Vintage Lenses Market - Out Of Touch?

[Zack Birlew]

Hey, everybody, so I was reading an article on vintage lenses at Newsshooter and I thought it was pretty telling as the article and the comments reflected some of my own thoughts in this wide world of lenses, both vintage and new, especially in these times of rehousing efforts coming through for various different lens lines.

https://www.newsshooter.com/2023/03/...inues-to-rise/

I have a lot of different lenses myself and there are several I'd love to rehouse to make them work better, especially because certain lenses were built with bad designs that make aperture blade grease and other mechanical issues an inevitability, but I agree with the sentiments that the cost of rehousing for the optical performance of certain lenses really just doesn't add up compared to buying more modern lenses. This is becoming an even bigger issue as prices have been driven up on even the most basic lenses in certain sets, like F2.8 alternatives sometimes being only within $50-100 difference of their very pricey F2 or F1.4 counterparts and thus negating any "budget alternative" status they once had. However, with even some modern movies going the extra mile to detune and modify designs to look more "vintage", I think there's still a big case for vintage lenses and potentially repurposing unexpected and specialty lenses (ie. projector lenses, shutter lenses, etc.) for cinematic use.

More modern electronic autofocus lenses and push/pull zooms would be cool for someone to figure out how to rehouse because I've experimented with taking apart some digital Nikon and Canon lenses to see if I could salvage them due to haze/fungus infection but even though I could clean the glass, there was always a problem with being able to take it apart without cutting a wire or accidentally breaking the autofocus mechanism(s). Whereas many vintage SLR lenses, by comparison, seem designed to easily take apart and repair even in the field, modern autofocus lenses seem to be designed to be made once and never repaired or cleaned and just thrown away when something happens, a real waste of glass I say!

Think about it, everyone fawning over Canon FD and K35 rehousing and lookalike efforts but how about rehousing a set of more modern Canon EF lenses or even having a Minolta "Beercan" 70-210 F4 as a cine zoom? Autofocus may be nice on these older lenses for stills but for video it hasn't really been an option or even become interesting until just this past generation but then that would require modern autofocus lenses so who cares if these still excellent, now vintage, autofocus lenses become manual focus-only cine lenses? Again, if someone could figure that out, that would be a gamechanger.

What do you all think? Anybody rehouse their SLR lenses or have experience with rehoused sets and feedback to share?

 

[Phil Holland]

Very complicated topic, but I don't mind expanding on what is actually going on, perhaps providing a short history in documenting this as it's went down during my career and I've remained close with rental houses and lens manufacturers.

First and foremost, in 2004 I could buy a set of Canon K35s for $5K, but I didn't as most of my projects were filming on Panavision glass and cameras and digital cinema hadn't emerged yet. You could also find Zeiss Superspeeds for around the same price. The issue at the time was the industry was much smaller at the time and semi-recent releases at the time like Zeiss Ultra Primes and Cooke S4s were growing in popularity at rental houses that weren't Panavision. Not to mention the very premium option that wasn't Panavision at the time, the Zeiss Master Primes.

This was actually one of things that changed quickly once the RED One became a reality and a couple years later the Arri Alexa. Very quickly what was $5K became $25K+ as the demand was present suddenly and very literally the only things available were notably more expensive. This also created a new landscape of what people refer to as Owner/Operators and also in truth a lot of DIT/Rental people in that group. This is outside of rental houses slowly adopting these new camera systems as well. And also tied to this timeframe is the emerging and exponential growth of our industry via cable, streaming, new distribution, etc.

Now the more obvious reality is all vintage glass is a finite resource. And with an industry at the size it is now and certain sets of glass being rather beloved, that value has skyrocketed. Also somehow there seemed to be a segment of fear surrounding S35 being dead for a moment there, which was never the case and bizarre, but insecurity latched onto a base of filmmakers as VV, LF, and FF35 options became available and requested. As I've been saying for years, all that is actually going on here is digital getting to the format flexibility that motion picture film has provided. There are certainly technical merits regarding larger format sizes like typically lower image noise, but even when we have these larger sensors filmmakers may still desire to shoot Super 16mm. And easily one of the biggest mindsets I can get behind when it comes to RED cameras is the concept of a multi-format/multi-resolution acquisition platform. Love that still actually.

The other aspects of this topic are more complicated and much of it comes down to how things are marketed to filmmakers as well as reoccurring or emerging trends. Some people purse vintage glass because they think it takes the edge off of digital. Some want it because of the unique characteristics that the specific lenses have, which is true in the case of the above mentioned K35s and Super Speeds.

For those who didn't go through it, it was common when the newer digital cinema landscape presented itself to adapt still lenses. Duclos famously made Cine-Modding very popular. Some were doing this prior via adapters and various "very crappy" tie on lens gears. And some of us were doing that even more prior on VistaVision and various other format film cameras. The popularity of Leica-R through the more recent Mamiya 645 and Olympus OM wave is also fairly evident. But not exactly new was Panavision, Dalsa, Movcam, and others actually previously rehoused this glass. And more notably as we are talking K35, some went real hard towards the Canon FDs.

Once more cameras were out there (also present now are DSLRs that shot video) and the potential for lens sales grew, initially Zeiss and Canon capitalized by rehousing their ZF/ZE Still Primes and L-Series Primes respectively and those became insanely popular optics among RED and ARRI filmmakers as well as the occasional spattering of Panasonic Varicam and Sony F65/F55 filmmakers when those cameras were around. For those to players this trend continues to this day as the Zeiss CP.3s improved in pretty much everyway, the Zeiss Supremes proving a bit more more optically when it comes to speed and quality, and Canon themselves has expanding their cinema glass lineup in a major way.

In the mess of industry growth was/is Schneider who truly innovated along the way here with a few hiccups. Glass like the Cine-Xenar III primes for S35 were truly amazing optically and beautiful, but it took them 3 versions to get that right and Cooke and Zeiss had a major name in the industry to compete against. And to compete more squarely with Canon and Zeiss on the CN-E and CP.2 level they would actually create a new set of glass based on an older design for full frame, the Xenon FF-Primes. Again, some issue at launch and how they ramped up to the eventual 18mm release. Both sets btw had 135mm primes that were going to be made, but alas never came to be. Also around here Cooke wanted to hit that pricing tier with a decent option to participate in the profits and demand by introducing the Cooke Mini S4s. Which are loved by a few people out there still.

There was a hiccup in the lens manufacturing timeline in 2003 and a lot of things needed to catch back up to glass that was manufactured before that date as certain materials and chemicals were no longer allowed in nearly every country making lenses were banned. We have since caught up, but the glass itself as well as manufacturing needed to advance.

In that vein it was most notable with Leica/CW Sonderoptic (now Leitz) created the amazingly compact Leica Summilux-Cs to compete squarely against the now semi-aged Master Primes. And quickly we saw aspherical and multi-aspherical lenses pop up.

That's where Tokina and Sigma came in. Both who haven't been in the cinema space, both with tremendous resources, tools, and optical designers who would come to make some great glass. When the Tokina Cinema Vista primes were introduced they were one of only two sets that were purposed designed at the time for RED's new VV format. It was them and the Cooke S7s. And of course now, many more players. Sigma took another path because they wanted to update their legacy still lenses with state of the art optics at an affordable price, which began as the ART Series. These were optically superior to Canon's L-Series EF Primes at the time and it was very notable. They took to task and properly made cinema houses and even /i data in what are now known as Sigma Cine Primes.

Also floating in here are lots of zooms, OEM'd lenses for various brands, and rehousing/modification. Companies like Angenieux and Fujinon finally made larger format glass as well as expanding the S35 glass along the way. Won't get into the various rehousing/mods/rebranding options here due to the resulting politics being too crazy, but know some of the options along the way through now were affordable enough to profit upon that and in some cases producing a slightly different and arguably more pleasing look.

I should also make a strong note here that the quantity of rental houses and small production companies has grown equally as astronomically during this time frame. I came up at a time where it was Panavision, Clairmont, then eventually Keslow and Otto, and also throwing Camtec in there. Companies like Dynamic and similar as well as much smaller all came to be in the last 5-10 years. And one other note has been the ease of digital communication and transactions to allow for various online rental services via individual companies or pooled ownership.

The other player here is the landscape of new overseas manufacturers with the ability to come in at lower price points. Some represent tremendous value, sometimes at the cost of optical quality, mechanics, or build quality. Sometimes gems to be found within. This is directly tied to quite a few things pertaining to supply chain, global commerce, even more market growth, as well as optical design software improving drastically. And we just went through a major round of very affordable spherical lenses hitting our market and currently we are going through a new anamorphic resurgence. Long term it will be interesting to see which of these companies remain and I suspect we'll lose a few along the way.

There is another ghost in the room here. Many of the older lenses can be "copied now" and recreated with similar or improved glass. That is currently happening behind the scenes for a few popular choices, which will also produce a weird "which is better the original or the new" sort of thing.

But yeah, if you didn't read all that. Short story. Much bigger market, limited finite supply, and desire to own unique things that can make a profit.

I can't stress how much this industry has changed during my specific time in this industry, but it's been wild and continues to be.

 

[Phil Holland]

Oh. And I should add. Condition is very relevant to vintage optics. And when it comes to the variety of performance across vintage still glass, aiming for a color matched set is also of value.

Brand has be come such a strong concept that most people don't even think about that when seeing a new rehoused set for sale, but for the discerning, very important to get down to.

Long time followers of me on REDuser and even prior via photography forums got to hear about the copy variation and various multiples I assembled merely as a backup in case I damage an element or whatever. Getting much harder to do that now as even finding some of this glass has become hard or priced so high that it's harder to do. Big companies smashed the used market and bought everything every now and again, then resold the "crap copies" often at a decent price. Was fun watching that go down for a while on a few series of lenses.

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

Zack, I agree with your sentiments. I wonder if there is much point. There are perfectly good lens sets out there like the Sonys. And they don't cost much, relatively speaking.

For some reason I'm reminded of the bait & switch that is CineStill. When it launched I thought this was a great idea. The best way to save money on film is to bulk load movie stock into 135 cassettes. But you have to deal with the Remjet. CineStill seemed to offer the best of both worlds. But, when I saw the prices and results, I thought, no, this is such a scam. People just bought into it because of the promise, not the results. You can't get 'the Hollywood look' just by shooting on tungsten balanced movie film, especially if the Remjet is missing.

Phil, you could write a book about this stuff. I wonder if you can truly copy a Super Speed, given that you can't put lead into elements anymore. One of my goals is to start a lens company. I have some very, very fun ideas for products. One of them is M mount anamorphics - although I'm happy for others to make those if they want. They aren't my star product, anyway.

I recall that Kubrick tested a bunch of lens sets to get the best samples possible. He did own a set of Super Speeds, and maybe some others? I saw those lenses at the Kubrick Exhibition, and I even took note of their serial numbers. I couldn't get enough of it all.

 

[Phil Holland]

you can't put lead into elements anymore.

In most of the world this is true, but not all of the world. Doping glass with lead is happening overseas for sure.

I'll sit down eventually to document a few things. I have a fairly unique perspective, but for hardcore folks check out the Cine Lens Manual authored by Jay Holben and our very own Christopher Probst, ASC. A few of my lenses are in that book as are Christophers. A small honor to be apart of it.

For those of us in the thick of it, it's been a fascinating ride to where we are now. As I mentioned, we're about to be treated to even more anamorphic offerings as well as some nice new zooms, but I am very curious about where we go from here. Optics themselves have once again taken a decent leap, but we might start seeing lenses that don't exactly look like the lenses we know today relatively soon.

My only sadness along the way was not being able to push the industry towards a shorter flange PL-like standard. Was hoping for about 25-26mm. I know Jarred was advocating it for a while too. Most of this chatter was going on before even most mirrorless mount standards were released. We'll get there eventually. Very happy PL is still standard for motion picture people, but there are some interesting directions we can go with a well thought out system

What I am super damn happy about is the emergence of new VV, LF, and FF35 glass. For a moment there was nothing or just rehoused. Now we have a lot of options. And Super 35mm's glass options have also grown a fair bit. What I now refer to as middle format, the 44x33 sensors used by Leica, Fujifilm, and Hasselblad might inspired some larger format motion picture glass eventually. Hard to say. A lot of tech needs to get there fist before that is viable. But I think cinema cameras manufacturers might skip the format. RED Raptor VV is only 6% smaller in HFOV, or 2.84mm. Moderately was hoping proper 645 or even 6x7 was going to be pursued sooner at least on the still side. Only Phase One and Hassy are doing 645 somewhat right in digital. I have to say though from top to bottom, VV is very optimal for small glass and small shooting package still.

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

The only lenses I know of that could cover 44x33 are the Thalias. I'm sure that ARRI also makes a set for the Alexa 65 - what are they called? Anyway, there isn't any point to bigger formats unless you getting at least one of these: DR, sensitivity, resolution.

On a related matter, I also predict that directors who want to shoot 65mm IMAX will step down to 9-perf (or is it 8-perf) vertical 65. Doesn't that make much more sense?

 

[Robert Hart]

In most of the world this is true, but not all of the world. Doping glass with lead is happening overseas for sure.

I'll sit down eventually to document a few things. I have a fairly unique perspective, but for hardcore folks check out the Cine Lens Manual authored by Jay Holben and our very own Christopher Probst, ASC. A few of my lenses are in that book as are Christophers. A small honor to be apart of it.

For those of us in the thick of it, it's been a fascinating ride to where we are now. As I mentioned, we're about to be treated to even more anamorphic offerings as well as some nice new zooms, but I am very curious about where we go from here. Optics themselves have once again taken a decent leap, but we might start seeing lenses that don't exactly look like the lenses we know today relatively soon.

My only sadness along the way was not being able to push the industry towards a shorter flange PL-like standard. Was hoping for about 25-26mm. I know Jarred was advocating it for a while too. Most of this chatter was going on before even most mirrorless mount standards were released. We'll get there eventually. Very happy PL is still standard for motion picture people, but there are some interesting directions we can go with a well thought out system

What I am super damn happy about is the emergence of new VV, LF, and FF35 glass. For a moment there was nothing or just rehoused. Now we have a lot of options. And Super 35mm's glass options have also grown a fair bit. What I now refer to as middle format, the 44x33 sensors used by Leica, Fujifilm, and Hasselblad might inspired some larger format motion picture glass eventually. Hard to say. A lot of tech needs to get there fist before that is viable. But I think cinema cameras manufacturers might skip the format. RED Raptor VV is only 6% smaller in HFOV, or 2.84mm. Moderately was hoping proper 645 or even 6x7 was going to be pursued sooner at least on the still side. Only Phase One and Hassy are doing 645 somewhat right in digital. I have to say though from top to bottom, VV is very optimal for small glass and small shooting package still.

A PL-like shorter flange standard has been around since the SI2K, the "IMS-Mount" by P+S Technik which has a very similar profile to the PL-Mount. From memory the flange to image plane distance is 19mm. The shorter mount was intended to permit adaptors for most mount types. The system seems to have become an unwanted child.

https://www.pstechnik.de/products/ims-interchangeable-mount-system

Back almost the days when Noah was a pup, an IMS-Mount kit was developed for the RED One camera.

https://www.pstechnik.de/red-one-ims-conversion-kit_1097_1100

 

[Zack Birlew]

There is another ghost in the room here. Many of the older lenses can be "copied now" and recreated with similar or improved glass. That is currently happening behind the scenes for a few popular choices, which will also produce a weird "which is better the original or the new" sort of thing.

I have noticed this aspect as well and I am eagerly awaiting the Meyer Optik revision of the Zeiss Biotar 75mm 1.5 II! Now if someone could just start making modern remakes of other particularly famous lenses like the Minolta 58mm 1.2 and Canon 0.95 Dream Lens, then just like the Meyer Optik efforts, I'd have no problem buying the new copies versus their vintage originals.

It is clear with certain vintage lenses that some designs could be improved simply with more advanced modern coatings alone on top of a mirrorless mount makeover and I would be interested for someone to go after some of the funkier side of things with revisions of something like the Vivitar Series 1 designs without the smeary blue VMC coatings. Going along with this, there is definitely a potential side market for recreating elements alone for certain lenses that had defective balsam separation issues, like the rear elements of the Mamiya 645 80mm 1.9 and Contax Zeiss 100-300 zoom or the old Sigma AF 70-210 2.8 zoom with its foggy middle element, and then of course there's potential replacements for thorium glass elements to cut out yellowing issues and their own radioactive balsam erosion issues. Again, if somebody could figure it out and do it then that would be a gamechanger, not only for current remakes but also to fix optics in older affected vintage lenses.

 

[Zack Birlew]

Another aspect of vintage lens repurposing in the digital era, early third-party EF lenses. I just picked up a Sigma 70-200 2.8 DG APO HSM EX zoom in Canon EF mount and while it works on my 5D Mark II, I have yet to tell if it will work on anything newer than maybe a 5D Mark III without needing to be "re-chipped" like some other certain older Sigma lenses (I think I'm safe since EX was right before Art if I'm not mistaken). While many Nikon variants could be used manually, some were also digital-only and lost electronic compatibility over time as well. If someone could repurpose these lenses that may not even have "re-chipping" support, there would be some very solid full frame video lenses to add to the marketplace.