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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Bausch&Lomb CinemaScope Baltars.

this has been such an amazing thread to discover!! wow. i'm so inspired right now:)
 
All 8 lined up. by Björn Benckert, on Flickr

First time I got them all gathered.

One 40mm has a broken taking lens / the back element was all sacked out of socket on arrival when I bought it so there is an insurance thing from the seller. But not sure how that will get solved. Sent an email to Duclos to get an estimate to get it fixed but I assume getting a new one wold be easier / cheaper.
The 100mm I managed to unread the focus mechanics on so focus is not pulling when spinning the nob. I think that will be resovled when it gets dissembled and cleaned. I managed to climate it before I messed it up. So yes it works just needs some care from somebody that knows this stuff better than me and I ´m sure it will be up and kicking again.
One of the 70mm are considerably soft. I think the taking lens and the front element is out of phase. there are some tool and knobs to screw to get that right... I tried think I got it even worse so let that be until it gets in better hands.

The rest of the lenses now works fine. Some has some roll alignment issues. A few of my PL mounts needs to get alined better. Then some needs to have the front element reseated. Normal Ana issue is the front element is of center and or rolled away from perfect alignment and or out of focus. So the few that does not suffer from any of the above looks really, really good. Far better than I ever though they would. So my hope is to get this old Retired Swedish lens guru to adopt these babies and work his magic on them. If I just can get all of them in the proximity of the good ones then this is by far the coolest bunch of lenses I ever played with.

The sharpest of the bunch, believe it or not is the 75mm one that still has part of it´s blimp foam on it. :)
 
Might want to run a Geiger-Counter over them too if you get the chance, those things could have been nuked and you'd never know it.

But seriously, awesome project and results, love the images you're getting out of them, thanks for sharing.
 
This ones was shot with the 50 mm and the 100mm. 50mm infront of helium and the 100mm infront of an old scarlet mx.

A bit strange films we built this spinning set in new york and had IWC profile people jump in it, film them, post on set and direct upload to their instagram. during the New York film festival. So some sort of tribute to IWC 100 years and the love of cinema.

Picture is batch rendered in flame quite heavily so all that vingetting and such is not only from the lenses. But simply said everyone on set was amazed how the picture looked allready on the live feed. The girls loved the look of them and wanted to pose next to the "Merilyn Monroe lens". :)





more info here.

http://www.syndicate.se/iwc-for-the-love-of-cinema-with-adriana-lima-karolina-kurkova/
 
Ron Steinberg said:
This is awesome Bjorn!!!
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Thank you.

Now these babies (the lenses) are sent of Japan to be perfectly collimated fixed and refurbished by Dave at Eastern Enterprises. Really looking forward to have them back, but will most likely take quite a bit of time.
 
Exciting stuff.
Today Easter Enterprises starts the refrubishing of these lenses.
I asked to pay a bit extra to have them document the process with pictures. So I guess this is the first of many.
From conversating with David Cox at EE he sound a lot more positive than I ever hoped about getting these tanks in good shape. So looking forward to see the progress.

39130629461_7157dee573_h.jpg
[/url]IMG_1634 by Björn Benckert, on Flickr[/IMG]
 
Happy for you!

It is a pure joy to see your progress:-) And special thanks for the pictures your asked EE for!
 
Ilya O. said:
Happy for you!

It is a pure joy to see your progress:-) And special thanks for the pictures your asked EE for!
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Thank, you. I´m sitting here with my monstro and just drool over the fact that I see the light, that sooooon they will finally meet :)
 
Mathias Erichsen said:
Any news regarding these lenses? Looking forward to see the final result :)
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I hope good things comes to us that wait. :)

David Cox is working on them as we speak dont know how long it will take but they been fiddling with them since newyear. And from what I heard all is going well. total deasemble and the refurbising to a state better than new. New paint, engravings etc.
 
I agree with the others - this is the coolest thread on this site. That IBM ad was the icing on the cake!

Those lenses are not as bad as I thought they would be. Actually they have a very pleasant look, and they'd be nicer once you corrected the distortion. My goodness they're big though...
 
Sneak peak... Now it´s only final details left. Lens caps anodizing and engravings among other things.

First I was going to keep them raw aluminium but, as the housings now are black I figure why not do the caps as well.

These are the the true Cinemascopes, other anamorphics are simply copycats made by Arri, Panavision and other followers think they deserve some nice engravings. :)

PastedGraphic-3 by Björn Benckert, on Flickr
 
Aaron Lochert said:
I can't believe it's been over a year already. Must feel good to only have the final stretch left.
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Yes, Nuts. I thought weeks, not months and especially not years. And still I dont really know their performance and not speaking about the total costs of it all... Quite a stretch from where I first could even imagine I would spend on old lenses that very possibly could be pretty much useless. The thought of, why not just buy a set of master anamorphics and be done with has hit my mind more then ones during the last year. :)
 
I'm with Marcel on this. You've made something unique that no one else has. That's too cool to put a price tag on. Now if you can get some XD or /i3 metadata info built into them for distortion correction, that'd be something else entirely!
 
Christopher Probst said:
I'm with Marcel on this. You've made something unique that no one else has. That's too cool to put a price tag on. Now if you can get some XD or /i3 metadata info built into them for distortion correction, that'd be something else entirely!
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Yes I been thinking a lot about the far /near focus vertical sqeeze that comes with these lenses. Using the RED THC would, as I understand, give quite accurate info to rectify it. The difference in close focus and infinity is about 12% vertically and its actually quite easy to just look at the shot and judge focus distance and scale to taste. Sure not optimal for VFX , 3D tracking and such. But that pretty much goes for all ANA´s so even if these distort more I think it´s quite easy to work around. But yes i3 or XD would for sure be nice... Who could make such, who do rehousings with data trough the mount?

Then on the other hand I think very soon the average lens motor will feed metadata to r3d so possibly even before I manage to get something like i3 done problem is solved that way.
 
Amazing!!!!! Bjorn, Best reading ever!! I can't wait to see the finished lenses. I Helium sensor surely made a very impressive difference
 
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