Exotic Lenses List

[Lakis Amarantithis]

I was reading an article with some information about the Grand Budapest Hotel and I was surprised to discover that some lenses were used that I never heard before. This is not the first time. I know the major brands like Zeiss, Leica etc.

I was more surprised to read that there are a bunch of "exotic" lenses with names unknown to most people including high end pros that cost twice as much or more than the Master Primes. So the Master Primes and Summilux-C's looks like a poor mans lens financially talking compared to them.

I'm very interested to see if we can make a list here of such lenses and analyze the pros and cons of these masterpieces!(?) Maybe even analyze them in depth.

 

[Martin He]

Interesting topic..id like to see that too!

 

[Phil Holland]

This particular subject is right up my alley.

 

[Owen Rennie]

Can u post the link or some name of these "Masterpieces" ?

 

[Dunkan Wolf]

Aerojet Delft made some aerial lenses that easily match Masterprimes in sharpness. They cost 50.000$ per lens.

 

[Brian Merlen]

Techno Cooke anamorphic and S4s and Angie optimo zoom

 

[Phil Holland]

Technovision made a variety of specialty optics. Their anamorphics are actually the best known ones and do provide a very vintage look. That's what's going on in Grand Budapest Hotel as well as the S4s and Angies Brian mentioned.

When you start poking and prodding around you see a lot of fairly uncommon things. Cineovision did a bunch of rehouses. The Master using some Panavision rehoused Zeiss Jena Primes. Hanna using the Noctilux 50mm f/0.95 and a special reversed 25mm Zeiss prime. Dalsa 4K glass being rehoused Leica-R Primes. I've seen full rehoused sets of glass from nearly every manufacturer at this point. If it's existed people seem to have tried shooting movies with them.

I'm personally working on assembling my next 3 prime sets right now all for different reasons. I'm one of these weirdos that "does this stuff". Notably RED related, I had a Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 modified for use on my Dragon as well as using the Voigtlander 50mm f/1.5 for a shoot. Not just to keep the total camera size down, but also for the look.

Dragon 6K 35mm f/1.2 Voigtlander shot:



Mmmm. That CA though But for a dreamy shallow DOF look there's nothing really like it actually.


Nikon F and Canon FD are the common vintage stills that people tend to go for, but....

Other weird ones?

I was one of the early birds to the 1.5X Anamorphic ISCO party. I needed them before DSLRs shot video for some timelapse and VistaVision work:

That worked well and I needed a 100mm 2X Anamorphic made for something else:

That 100mm needed much testing and work to get real sharp images, but it did a fine job:

I modified some old Canon FL glass to do weird things:

And then there were the weirder lenses I made myself from various elements. They seemed to produce the strangest in camera looks really:

My love for Leica-R glass spawned over 15 years ago:

Olympus OM glass I've been enjoying a lot:

Found myself a rare Century Precision Optics 600mm f/4.5 some time ago. It's real big, but puts you there:

There's also the real cheap stuff you can do like the Lens-In-A-Cap or the old Holga lenses:

The thing that's actually exciting? I can and have used most of the glass on my RED Mysterium-X and Dragon bodies.

 

[Lakis Amarantithis]

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?115159-TLS-quot-Morpheus-quot-80-200mm-Rehoused-Zoom

http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/sk/ac/len/page1.htm

https://www.schneideroptics.com/ecommerce/CatalogItemDetail.aspx?CID=1100&IID=1217

http://www.francperet.com/2014/10/01/nikon1-v1-and-cine-lenses/

From what I see many high end productions go far for a specific look and that's awesome. Some like the first link using a common Nikon photo zoom lens.

I read that some of these so rare lenses are not even for sale. Only for rent and only if you get aprooved.
I have seen pictures taken from spy planes from 1960 and they still look awesome. I can't imagine what lenses the science uses in today's planes and space.

some not so publicized names:

Dallmeyer
Bausch and Lomb
Elgeet Optical Co.
Hermagis
Kern Paillard
Kilfitt Zoomatar
Hugo Mayer
Som Bertoit
Taylor Hobson and Cooke
Wollensak


http://petapixel.com/2010/09/15/kilfitt-zoomatar-250mm-f1-3-lens-for-hasselblad-medium-format-cameras/


I think this lens: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dallmeyer-S...or-Leica-Ilford-Witness-English-/331456312717
will definitely give you that old look without any editing.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&ghostText=&_sacat=0&_nkw=vintage+lens&_sop=16
sort it with highest price first.