Anybody know these lenses ? F&B Ceco

[Mick van Rossum NSC]

Recently I acquired two lenses by an american company called F&B Ceco. I found hardly anything on the net about them. Both have BNCR mounts and are in meters. Not able to test them since I don't own a BNCR mount. They are a 35/1.3 and a 85/1.7.
Any info is appreciated .

Cheers

Mick van Rossum

 

[Matthew Duclos]

Judging by the engravings and the shiny anodizing it looks like a rehouse.
Tough to say from this photo.

 

[Mitch Gross]

F&B CECO used to be a camera rental facility here in New York. The camera rental part closed down more than a decade ago but CECO Studios and lighting & grip rental is still around. (F&B were the brothers' first initials and CECO is Camera Equipment COmpany).

These are likely quite old rehoused lenses, probably from the seventies. Good odds that the original Rocky way shot with these lenses, as I recall that was a BNCR job out of CECO.

No I'm not really that old -- I was still in single digits back then.

 

[Mick van Rossum NSC]

Thanks for the info guys, I was pretty sure that either one of you had the answer ! Just curious what original glass was used to rehouse, a 35 / 1.3 ? If I make a picture of the front and back, would that help ?

Thanks again, much appreciated !

 

[Matthew Duclos]

Yup, that may help.

 

[Mick van Rossum NSC]

I figured they are in feet , here are some pics.
Thanks in advance

 

[Douglas Underdahl]

There was a camera company called Florman and Babb, and then they merged with Camera Equipment Company to form F and B Ceco. Then they turned into just CECO which I believe is still the name on some shooting stages on 14th St. in Manhattan. F and B Ceco had a lot of Mitchell and Arri cameras to rent and made a lot of custom gear. A guy named Lowry bought their camera dept and worked out of the 14th st. location for a while, but he's retired now, I think. A friend of mine, Adam Teichman, bought a full Mitchell BNCR kit from them in the 1980's with several motors, finders, a a set of Super Baltars, for very little money. I don't know which lenses these are, but I would bet they are built for the BNCRs of the day. And now Visual Products makes a lovely BNCR mount for the RED . .

I bet these lenses would produce very useful images.

 

[Mitch Gross]

Lowry had been running the CECO camera department for a few years when CECO decided to get out of the business. They closed the camera department for a few months until Lowry could work the finances to buy out the stock and then re-open. Funny thing was that part of the deal was that they let him open in the same space within their building. He moved to Florida a few years back, finally closing up shop. Nice guy.

I remember waiting for a lens to be prepped and wandering into a back room at CECO where they basically said, "old stuff for sale -- see if there's anything you want." It was like visiting Grampa's attic, with hundreds of bins and boxes filled with funky old mechanical bits and pieces. Found a pile of stuff for my old Filmo that I kept on my mantle as an "object d'arte." Think I paid a buck for it.

 

[dino wiand]

I know this is an old thread but the F&B Ceco lenses are rehoused Nikon still lenses. I also believe that Rocky was shot with the rehoused Nikon's also. There were some rehoused Canon lenses too which got mixed up with the Nikons from time to time.

 

[Manuel Wenger]

Looking at the back of the lenses, they remind me strongly to the Canon K-35 High Speed lenses. I owned a set of them and they where beautiful lenses. The set consisted of 18mm 1.5, 25mm 1.5 35mm 1.3 50mm 1.3 85mm 1.3 as far as i could remember.

The K35´s where used in some Kubric films, and did i say that they are beautiful lenses ?
The 18mm 1.5 was a bit weak in terms of resolution, but the others all where outstanding lenses and compare to the Zeiss HS Lenses.

Manuel

 

[Mick van Rossum NSC]

Funny how this old threat is coming back ! So far I have not tested them at all, but one thing I notice from these responses, being them either Canon or Nikon; AFAIK they never built a 85 T1.7 (would that be a f 1.6 ?) while the 35 is a T1.3. Thank for all the responses, interesting read...

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I don't know for sure if they would be rehoused Nikon or Canon, but that 85mm looks like it has the iris blades from a Nikkor 85mm f1.4 AI/AIS. And f1.4 could very well test somewhere around the T1.6~1.7 mark. The 35mm, can't see the blades as clearly, looks like it could very well be the Nikkor 35mm f1.4 AI... I could be totally wrong, just saying they do look like Nikons based on the apparent size and the iris blades.

They're definitely an intriguing pair of lenses, I would love to see what they can do. And if they're converted Nikkors (or Canon), they may cover FF35 too. I would think there's probably more focal lengths floating around out there somewhere.

 

[Erik_Fredsti]

I know this is an old thread but I was searching for these lenses and ran across this forum so I registered and would like to add some first hand information I have about them. I worked for F&B Ceco in Hollywood Ca. in the mid '70s as their optical tech. While I was there we started the production of the Super Speeds, a set of re-barreled Nikon lenses. The lenses were re-barreled in the Hollywood facility not New York. A few liberties were taken with the focal lengths and the speeds as to not make it apparent they were Nikons. We were also working on the first Mitchel with on-board video for daily's as well as a new high speed 35mm camera ( I don't know if that project ever got completed ). I R&D'd their first 20:1 zoom for 35mm format which became a popular rental lens. As I recall the Super Speeds went out with rented Mitchel cameras only as I had not yet made other mounts for them, maybe other mounts were made after I left the company, I don't know. It is nice to see the lenses are still around.

 

[Clint Lealos]

Cool thread Small world too, eh?

 

[Mick van Rossum NSC]

Great info, Erik,

So do you know what lenses were produced ? I own the 35 and 85, and on CML there was someone who had a 55/1.2. When talking about the liberties you guys were taking in terms of focal lenghts and such; do you mean the 35 was a 35/1.4 , the 55 the 1.2 and the 85 a 1.4 ? That means the 35 would be more of a T1.5, the 55 a T1.3 and the 85 also about T1.5 ?

cheers

Mick van Rossum

 

[Michael Kaykov]

Looks like the 35mm is the early version of the Nikkor-N auto 35mm 1.4