Earlier this year, Christophe Casenave, Head of the ZEISS Cinematography Business Unit, teased: “We have a few surprises that address some things we see for the future of cine production.
“Panoptes 65 is our first set of cine lenses for the 65mm format—ready for cameras with even larger sensors that offer distinctly different qualities. We have enjoyed 16mm, 35mm, Super35 and Full Frame. The next big thing to drive uniqueness is the 65mm format. It opens up new dimensions, new looks, new ways of telling stories. It will surely increase in terms of popularity.
“Panoptes 65 is the first ZEISS lens series for the 65 mm format. This dedicated family of large-format cinema primes brings the prestige and immersive scale of 65 mm acquisition into an accessible, production-ready form.”
ZEISS is no stranger to Medium Format lenses. They produced the famous Zeiss/Hasselblad 500 series V-Mount (74.90 mm FFD, approx Ø 85 mm) and Zeiss/Contax 645 (64 mm FFD, approx Ø 78-80 mm) still lenses.
The new Panoptes 65 series comes in 10 focal lengths—from 25 to 180 mm— all T2.2. Notably, they all have a 95mm front diameter, except the 25 and 180 which have 114 mm fronts. The 25mm Panoptes 65 has an angle of view similar to a Super35 format 12mm lens. That’s very wide—for LAWRENCE OF ARABIA style vistas or undistorted up-close and expansive portraits.
The new Panoptes 65 set is consistent in look, well-balanced with natural colors, unobtrusive sharpness, elegant focus fall-off, gentle skin tones and smooth bokeh. Sundeep Reddy and Jeanfre Fachon at ZEISS call the look “mellow—not too technical.”
Sundeep continued, “The team conceived of this project when there was an indication that the market was heading in the direction of 65mm format. We wanted to be well-prepared, proactive and have something available. By mid 2024, some designs were in the works.
“The look was basically not an overly sharp lens. It was always to have a nice clean base to start with where it allowed a cinematographer to build up the look on a 65 millimeter sensor because it’s a larger canvas. They have a good forgiving look on skin textures, nice and gradual focus fall-off off towards the edges, but quite well-balanced and controlled.”
Panoptes 65 only have LPL mounts. The image circle diameter is 59.9 mm according to the optical team at ZEISS. This covers the full sensor of ALEXA 265 and 65, Blackmagic URSA Cine 17K 65, FUJIFILM GFX ETERNA 55. It will also cover the new Sony camera’s 65mm format up to the 2.2:1 sensor area. We DPs are usually more generous and forgiving as to image circles.
ZEISS Panoptes 65 Team in Oberkochen, Germany
This article first appeared in FDTimes issue 136 – June 2026.
