Sorry I should have added the lenses would be mostly for in house research and development and promotional material for our own stuff, which is mostly centered around VFX production. Metadata is a nice option but not a deal breaker as we get the information we need from the motor drivers. But lightweight and smaller size is preferred as we are a small team on the camera side. Fast lenses would be better as we don't have many options for lights. Close focus is not a priority. I was thinking the clean image of something like a Signature Prime would be a good starting place and we could play around with filters and their rear magnetic holders to experiment with less digital looks. Renting is not a big priority but would be nice to have the option down the line.
The Zeiss CP3's do ideal on paper as they are small, lightweight, have some zooms, and even have a metadata version. I am just worried that the image quality might not be high enough. Similar thoughts with the Tokina, Sigmas, and CN-E series. We are planning to market ourselves to a wide variety of productions from indie to higher budget so demos with top quality lenses would be ideal. Cine modded FD Ls or Leica Rs could be a great budget option, I'm assuming they will have some focus breathing but that wouldn't be a deal breaker for our use case I don't think.
I hadn't thought about the Ultra Primes covering 16:9 on the LF but it does appear they do up until the 20mm. That may be enough for us. Also the Super Speeds could be a great option as well considering that. Do you have any zooms you would recommend to match the Ultra Primes? And good point on the new ARRI S35 which could bring S35 back into trend.
I guess it would still be a shame to not go FF since we shelled out for the Mini LF but I don't know if we really need it, might be better to have the value, quality and speed of the Ultra Primes/Super Speeds and we can always rent FF lenses for specific productions.
Thank you both so much for your feedback this is super helpful.
