to add a few of these but they’re impossible to find! https://www.oldfastglass.com/arri-zeiss-ultra-16

They rent nationwide and have 1 day shipping option.Why you dont wanna rent through them ?

[Michael Lindsay]

The irony is Arri sold them really cheap at one time... I bought 2 sets for S3d for a really reasonable amount. I wish I had them now as they where fantastic for windowed HS work. I did hear a rumour Zeiss dumped some stock rather than sell cheap but assumed this was not true.. 

from memory they where brutally sharp! 

 

[Raymond Zrike]

8 hours ago, Michael Lindsay said:

The irony is Arri sold them really cheap at one time...

Arri sold each prime for I believe $3k through their refurbished equipment program two years ago. Noticed while looking through the Facebook group. What’s wild is that they put them up for sale right when covid hit the US—March 2020! Probably the absolute worst time they could have picked to sell them. I would have picked up a few just a few months earlier and/or later.