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Illumina S35 "Soft Roll Out" in Miami

C

Charles Pickel

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On December 10-12, Luma Tech founder and president Gregory Mirand hosted a quiet technician clinic and open house to show the last pre-production units of the much anticipated Illumina S35 high speed primes for digital and film production.

On hand to present the nearly-finished products were Mr. Alexander Khitrik and Mr. Lev Krynin of the LOMO works in St. Petersberg, Russian Federation.
They offered a Powerpoint presentation explaining the new lenses' optical and mechanical design, then demonstrated basic service procedures for the technical personnel present. Then everyone was turned loose to compare the Illuminas with other popular cine lenses.

Also present was Mr. Egon Stephan Jr. of Cine Video Tech, Miami who hosted the event, and a representative of our prospective European service agent. They will be named publicly once our deal is final. What they saw at the open house only seems to have increased their enthusiasm for the Illumina lenses. And they have to go home and face a lot of other Germans.

Other, more objective people should describe what they saw. I was not personally able to attend for (temporary) health reasons, but participated in discussion of all the issues by phone and email.

One of the net results of the conference was that so few revisions of these
" last chance before production" units were called for, we will deliver our first production sets before the New Year.

As they say in Mother Russia: счастливое Новый Год !
 
I attended the Illumina lens open house held at Cine Video Tech in Miami Florida. I went in without any preconceived notions as to how these lenses would compare with the current manufacturers of glass in our industry. I would like to say that it was held in a venue that could not have been better. Egon Stephan Jr.’s CVT's facilities are very professional, with plenty of space and all the necessary test equipment and support staff. They provided an excellent Century Precision Optics lens test projector and a Chrosziel test projector with motorized back focus adjustment. Although CVT did not have Red Pro primes or Zeiss master primes available for comparison, they did provide Mk-III Zeiss high-speed lenses, Zeiss ultra primes and Cooke S4’s, all in all, a very prestigious group of optics for comparison.


Few people reading this post will know me, and although newly registered on this forum, I have worked over 30 years as a motion picture camera and lens technician. Beginning in the military then spending long stretches at some of the largest and most respected equipment rental companies in the West, I received on the job training as a repair technician, machinist and toolmaker. I am also a graduate of the old National Camera training program in camera and lens repair in Colorado. During my 12 yr. stint at Oppenheimer Cine in Seattle, there was even some experience with the world of boutique manufacturing of lenses and accessories. My participation at the Luma Tech event was inspired by my own curiosity and an invitation from Charles Pickel at Serious Gear Co. to share travel expenses for me, as he was unable to attend. Serious Gear does not employ me, but Charles and I do collaborate from time to time. So that’s my full-disclosure spiel.

The first day we had a presentation from the factory engineers about LOMO’s history and the products they have made. Also there were power point presentations of the technical drawings showing optical placement and focus mechanisms. Next, lenses were put on a projector to see how they looked and compared to the other available optics. Then it was time to look at lenses on two Red cameras. They shot focus charts so we could see the details picked up from both sets of sample Illumina lenses on these cameras. Then they aimed the cameras at real life 3 dimensional tabletop subjects, then a live model in a chair. We experimented with different lighting set ups, going as low-key as practical to see how various optics would respond. I was amazed at the optical quality of these lenses. In extremely low light situations the Illuminas actually appeared to show more detail than the other manufacturers’ high-speed lenses. We swapped cameras and lenses in case there was a difference in camera settings but this extra luminance was still apparent. Unfortunately, the lens projector reticle was not marked for 5k, but its test pattern did indicate an image circle out to 31mm and you could see that the apparent image made by even the widest (18mm) Illuminas was larger than that. In my estimation, coverage of 16x9 format from the 5k Red sensor will not be a problem. Overall I think that everyone was impressed with what they saw.

On the second day, The LOMO engineers, Alex and Lev, disassembled the lenses so we could see the build quality and learn basic service procedures. Q&A was slow as the attendee’s questions went both ways through an interpreter. A little sign language and “hands on” time helped get messages across. The lens housings are anodized aluminum with a brass focus helix and substantial brass helical guides. The mount is stainless steel with the standard 8 hole (Zeiss) pattern. Conventional back focus shims and M2 Zeiss-type screws found in every rental house service dept are used to adjust back-focus. This is a great convenience. Nobody wants yet another proprietary set of shims for the same old PL mount. The Illuminas look and feel well made and should last for many years with occasional maintenance as with any quality optics. They felt solid without being excessively heavy. The engravings are well spaced and easy to read.


The overall look and feel of the images made by this new generation of Russian cinema optics is very natural. Not so artificially warm as the Cookes, but similar in their kind rendering of human subjects. They are super-sharp, but are not cold or sterile as some of the latest high-tech optics can sometimes appear. The only glitches I witnessed was a sticky iris blade on one lens and an odd flare on one of the two 18mm units which the engineers put down to a hurriedly applied black edge coating. I think the market has a new and very desirable option in these new lenses from Luma Tech.
 
Thanks for your comments D.W.

Do you recall how the illuminas performed wide open compared to t2.1 or t2.8? This was a problem with the Zeiss super speeds which suffer from hazing and diffusion problems @ t1.4.

Thanks
 
Very interested in seeing some images/motion from these lenses.
 
Thanks D.W

My colleague Ri Ly from Production Services Senior Technician who attended the training, brought similar comments, I believe the glass is manufactured by German Optic company with QT and Lomo is dealing with mechanical side of it. Overall I heard great reviews from people who attended the presentation.

Cheers,

Jack Mosor
 
Primes

Primes

It sounds like an interesting meeting.

All of this new PL glass is a real blessing to the community.

Right now, I am loving my RPP's. I have seen them projected against the Cooke's, UP's and MP's and then pretty much go toe to toe with the MP's in many cases.

If you don't absolutely require T/1.3, then the RPP's seem like a solid choice. I have my order in for the 18mm so that's going to be a big plus.

What I love most about the RPP's is the way they actually look on the camera. Projection is cool but it's not really how the lenses are used. Projector overfill, etc can skew results.

However, who knows what is in store with RED and what lenses they will release in the future. Given Jim's history of upgrade deals to Red users, I am sticking with the RPPs unless I really need the speed
 
Our Red Pro Primes just got back from another long term job. DP really enjoyed them. I saw the footage and it looked great, the combination between camera, RPP and proper exposure, I had to question myself which lenses were used on it.
As we all know there are many quality lenses for different jobs :)
 
Illumina Glass& Design

Illumina Glass& Design

A quick note for those wondering about the origins of optical glass and design used to create the new Illumina S35 lens set.

Glass is supplied en masse ("logs") by Schott, in Germany. One of the types of materials specified by LOMO uses a special chemistry which is only "cooked" to order by Schott.
The LOMO factory then does all glass fabrication: blanks are diamond drilled from the logs, cut to thickness, turned & polished.

Dr. Khitrik and his team were asked to draw inspiration from Zeiss T1.3 HS lenses and Ultra Primes, esp. for mechanical layout. We elected not to go with a cam-driven system because of tooling expense and our experience with mechanical reliability problems in those types of systems. They don't do well in shipping. Production crews just hate going through exhaustive preps only to arrive on location to find one or more lenses with failed cam-followers after who-knows-what trauma in shipping. So we stayed with the conventional double helicoid focus movement a la Zeiss.

Optical design was also carried out from a clean sheet of paper by Dr. Khitrik. Through the use of original design thinking and exotic glass types, he met our design goal of exceeding the performance of the lenses used for "inspiration" but in an ultra-high aperture. What people notice right away is extremely high and consistent frame illumination from edge to edge with no discernable fall-off.

I hope this is a clear explanation of how the lenses were made.
 
Illumina Super 35 Lenses

Illumina Super 35 Lenses

I attended the Luma Tech training Seminar Dec, 9 to 10th; I am now since more than 15 years working as a professional lens technician, so I was very interested to know about the quality of the new Illumina S 35 Lenses.

Here a little report about my experience during the training;

We have tested the lenses in a several way’s in compare with the Zeiss MK III High Speed Lenses. The noticeable thing we could see is, that the Illumina S 35 Lenses showing more details on a low light shot then the Zeiss Lenses MK III series (scene tested with 1 foot-candle and one with 5 foot-candle; with a RED camera and a ARRI 435 camera).

The colour matching of the Illumina S35 lenses is a bit warmer then the Zeiss MK III Lenses, I would say the lenses are located between the Zeiss Ultra Prime and the Cooke S4 Lenses.

The mechanic is fast and easy to clean and lubricate. The optical design is quite nice because the front and rear lens elements are mounted in a separate housing, the system is sealed, so dust has no chance to come in and it is easy to remove the whole lens group to clean the iris section, if necessary.

For my opinion the optical quality of the lenses is very high and they are fast and easy to service. I think all users would be happy with these lenses.
 
Product Photos & Vid Caps

Product Photos & Vid Caps

Luma Tech Inc. is in the process of becoming a REDUSER.net sponsor, but have not quite completed the process (Hi Jason !), so it may be premature to spray product literature and screen caps all over the forums just yet.

You can find photos and info at : http://www.lumatechinc.com

Look for sample images made with the Illuminas and captured on RED to be posted here soon.
 
Hi
someone knows what happen with the image samples with the illumina lenses?
I really want to see it...
Please post it!
:attention9ha:
 
Any updates on these lenses? They have been released correct? I am looking for places to rent but have not found any. These look like the best bang for the buck lenses out there, due to the T 1.3 stop. If these give the Master Primes a run for their money, you have big sellers on your hands, you just have to get the word out about them more.
 
I was wondering if I could find out the rear image circle for these lenses. There is a lot of misinformation going on about the image circle requirements of the 5K Epic sensor. Some people sat 32mm and others say 34mm. Will these lenses cover the full frame of the new MX 5K sensor?
 
can I find out the image circle of these lenses? Trying to find out if they will clear the new 5K sensor.
 
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