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S16 prime that cuts well with Angenieux?

Cedric Letsch

Cedric Letsch

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Hello!

I'm looking for a S16 prime around 9mm that cuts well with Angenieux (more specifically the 7-81mm T2.4 HR). Any ideas? Someone suggested Optar Illumina but I'd like to read some more opinions. Doesn't have to be a cine lens.

Thanks!
 
The Optars seem to be that slight bit softer than a Super16mm modified 9mm CP Ultra T* ( by KOWA ) or the genuine Zeiss lenses the Optar lenses emulate. They seem to be sweetest in the zone T 2.8 - T4 and flare in that last stop to wide open. The older CP Ultra T* lenses seem sharper down to T2 and seem less flarey until the last half stop to wide-open. The 9mm CP Ultra T* has a weird focus system which appears to be a hybrid cam and helicoid arrangement. This lens is nice and sharp but repeatable focus pulls are unpredictable and difficult to achieve smoothly. This lens will also go soft in the corners when used wide--open. The modification is simple for a lens tech to do and consists of dressing some metal gullets into the inner circumference of the clamp ring which holds the front element of the lens in place in the barrel. A DoP who uses my lenses preferred the CP Ultra T* lenses.

Please take greater heed of better informed and qualified folk who respond to your enquiry.

For what it is worth, here is a clip of a rough test I did with an Optar lens set to get a sense of how they perform when ND filtering is used to move them into their sweet spot of between T2 - T4, which varies a little between lenses. The Optar Illumina 8mm and 9mm were the wide lenses used in this clip. There was also a 35mm Optika Elite in the mix.

 
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Here is a look through some CP Ultra T* lenses, the 9mm, 12.5mm, 16mm and 25mm. In the slow pan, you will observe the soft corners in the modified 9mm wide lens. Ignore the colour skew. I am partially red-green colourblind. The time of day chosen was evening to enable the lenses to be opened wider to the sweet spot as I did not have decent ND filters with me at the time. There is a long black leader on the clip so you need to wait for a bit before it kicks off.

 
Thanks Robert, appreciate your input! Indeed the 9mm CP looks to be quite soft in the corners. Was this shot wide-open?

I don't mind them being a bit softer as long as the colors and contrast are close to my Angenieux. I'm probably not going to use them below T2 anyways.
 
Yes. The 9mm iris was set wide-open at T1.2. The CP Ultra T* lens family by Kowa were all standard 16mm lenses but all except the 9mm wide cover the SI2K sensor of 2048 x 1152 @ 5 micron pixel size. This is slightly smaller than film Super16mm or the BMPCC. What the sensor area is for the RED cams windowed to HD or 2K is I do not know. Hopefully somebody will add their comment to clarify.
 
This clip was shot with the Kinoptik 5.7mm rectilinear lens, which although a standard 16mm lens happens to cover Super16mm. It is not the sharpest kid on the block wide-open and has a fixed non-adjustable focus set at about three feet distance. It seems sweetest at about f5.6-f8. It id also a little flarey. This lens became dubbed the "Rodriguez Lens" because it and an Angenieux zoom were chosen by him as the least unaffordable optics with which to shoot his breakout film "El Mariachi" which was apparently originated on 16mm. Somebody might correct me here if I am wrong please. If you can get a copy of the film it might be as good a reference as any on how the combination will work. The camera setup was a SI2K on a stick with two small fill lights and a fixed foam socket fastened on the junction of the diagonal frames above the instrument panel coaming of a Maule M5. The camera pan and tilt was controlled from the rear seat.
 
Hello Cedric-- I'm not able to make a specific comp to your Angenieux, but I've had good results with a Zeiss 9.5mm super speed mk1 (mostly used with a BMPCC on a glidecam). It has a nice bite to it across the center-- typical sharpness and contrast from Zeiss--, but is definitely a bit soft in the corners.

The only lens I have to compare it to is a Canon 8-64 t2.4, which I gather will have a different look to your Angenieux, but let me know if it'd be helpful to upload some footage somewhere for you. In addition to the BMPCC footage, I can shoot a little something in 2k crop on an FS7.

The other nice thing about the 9.5mm is that you can use it with an Aspheron, which converts it to a 5.6mm t1.3 lens. (I got one as part of a package with the lens).
 
Robert, the Kinoptik 5.7mm is too wide but I tried the Kinoptik 9mm and it's too low contrast and much colder and slightly more magenta than the Angenieux...

Harvey, thanks for the kind offer. Unfortunately I have no idea how the Canon compares to the Angenieux so I don't think it would be very helpful to me :/ From what I read the Optars lie between the Angenieux and the Zeiss in terms of colors and contrast.
 
Cedric.


Yes the Kinoptik 9mm is unaccepably soft in Super16mm and soft even as a 35mm lens at the sweet spot of around f5.6 on my example. It is low on contrast as you already know. - They were sort of pioneers for their time in ultrawide lenses. When you consider they designed these things without the assistance of computer tech they didn't do too badly.

You will probably find the Optar Illumina 8mm or 9mm the least unaffordable. The Lumatech specimens may be better mechanically. I understand they were ikntended directly for the US market and there may have been a few more quality control tweaks. Another source which might still be available at least unaffordable prices may be the Optika Elite offerings. I understand that Optika may be selling down existing inventory and may no longer be building new stock.

I have a Mark 4 85mm, a Mark 4 20mm and an older Mark 3 35mm. Optika did offer 8mm and even a 7mm. The 7mm is rare and very expensive by comparison. They compare with the Optar Illuminas in look and apparently come from the same optical design pedigree. It is such a damn shame that all my S16 lenses along with the film camera and SI2K are now pretty much heritage pieces.

Tech must march forward or we would still be dragging dinosaur carcasses back to the family cave on sleds not wheeled carts wouldn't we.
 
I forgot to mention that here in Western Australia is a DoP, Alex McPhee ACS who owns an Optar Illumina 8mm T1.3 and a zoom lens and uses them on his 16mm film camera. He shot this sweet short film "Good Pretender", which turned out to be the breakout piece for young actor Olivia DeJonge. I think he was using his own kit on this one.

There is a youtube version but it is inferior and scaled incorrectly.

 
I understand that Alex McPhee ACS also shot this one on his own camera, a 16mm ARRI SR2 I think, with the 8mm Optar and zoom lens. I do not know whether his zoom lens was Angenieux or Canon. He uses the zoom lens as a variable prime. Watch him do his work is a pure treat and educational.

 
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