New ARRI Ensō Primes are designed for corporate and commercial productions and owner-operators. Portable and versatile, their looks can be adapted to most shooting conditions.
ARRI’s new Ensō Prime lens series is designed for corporate and commercial content creators and owner-operators at the early stages in their careers. Small, portable and versatile, Ensō lenses can be adapted to most shooting conditions. The native look is smooth and balanced, and can be tuned for more distinctive results with Ensō Vintage Elements, which attach to the back of the lenses. This means many different looks can be achieved with a single lens set.
Ensō suits crews on conventionally lit sets as well as those on reactive, lower-tier productions shot by small crews that rely mainly on ambient lighting – in other words, any users who need to produce engaging, well-controlled images, and meanwhile respond to the scene around them.
The full set will contain 14 lenses from 10.5 to 250mm. The focal lengths in the core set – the 18, 24, 32, 47, 75 and 105 mm models with Ensō Vintage Elements Kit – are expected to be the most frequently used and are available now. The wide-angle 10.5 and 14 mm, and the telephoto 250 mm – extending to 350 and 500 mm with included 1.4x and 2x extenders – will suit users to working in extreme situations.
Close focus is a key feature of ARRI Ensō lenses. The magnification ratio is 1:4 on most of the focal lengths, equivalent to 10-inch close focus on the 32 mm model – that is, only 3.7 inches from the front element. This supports the close-up work needed for product or food shoots. Also, because of the lens’ minimal breathing, racking focus has little to no discernible impact on framing.
ARRI has aimed mainly to balance the optical parameters defining the native Ensō look, achieving a gentle, natural sharpness. Then, for projects that need a specific look, ARRI supplies the Ensō Vintage Elements – interchangeable optics that attach magnetically to the back of Ensō lenses. Included with the purchase of the lenses, they are a straightforward method of external lens tuning that shifts the look and feel of images incrementally.
Ensō Vintage Elements
Based on ARRI’s experience in developing its Impression Filters for the Signature lenses, Ensō Vintage Elements produce images that are sharper in the centre, making them easier to focus, but maintain a detuned effect toward the edges of frame. They have encoded chips that deliver metadata about shifts of focal length, T-stop and focus to the camera, and from there to on-set monitors while the production is still on set, and to post-production teams later on. Focus scale changes caused by the Elements can be compensated for automatically when using the ARRI Hi-5 wireless camera and multi-axis lens control unit, whether crews decide to use the included lens shims to correct the back focus distance or not.
The full kit of six Vintage Elements comes as standard with ARRI’s core set of six Ensō lenses. It includes three positive Elements of different strengths, which produce a smeared, soft-edged bokeh in the background and a Petzval-like image swirl at the corners of frame. Due to their curvature, Petzval lenses are very sharp in the centre but – like Enso – tend to blur at the edges in a distinctive way as the plane of focus drops off.
The three negative Elements have the opposite effect on out-of-focus background highlights, which will have diffuse centres and bright outlines that overlap and stand out as part of the image. The kit also includes an Ensō Creative Adapter, used to invent a custom Element to tune the lens externally for a specific purpose. The adapter comes with three retaining rings that securely hold different thicknesses of glass or other material.
Design and Compatibility
All of this optical performance has been packed into a compact physical design that is lightweight and portable and makes the lenses quicker and easier to work with on set. Gear rings are in the same position on all 14 of the Ensō focal lengths, most of which are T2.1 and have a front diameter of 95 mm, so they can be swapped on the camera without disruption.
Regarding compatibility, ARRI Ensō lenses are equipped with the LPL (Large Positive Locking) lens mount. A wider diameter and shorter flange focal depth allow LPL lenses to be relatively small and lightweight, with a fast T-stop and pleasing bokeh – a combination of features that would not be possible with the former PL lens mount. LPL mounts are found on the Alexa cameras. LPL mounts and adapters exist for some third-party cameras, but ARRI notes that testing is required when using Ensō Vintage Elements with third-party hardware.
ARRI says they have priced the Enso lenses to put them within reach of corporate shoots, documentaries and commercials that cannot afford big budgets or crews. So far, the core set is available to order now and will begin shipping in November 2024. The others are expected to become available by the end of 2025. arri.com
