best sub 10k lens set

I was wondering if anyone had any solid recommendations for a lens set for my Ursa G2 that's 10k or below. I currently use Sigma 18-35 / 50-100 and a few Canon L series.

Now I know there's a ton of options, but if im being honest, many of the lenses I've tested that are sub 10k, while they look nice, I can't really tell much discernible difference from my lenses, especially once a grade is applied in the edit. I was hoping for a massive obvious difference, where the price can be justified, not 'this lens is slightly warmer' which in realty is a 2 second push on the mid tone wheel in DaVinci on my existing lenses.

There may not be an obvious choice, but if anyone had any insight into a good option, preferably giving me some range between 20mm-100mm that would be stellar. I'm shooting mainly high end short films.

Thanks

Here’s a very attractive deal from B&H Photo almost giving away the shorter zoom:
the Tokina CinemaATX 25-75 mm and
the Tokina CinemaATX 11-20 mm

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1753162-REG

Or wait for a sale on my preferred Fujinon 20-120 mm which used to be $9,999:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1733115-REG

Thanks Rick,
Very helpful and kind. I'll have a look into these. I'm so used to shooting at my sweet spot of 2.8 that it scares me a little with a lens that's T3 with having to shoot slower than that to hit the lenses sweet spot for sharpness at around T4.

The beauty of the Fujinon is that you can shoot at its wide open setting of T3.5. Not a fast lens but faster than the Canon T4.4.

Yes, actually usually shoot the Tokina and my Fujinon 20x7.8 at T4 to T5.6.

I'm waiting on the NiSi ATHENA Primes.

Hoping they can resolve the 12k sensor nicely.

I'm a big fan of the DZOFilm line of lenses. I have both the DZOFilm Pictor Zooms (20-55mm & 50-125mm T2.8) and the DZOFilm Vespid Primes (16mm T2.8, 25mm, 35mm, 50mm, 75mm, 100mm, & 125mm T2.1). I've also had the pleasure of shooting with the DZOFilm Pavo 2X Anamorphic Lenses. Those will probably be 5-7K per lens, so may be out of the running, but there's nothing like using a good 2X Anamorphic Lens to get an instance cinematic look.

Either way, the Pictor Zooms are about 5K for the set, and 8K with the third wider lens. The Vespid Primes are around 7.5K-10.5K depending on the set you get. Actually, it's possible the full ten lens set is now well over 10K. The only Vespids missing from my kit are the 21, 40, and 90 Macro. If I was to add another lens or two it would likely be the 21 and the 90 Macro. They also just added a 12mm Vespid at NAB.

Otherwise, you could go with Rokinon. Rokinon is fine, but meh also. I'll probably never go back to that brand, but I shot with them for years.

Sigma Cinema Zooms are about 8K for the set. The Cine Primes are around 3.5K per lens, so it doesn't take long to get above 10K.

Once you get to the higher end lenses you'll find they get up to that 7-9K per lens pricing, or even 20K per lens. There are some lenses I've looked at that cost 100K. Fine glass costs serious money.

Thank you.

Tim, how did the anamorphic look? I know they're not out yet so hard to see any real world footage.

My issue with lenses like the Rokinons and Sigma Cine primes etc, are they are all great, but for me its about trying to find that visual 'jump' that will justify me replacing my existing sigma set for something new. It may very well not be possible, I may have to accept its not a sub 10k option but thought I'd put the feelers out or slowly work my way into anamorphic as its a look I often go towards for my narrative work anyway and from the feedback it may be my route. There does seem to be some nice options like the tokinas etc but I need to be able to shoot closer to t2.8 as possible for my current style and taste.

... for me its about trying to find that visual 'jump' that will justify ...

One generally gets what they pay for with lenses and it is more an exponential scale costing much more to get that 'visual jump'. One reason for that may be that fewer will purchase those more expensive lenses making their look that much more elusive and rare, causing even more of a perceptual 'visual jump'.

Best advice I have heard is to rent a lens and try it out, or two to compare. For your price range and focal range I would consider what Rick has mentioned earlier. I own a Tokina Cinema 11-16mm T2.9 and it can have some chromatic aberration, unwanted at times. I have rented the Tokina Cinema 25-75mm T2.9 and have used both on the URSA 12K.

Instead of buying the Tokina 25-75 (although nice) I got a Zeiss Otus 28mm f1.4 (mod by Duclos) and use that with the URSA 12K and can get a nice 3x zoom (in post) from it without any issues for a 4k delivery. The Otus is a great lens with its own unique 'visual jump', but it does have a bit of breathing. The Otus 28mm has an equivalent full frame view of about a 40mm when at 12K or 8K and about an 80mm at super16 6K. The Otus also is great from very close to far allowing for semi-macro to wide to portrait to even wide ratio format. The message here is that with the 12K and an excellent lens much can be accomplished. So even if you only get one or two lenses for $10K they could work well with the URSA 12K. (Using your feet is generally cheaper than adding to a lens set, if your camera/lens can keep up.)

I'm waiting on the NiSi ATHENA Primes.

Hoping they can resolve the 12k sensor nicely.

I thought Duclos Lenses has offered the Athena primes.

Thank you.

Tim, how did the anamorphic look? I know they're not out yet so hard to see any real world footage.

You're welcome!

As for the anamorphic look; fantastic. Really like the look from the Pavo anamorphic lenses. Still testing them out for sure. Shot a boxing promo with them on the Alexa 35, and then a short on the RED Gemini 5K, plus some stuff on my UMPG2. They're out for another short right now that I won't be working on since I'm on a different project this week.

Footage will be coming. The hardest thing is that the shorts require post-production time. The Promo should be out soon I hope, but last I spoke with the director he was having trouble editing since I guess he felt he didn't have enough footage from actual matches. The promo was shot against an LED Wall, so no boxing matches were captured on the Pavo lenses.

https://vimeo.com/842306563/456e53ea22?share=copy

That's a small little test I did around my apartment complex. That's the best I can share at the moment. It's not a scientific test shoot by any means.

Just watched a rather ‘enthusiastic’ YouTube review of the NiSi Athena that goes into the pros and cons of the 5 lens set covering a 46mm image circle; they might also be an ideal budget lens for a native L-mount version. But if you prefer flexibility there is PL-mount and other options. There are several other reviews on YouTube.

One interesting pro option is the ability to have drop-in ND filters at the rear of the lens. One con is the rear element may project too far to use them with the Metabones SpeedBooster.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9n7mZdyG1 ... FtZQ%3D%3D

NiSi Aureus T1.4 primes set of five lenses $9,999; individually each prime is $2,229. These are a step up from the well-regarded Athena primes. Coming in July. Order from Duclos Lenses and you get an extra year of warranty service.

https://thecinelens.com/2025/04/05/nisi ... us-primes/

NiSi Aureus T1.4 primes set of five lenses $9,999; individually each prime is $2,229. These are a step up from the well-regarded Athena primes. Coming in July. Order from Duclos Lenses and you get an extra year of warranty service.

https://thecinelens.com/2025/04/05/nisi ... us-primes/

Aye, but counting for tariffs will either bump down quality or go way above your 10K budget.

Hi guys, I will put in a strong push for the Athena's if you want a clean lens set. I did a lot of testing and ended up there.

Even if you take price and size out of the equation, they are the strongest set that I have used from 1.9 up. I mentioned this in another thread, but they are far better in my opinion than the Arles at all shared iris settings. In my opinion, the Vespids also top the Arles when compared that way. 1.4 on the Arles is way too hit or miss to be used when counts. This refers to lens oddities, not focus issues.

Aureus look excellent, but I would be highly suspect that they would top the Athenas at above 1.9. Nisi has not left a lot of room for them to do that. If 1.4 is critical to your situation and it turns out to be consistent and can come close to the Athena's at other apertures then those might be a consideration.

YouTube videos can be so far off base. I had actually watched one video comparing all of these, where they looked pretty bad. About halfway down the significant comment list, the influencer let on that some of the lenses were being tested with a mist filter .

I heard from NISI that both lens sets they have resolve 8k really well. Their megapixel count also confirms this but they didnt tell me what the CoC estimate was.
o
Does anyone know which lens brands out there can resolve 12k, and is there an affordable set of clinically clean lenses similar to the Aurius? I am asking cuz I do some animation stuff, and the lens distortion and resolution matters a lot.

Hey Abdoul!
I started with pretty much the exact same thing - 18-35 + the older sigma 50-150. Those still live in my kit as great quick ENG kind of lenses!

But just like you I moved into cine style lenses in the lower price tiers.
I landed on the SLR Magic APO Microprimes. I love them!
The fringing control is amazing because of the APO design.
Sometimes I wish they were a little bit faster than f/2.1, but for the price it's hard to complain.
I own the 25mm, 32mm, 50mm, and 85mm. All of them look wonderful, but I will say that my copy of the 25mm has a noticeably green cast that requires me to add 25pts of magenta to the tint in camera, and subtract about 200k from the white balance to match the rest of the set. I don't know if all of the 25mm copies are like that. it really is annoying, and it's my one rather large gripe. It could just be that I got an early model and the coatings weren't quite perfected.

You will also hear a lot of people talk about DZO Vespids.
I have had a chance to work with these as well. I'd say they are very similar in price/performance to the Microprimes. Their name also sounds better to say to a client than "SLR Magic". haha!

That being said, when I tried the DZO's I was happy with my choice of the APO Microprimes.
The main reasons were that I unscientifically found the micro contrast a little bit nicer on the microprimes. Maybe this was my imagination, but the Vespids seemed to look a little bit lifted contrast like the Rokinons.
Hard to say for sure on that one without doing a side by side test.

More importantly, I still much prefer the Microprimes myself because I found the aperture and focus rings on the DZO Vespids so incredibly loose, that it was extremely difficult to maintain confidence that it hadn't been bumped in the course of normal, careful cam-op work. I prefer a little resistance in those rings which the APO's have. YMMV.

Hope this helps!
-Daniel

Thank you.

Tim, how did the anamorphic look? I know they're not out yet so hard to see any real world footage.

My issue with lenses like the Rokinons and Sigma Cine primes etc, are they are all great, but for me its about trying to find that visual 'jump' that will justify me replacing my existing sigma set for something new. It may very well not be possible, I may have to accept its not a sub 10k option but thought I'd put the feelers out or slowly work my way into anamorphic as its a look I often go towards for my narrative work anyway and from the feedback it may be my route. There does seem to be some nice options like the tokinas etc but I need to be able to shoot closer to t2.8 as possible for my current style and taste.

In regards to getting that visual "jump", I definitely find the APO Microprimes and the DZO stuff to look a little nicer than the Sigma photo stuff, but it's probably not the jump you might hope for. The sigma stuff is often described as "clinical", whatever that means. In my personal opinion the sigma stuff had a lot of purple fringing in high contrast areas, and also kind of feels like someone turned up the midtone detail a bit too high. The APO's feel smoother and do a great job controlling fringing, as I mentioned in my post above.

In my experience, the biggest jump was more functional (hard stops, nicer focus throw distance, better weight/length matching between lenses), etc.

If it's that you want something that vibes, these guys are on the right track about checking into anamorphic lenses, or perhaps even just finding some old vintage lenses with unusual characteristics like a Petzval lens (look into Poor Things for examples of what that can look like. )

All the best!
-Daniel

Just for fun I put some low budget interview/doc examples shot with the SLR Magic APO Hyperprimes in Vimeo. These are rough grades, not final. Shot with Panasonic EVA1.

https://vimeo.com/1084562320/1362e12c8c HD clip

https://vimeo.com/1088662278/ce5f84ef86?ts=0&share=copy (you can choose 4K playback)