ZEISS Super Speed Mk III
The small, fast vintage ZEISS set that still defines low-light Super 35 texture when you actually let it live at T1.3.
Package Read
GLM can use this profile as a starting point for lens strategy, sourcing, or adjacent package recommendations.
Price Tier
Premium
Character Lane
wild
Coverage
Super 35
Introduced
1970s-1980s
Optical Profile
Character
Forward
Flare
Forward
Contrast
Balanced
Warmth
Balanced
Focus Control
Balanced
Distortion Control
Forward
Super Speeds become special at the ragged edge: wide open, imperfect, compact, and fast enough for work that would feel too polite on modern glass.
Best Use Cases
- Low-light drama
- Vintage S35 texture
- Projects wanting classic speed and compact housings
Why Choose It
- Low-light drama
- Vintage S35 texture
- Projects wanting classic speed and compact housings
Tradeoffs
- S35-only coverage
- More breathing, softer edges, and more flare than modern equivalents
Technical Strip
- Focal Range
- 18mm-85mm
- Speed Range
- T1.3
- Mounts
- PL
- Image Circle
- 32mm
- Introduced
- 1970s-1980s
Reference Work
Eyes Wide Shut
1999 · Larry Smith
ZEISS Super Speeds gave Kubrick the low-light latitude and wide-angle unease the film needed.
Euphoria Season 2
2022 · Marcell Rev
Season two pivoted to a spherical mix of Cooke S4, Cooke Speed Panchro, and ZEISS Super Speed glass to make the image feel more detached, dreamy, and unstable than season one's large-format digital look.
Cinematographer Read
Roger Deakins
32mm-50mm naturalism
Deakins uses the lens to disappear rather than announce itself. His packages favor transparency, repeatability, and emotionally exact focal length choices.
Emmanuel Lubezki
Wide-angle intimacy
Lubezki's lens philosophy is about proximity and immersion. He pushes the camera physically closer and often relies on wide glass to keep the world alive around the face.
Janusz Kaminski
50mm-85mm classical coverage with flare bias
Kaminski treats the lens as part of the exposure and flare design, often choosing older or less-corrected glass to let highlights break apart.
Linus Sandgren
Format-driven; wide anamorphic and compact vintage spherical
Sandgren thinks about lens and medium as one system. His vintage-glass choices are inseparable from the way film stock turns warmth, flare, and grain into memory.
Joshua James Richards
Wide environmental framing with natural-light close-ups
Richards works with tiny crews, available light, and real locations, so he favors small, fast lenses that stay forgiving at the edges of the day.
Source Stack
- Old Fast Glass Research
- Lens Testing and Performance Data
- DP Lens Philosophies
- Focus Pulling and 1st AC Craft
Compare Next
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A full-frame and VistaVision character system built around tunable bloom, flare, and falloff rather than one fixed optical personality.
Cooke Speed Panchro
Romantic rehoused classics with creamy falloff, low contrast, and the kind of lyrical softness people chase when modern lenses feel too literal.
Hawk V-Lite
A modern 2x anamorphic family that keeps oval bokeh and flares present but gentler, which is why it works so well for intimate drama.