THE TIMELESS CHARACTER OF VINTAGE LENSES MEETS THE PRECISION OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY
ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS THAT DETERMINE HOW CONTENT IS CAPTURED AND PERCEIVED
NANCY SCHREIBER ASC SHARES HER PROCESS FOR TESTING AND SELECTING LENSES, AND REFLECTS ON THE INDUSTRY’S EVOLUTION
UNITING CINEMATOGRAPHERS AROUND THE WORLD
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Contributors: Phil Rhodes & Neil Oseman
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TeLens choice is a pivotal and personal choice for filmmakers, allowing them to realise their vision and tell stories that resonate with the audience and make a lasting emotional and artistic impact.
As Nancy Schreiber ASC notes in this guide, “testing your lenses and then projecting the files large and in a controlled environment,” is of utmost importance. “That is how, as artists and technicians, we best find our signature.”
In this second volume of lensing lessons and experiences, directors of photography reveal the ways in which they test and select the best lens for the creative task at hand and the techniques they adopt to realise the full potential of their chosen glass. Whether investigating the power of imperfection and benefits of working with vintage, rehoused or detuned glass or refining your use of lens flare, filters or zoom lenses, you’ll find practical advice and examples of fellow DPs’ productions to help. One such cinematographer sharing words of wisdom is Rick Joaquim SASC whose quest to find unusual lenses has become a passion, combining his love for cinematography and lenses in the form of a growing collection of specialist glass. “We’re all chasing something unique and different,” he says.
If you need to be light on your feet when adopting a guerillastyle approach, there’s plenty of on-set experiences to make your next productions shine. Or maybe you’re taking your first steps into the virtual world and wondering how that will affect your lens choices. Never fear as there’s information aplenty to aid you when making creative choices that lead to realistic results in the virtual realm.
Finding the perfect glass for a project is a cinematographer’s window to the world they build on screen. We hope you find this guide a valuable resource when embarking on that exciting filmmaking journey.
Until next time,
Zoe
Mutter, Editor-in-Chief, British Cinematographer and Focus On
04 LIFE THROUGH A LENS
Nancy Schreiber ASC shares her process when testing and choosing lenses and the industry evolution she has witnessed 08 BLAST FROM THE PAST
Rick Joaquim SASC shares how he breathed new life into vintage lenses, combining passion and technical expertise 22 FILMMAKING WITH FLARE
Chloé Deleplace experimented with unique dioptre filters and dual framing to craft a visually emotive storytelling experience in Universelles
Markus Förderer ASC BVK has a passion for exploring lens flares, creating the Cineflares library to document their optical effects 30
NEW PERSPECTIVES
Through focal length and field of view, a DP can affect how the audience sees a character and their relationship to the world around them 18 A CLEAR VISION
As manufacturers push the limits of new optics, an ever increasing range of lens options is becoming available to cinematographers. Nancy Schreiber ASC shares her process for testing and choosing lenses and the industry evolution she has witnessed.
Cinematographers have always taken a healthy interest in lenses, but the last decade or two have changed things - narrowing some choices, broadening others, and making real-world optical effects the centre of attention. Thus emboldened, the world’s optical companies have responded with a huge range of new ideas in the form of both original designs and reworked classics.
Nancy Schreiber ASC has watched much of that process unfold to the point where a choice of film stock and processing is now the exception rather than the rule. “I came up at a time when our photographic choices were about testing Kodak and Fuji stocks and working with the lab to push the limits. We would test over and underexposure, pushing and pulling to affect grain and contrast, flashing the negative and - my favourite - bleach bypass. The visual control remained with us cinematographers as these processes could not be undone.
“It would be a huge deal when Kodak released each stock, having esteemed cinematographers worldwide put the stock through its paces. We would attend screenings, discussions and parties akin to Hollywood premieres and then we DPs would rigorously test each stock with filtration and chemical processes to determine the palette for the next project. Yes, we had many lens choices but nothing like today where every month a new set of lenses gets released.
“Digital can look too crisp and clean, too present, like news, and putting a filter in front of the lens can make the image too soft. Nowadays the lenses are our film stocks. Manufacturers push the limits of new optics and we endlessly search for beautifully imperfect vintage lenses from Zeiss, Canon, Cooke, among others, and glass from east Germany, Russia, Asia and everywhere there was film production. These are getting rehoused all over the world.”
Schreiber enjoys working with Dan Sasaki at Panavision Woodland Hills to detune old and new lenses. “ARRI and Angénieux have add-on devices, behind or in front of the elements. Duclos in the US, TLS in the UK, Zero Optics, P+S Technik, and lens techs in rental houses everywhere adapt lens elements like artists, modified to taste,” she adds.
Planning an approach which makes best use of the available technology, Schreiber says, has become a gratifying overture to each new project. “What’s satisfying is letting the imagination wander and ponder looks for a particular genre, and then test, test, test, as we always have done. Hopefully by that point I’ll have had good pre-production time with the director, production designer and costume designer. Am I going full frame, am I going anamorphic? Where is this project going to end up? Will it be theatrical, or streaming or both?”
Analogue lens favourites have increased in value, which has led, Schreiber admits, to some humorous hindsight. “I was shooting a film on celluloid,” she remembers, “and Panavision had been my go-to at that point, but I couldn’t afford an entire set of Primos
and supplemented my primes with Super Speeds. This was before our amazing digital tools, with a turn of a knob, allowed us to affect colour and contrast. When digital came along, the prices of such lenses increased and I sure regret not buying any. They’re gorgeous, they have imperfections, and they humanise a face.”
Schreiber highlights that she is camera agnostic and adapts to the project and often to the budget. Lens design goals have historically involved perfection, though new designs increasingly target behaviours which experts of old would consider faults. The advantage of a new lens with deliberate character over the coincidental artefacts of historical designs, Schreiber suggests, is reliability and ease of use. Even so, she emphasises, the real thing will always hold more verisimilitude. “You know a new design is going to work in the field because they’re brand new, but if you’re after a vintage look, I say, go for vintage lenses… there’s a lot of them around. Yet a company like Zeiss made new lenses, the [Supreme Prime Radiance] to mimic vintage qualities and apparently arrived at that through a mistake in the optical department and people loved the outcome.”
Producers have sometimes been cautious about the optical esotera of history, as Schreiber explains. “When I was in the film world, a lot of producers didn’t want us to use anamorphics, because you needed a lot of light, and focus could be an issue. We didn’t have 800 ASA (ISO) stocks and extra lights would cost. I remember when I photographed Your Friends & Neighbors with director Neil Labute, we wanted to shoot anamorphic for a widescreen release. The producers fought back, and we ended up shooting Super 35, where we lost a generation.”
Convenience notwithstanding, interest has only grown in the digital age, to the point where some of the classics have become hard to find and the market has responded with new options. “There was a shortage of anamorphics,” Schreiber recalls. “Now, the market has exploded. I still love anamorphics from a variety of manufacturers.”
A through D give a very pleasing look without destroying the contrast or resolution of a lens. They’ve made a bit of a comeback. And net stocking behind the lens is ever popular as are Tiffen Black Pro Mists we used in film.
“If I wanted to control colour, in celluloid, I might bake it in, for example, using sepia filters when I shot a Western or period film. Today, ‘baked in’ has become a dirty word as some producers seem to want to have a voice in the look. We DPs try to keep total image control in grading, and I’m grateful for our incredible post tools.
“NOWADAYS THE LENSES ARE OUR FILM STOCKS. MANUFACTURERS PUSH THE LIMITS OF NEW OPTICS AND WE ENDLESSLY SEARCH FOR BEAUTIFULLY IMPERFECT VINTAGE LENSES FROM ZEISS, CANON, COOKE, AMONG OTHERS.” NANCY SCHREIBER ASC
Finally, Schreiber returns to an aspect of optics, filtration, which, she suggests, works best with a light touch on digital cameras. “I used more filters in the film days. When I shot Loverboy for director Kevin Bacon I always used the Schneider Classic Soft 1 for Kyra Sedgwick, after extensive testing, I still occasionally use Classic Softs, but more often these days it’s Tiffen’s Black Satin. Vintage filters like Mitchell
The ‘film look’ is ever popular, when using film itself isn’t viable, and when one can’t afford anamorphics, such as on my Starz series P-Valley we used blue streak filters to attain that trendy flare on our pole dancers.”
If Schreiber has a gripe with the way things are today it’s that there is too much emphasis on the gear. “How many Ks do we really need? I find focusing on the story and the emotional arc of each character most satisfying and I know I’ll find the perfect gear.”
As a final note, Schreiber emphasises the importance of “testing your lenses and then projecting the files large and in a controlled environment. That is how, as artists and technicians, we best find our signature.” n
How does one come up with the idea to build something like a SCOPE?
Klaus Eckerl (KE): Back in 2004 Wolfgang Weigel came to me and then we first considered designing a scope for the 3CCD ENG broadcast cameras.
The inspiration came from older scopes of the early ‘80s and ‘90s, such as the T-Rex. I agreed, but said we’d do it as partners and finance it ourselves.
Unfortunately the launch of the so called HD-SCOPE at NAB 2006 coincided with RED disrupting the professional camera market with its first digital cinema camera. The product didn’t sell particularly well.
Nearly 20 years later I revisited this old SCOPE and the idea began to take shape –building a modern version of the scope for the now prevalent full-frame format.
Winnie Heun (WH): When I met Klaus at Camerimage I had already used his RAPTOR® Macro lenses many times on my tabletop shoots. We started talking about probe lenses. I use these systems (T-Rex, Optex Excellence, Century 2000, and others) on almost every shoot. However, they are quite old now and there is definitely a need for a new probe lens. And if it covers full-frame, it becomes extremely interesting.
What makes the RAPTOR® SCOPE special?
KE: The “old” scopes were slow, large and heavy. The T-Rex, for instance, was about a
Klaus Eckerl, CEO and founder of IBE Optics, and Winnie Heun, director of photography, give the lowdown on the key features of the RAPTOR® SCOPE and what makes it stand out in the market.
achieve creative possibilities that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.
The front optics are typically wide-angle or endoscopic, and therefore very small – to reach areas that would otherwise be inaccessible. In the tabletop world, where one works with very small objects, you need systems that allow the camera to get really close. But cameras, with all their accessories, are large. So it’s beneficial to keep the camera body away and use a flexible snorkel to reach into tight spaces.
Wolfgang, who weren’t
these people in high regard today – they approached things pragmatically and boldly, created real tools that gave filmmakers new ways to express themselves.
So the new Scope is a system optimized with newest software tools for the bigger fullframe sensors 44 mm and much more transmission , TStop 5,6 (FF) or TStop 4 (S35) and way smaller with less weight than ever before.
What exactly is a Scope?
KE: A scope is what’s known as a relay lens system – a system that captures the image from a front lens and relays it to the sensor inside the camera. But it does more than that – the goal is to manipulate the optical path to
WH: Keeping the camera out of the danger zone is a great idea. Often, we shoot with liquids, fire, or intense heat. Sets are usually crammed with lighting, grip, SFX gear –sometimes even the food stylist struggles to access the product. A scope creates more space and also protects the camera. And I must say, the Scope has a durable and longlasting robust mechanical design. That helps a lot!
KE: To freely position the image and object on all axes the scope offers rotation around the optical axis, vertical tilt (relative to the table surface), pan and horizontal tilt.
WH: I love that freedom – you only move the camera when absolutely necessary.
All the movement is done with the scope. Finding the shot becomes much easier when you unlock all the axes and simply hold the head in your hand. You can make tiny adjustments without changing the camera position. Top shots or extreme angles are done in no time.
KE: If you want to dive into a bouquet of flowers, for example, you’d have to come in from above or below at an angle, with some pan. Doing this causes the resulting image on the sensor to rotate out of horizontal alignment. So working with a scope always presents the challenge of keeping the horizon level – and dynamically adjusting during camera moves.
What’s unique about the RAPTOR® SCOPE?
Other Scopes in the market allow horizon correction, but only in fixed positions –you have to lock in a fixed pan angle and adjust accordingly.
The RAPTOR® SCOPE, on the other hand, offers dynamic image orientation correction. You can either link or unlink it, depending on your needs.
This is achieved via a gearbox that couples the pan movement with a de-rotation group. The principle is detailed in US Patent No.US 6,259,563 B1.
A clutch allows you to engage or disengage the correction group.
WH: The image rotation lock is an extremely cool feature. The horizon tilting during panning is often unwanted, and now you can simply lock the horizon with a pin. Perfect. And all the axes of the scope can be motorised – perfect for motion control!
KE: One main task developing the RAPTOR® SCOPE was to improve light transmission and image clarity. In a common endoscopic design the image is transmitted through long rod lenses, image plane by image plane. This leads to low apertures and significant absorption.
The RAPTOR® SCOPE was designed to minimise these losses.
WH: I often shoot in high-speed, and fast lenses are essential to stay within lighting budgets. Having a probe like this on set –with so many adjustment options and such a great T-stop 4 (S35) – is a total game changer.
KE:. The new scope is remarkably compact –the system is modular; once you’ve spent a few minutes using it, it becomes intuitive:
Closest to the camera is the focus and iris control. A bit further up is the image rotation control with the clutch lever. Then comes the tilt lock around the optical axis. And right at the front, the lens mount.
You can use almost any lens via interchangeable mounts – PL, LPL or M-Mount. Just make sure the lens is set
to infinity and the aperture is wide open. Then you set the working aperture and focus directly on the scope.
WH: You can even attach PL lenses – and still achieve macro shots. This is great for keeping the look of a project consistent. So you can shoot life action scenes with vintage lenses –and use the same lenses for macro shots with the RAPTOR® Scope.
KE: Over the next few weeks, we’ll be releasing lots of new accessories as a long endoscope, a zoom group in the scope and more.
WH: We haven’t even talked about the rotation axis yet – it’s the best and most precisely centred one I’ve seen on a probe system. The rotation (motorizable) now allows for endless 360° image spins at high speed – even during high-speed shoots. And all that without moving the camera.
KE: Yes, the tolerances on the components, the prisms are in arc seconds and the assembly needs lot of evaluation. n
Cinematographer Rick Joaquim SASC shares how he turned vintage lenses into filmmaking tools, combining passion and technical expertise to breathe new life into rare optical glass.
Not all industries have regard for their history which pertains to filmmaking and the fascination with vintage equipment is an unmistakable part of that. At the same time, few artforms are as expensive as filmmaking, pushing demands on productivity to a point where old gear risks being seen as an impractical time sink. Rehousing lenses is a route to the best of both worlds.
Rick Joaquim SASC is quickly identifiable as an enthusiastic proponent of film, to the point of influencing major life decisions. “I’m originally from South Africa. Those iconic Star Wars films were shot in the UK - that’s part of the reason I moved to the UK, because I’m a big fan of sci-fi films. I mostly do narrative but also commercials and music videos. I love music video, I wish there were more of them and I’m a big fan of vintage glass.”
Originality is key, though Joaquim accepts that the selection offered by any rental house is invariably limited by practicality. “We’re all chasing something unique and different. Cooke Speed Panchros I adore - and the new ones, the SP3s, or K35s, and old Nikkors are amazing. The Panavision C series, E series, the Cooke Xtal Express blow my mind - I love the swirliness.”
Finding something genuinely unusual became a labour of love for Joaquim, who found himself going considerably beyond commercial necessity. “Three or four years ago I started collecting a set of Lomo Super Speeds, which are the Russian equivalent of Zeiss Super Speeds. I love cinematography, but I also love lenses and it became something I really enjoyed doing. They were built in the ‘70s and ‘80s and probably made from elements we can’t do now. It’s a bit of a hobby, a passion project. It couldn’t just be a business decision.”
Simply finding enough examples to form a set presented Joaquim with a challenge. He bought one from a friend on Facebook, then found a 35mm on eBay, and kept hunting for more. Some lenses are rare, like the 22mm, with only a hundred in existence, all f/1.3 or 1.4. He was hooked, constantly trading and searching online. For anyone looking to work with the lenses, they are available to rent from One Stop Films.
“These lenses are from the ‘70s,” Joaquim reflects, “and vintage lenses are never going to arrive perfect. Expect to see a lot of mould and dust inside, particles.” Ordinarily, any of these might be a dealbreaker, but Joaquim knew that his glass would be cleaned and realigned as part of the rehousing process. “You must have a very degraded or broken lens, or there must be a lot of fungus - you can get away with a lot of things. Most lenses are still okay, though I had one or two scam situations - ‘this is a Helios, this is not the lens I bought!’”
Given the predilection of optical manufacturers to vary designs over time, even under the same model number, Joaquim knew that finding not only a set, but a matching set, would take care. “I have Zeiss Contax, the old Distagons, which are lovely but the 85mm doesn’t match the 28mm. They were built at such different times… and I love Speed Panchros, but they also don’t match. I have to correct them in the grade. One’s cool, one’s warmer, one’s green. Before every job I’ll shoot colour charts and then we can do corrections on the day.”
As such, Joaquim would at least need to be able to mount his scavenged lenses on a camera to evaluate their performance. >>
The perfect balance of vintage character and modern mechanics for FF 1.5x anamorphic cinematography.
“I had to make sure they were still good and somewhat matched. The Russian industry used OCT18 and OCT19 mounts. Most of the ones I found were in PL, but RafCamera sent me some mounts and I changed them so I could test them. You have to know if it’s a good candidate.”
Ultimately, Joaquim was able to build a set of six lenses between 22 and 100mm, paying US$2-3000 for each. “The most expensive was the 22. There’s a unicorn lens, the 18mm f/1.3. There’s maybe 50, even less, maybe 20 of them. Some of the Russian guys will say ‘we don’t know how many exist’. A lot of them were damaged - the rear optic cracks and splits apart, especially the 18 for some reason. They just haven’t lasted. The last person quoted me 22-23K for one and I had to say ‘I’m not paying that for one lens!’”
After considering various options - and in particular the lead times associated with each - Joaquim chose GL Optics in China. “There’s a really cool YouTube video,” he says, “where they break down what they’re doing behind the scenes. They give you a number in the queue and they say your lenses should leave by July or August, and before that you can hang on to them. It’s better for your investment.”
thinks there’s
After such an expenditure of both capital and effort, Joaquim was naturally cautious about the prospect of shipping his lovingly-curated collection. “I sent them with DHL, with tracking, I put an AirTag in the box and I bubble-wrapped the hell out of them.” The rehousing process, meanwhile, was the main event: “it wasn’t cheap and it took around six months. It’s about five thousand dollars per lens and I did save for it. I don’t come from money, but I felt if I’d gone this far, they deserved to have another life.”
Joaquim’s experience on projects targeting a wide variety of results leads him to balance enthusiasm with a degree of realism
The process of remaking a lens new involves a lot of options, from the practical to the cosmetic. “There was a choice of mount,” Joaquim recalls. “They did offer me EF but I wanted to live in the PL world. And I got to choose the outside - I did a zebra thing, grey and black, that was fun. GL Optics discusses housings as small, medium or largethe 28mm and the 75mm are the same size, and the 22mm and the 100mm are the biggest in the set, but you
can hold them in one hand. They unified all the fronts which are now 95mm, and all the gears match up so you’re not sliding your focus forward and back.”
One choice which might noticeably affect the image is a new iris, affecting the shape of defocused highlights and the characteristics of blur overall. “[GL Optics] replace the irises,” Joaquim confirms, “which I was nervous about. Now the irises are rounder. Originally, they were eight- or six-bladed, and you got a ninja star pattern. That’s quite fun but sometimes you don’t want people looking at the bokeh.”
Reengineering brings rewards in other areas, too. “The close focus was also increased dramatically,” Joaquim says. “Some of them now have two- or three-inches closer focus which is amazing. They changed them from metres to feet, and I thought they were sharper - they aligned them and corrected any weirdness. I’ve had alignment problems with some stills lenses - the top left was softer than the top right, and I kind of gave up on that set.”
Joaquim’s experience on projects targeting a wide variety of results leads him to balance that enthusiasm with a degree of realism. “I think there’s always going to be a place for vintage lenses. It’s not for every job. If I’m doing green screen, I’m not going to be doing filters or soft lenses, but a big part of my job is to make people look good, and the last thing you want to show is the pores. Having the sharpest lenses doesn’t always help us. I think there’s been a rush to get things scientifically and clinically correct and I don’t think it’s always helped.” n
In a world where digital precision often dominates the conversation, where sharpness is measured and every pixel is accounted for, cinematographers are rediscovering the power of imperfection. There’s a growing appreciation for the organic qualities that breathe life into an image: the subtle texture, the unique character, the emotional resonance that comes not from technical precision, but from soul. These are the hallmarks of vintage optics—and few lenses embody this magic quite like the Zeiss Standard Speeds.
Originally designed in the 1960s and ’70s, Zeiss Standard Speeds quickly became a staple of Hollywood and European cinema. Known for their compact design and smooth, flattering rendering, they offer a distinctly cinematic look—gently lifted highlights, natural skin tones, and a soft yet focused image that digital sensors often crave.
But decades-old lenses come with their challenges: worn mechanics, inconsistent gear placement, fragile construction. That’s where TLS steps in.
Thanks to the expert craftsmanship of TLS, the iconic Zeiss Standard Speeds have been reborn for today’s production landscape. Though often overshadowed by the better-known Zeiss Super Speeds, the Standard Speeds
were long regarded as industry workhorses, now rehoused in sleek, durable, cinema-grade bodies, they offer an ideal fusion of vintage character and modern functionality. Each lens is stripped to its core optics and rebuilt for enhanced performance and reliability. Though slightly slower at T2.1 across the range, they deliver strong contrast while preserving the coveted vintage aesthetic that pairs beautifully with modern digital sensors. Improved close focus allows greater creative control, while aligned focus and iris gears ensure seamless follow focus compatibility. Repeatable, individually marked focus scales support precise focus pulls, and an optional circular iris delivers smooth, cinematic bokeh. With a fixed 95mm front, non-telescoping design, and a 300° focus rotation on a non-linear cam, these lenses offer precision in a compact, matte-box-friendly form. Housed in rugged, studio-ready builds, they’re made to perform in demanding production environments. The result? A lens set that retains its vintage soul—but behaves as if it were built yesterday.
TLS is pleased to offer a full set which consists of the focal lengths: 16mm, 20mm, 24mm, 28mm, 32mm, 40mm, 50mm, 85mm, 100mm, and 135mm, tailored to complement existing Zeiss Super Speed sets.
To support filmmakers in choosing the right tools, TLS is proud to open its new Studio at TLS’s Headquarters in June 2025. This purpose-built space offers cinematographers and industry professionals a rare opportunity to experience the full range of TLS lenses firsthand.
Visitors can test the Zeiss Standard Speeds and all the latest TLS rehoused offerings in a controlled, professional environment, guided by expert staff ready to offer insight and support.
Whether you’re prepping for a production or simply exploring the artistry of glass, the TLS Studio promises a hands-on, inspiring experience. n
The TLS Zeiss Standard Speeds aren’t just tools—they’re collaborators. Their organic falloff and gentle contrast help soften the clinical nature of today’s highresolution sensors. Their smaller size makes them perfect for handheld, Steadicam, and gimbal work. Perfect for the Alexa 35, RED Komodo 6K, RED Komodo-X 6K and many more Super 35 sensor cameras.
Whether you’re filming a music video, a high-end commercial, a blockbuster movie, or a passion project that demands authenticity, the TLS Rehoused Zeiss Standard Speeds invite you to slow down and let the glass shape your story.
The
fusion of vintage lenses and modern tech in cinematography reflects a dynamic balance between history and innovation, where classic glass thrives alongside digital advancements.
The fascination of modern cinematography with not-so-modern lenses hints at a sort of tension between an established artform and the innovation it has always attracted. No matter how dedicated the field is to its history, though, that same progress has made old lenses much more usable and creating the most appropriate fusion of traditional and contemporary engineering has become a defining characteristic of postphotochemical cinematography.
Andrew Wonder’s involvement in film and TV began at almost exactly the time that technological segue began to happen. “I was in the last class at NYU to be taught film all
the way through, but I had also worked for MTV when I was at high school, so I was using digital before most people. When I was at school, there was this whole conflict between the old tools and the new tools. Like AI today, it was all going to go digital or it was all film. The RED camera came out as I graduated. The digital sensors started coming out, and everything looked the same.”
In that era, Wonder had the chance to collaborate with Harris Savides and help him with some film testing. “We’d go through his bins in his office, we’d find lens cells and filters, and pieces… that’s when I started collecting things.” Since then, film itself has shown a remarkable resistance
quirks when it comes to lenses easier to control
to being usurped, but Wonder’s interest was still piqued sufficiently to dive into a world of specifications, design lineages, and technological subtleties.
“I’ve been a collector of weird glass for decades. I remember my first Leica lens, a 35mm Summicron from [lens designer] Walter Mandler. I always thought a Leica was something you earned. I bought it in 2012 on eBay. There was a spherical version and a pre-spherical version.”
The pride of Wonder’s collection, though, is “a very special set of Zeiss lenses I use on everything - I’m a Zeiss B Speed fan. They were created for Kubrick on Barry Lyndon Taxi Driver was shot on them, and so many films of that late-’70s, early-’80s era. Over about 10 years I purchased about four sets of them, and working with Duclos in California I boiled them down to a set I liked. We call them the Wonder Speeds!”
Production technology is sometimes criticised for changing so fast that practitioners struggle to build long-term familiarity with their tools, and in that context Wonder’s affinity for his now-rehoused B Speeds seems well-motivated. “They’ve been with me my whole life. I know the close focus, I know the different stops, I don’t even have to look at the barrels anymore to focus. That’s the gift. And they’re compact: even my rehoused ones are very small. Could something give me different bokeh or falloff? Sure. But they can’t make lead elements anymore, so they can’t make anything as small.”
Perhaps uniquely, Wonder’s familiarity with the lenses must change as they do. “I see them as they age. I did three features with them last year and they looked different on the last one from the first one. In two of them there’s a plastic element and on every one it starts to bubble… the contrast is changing on the 18mm and 25mm every day. My 35mm and my 50mm look different. One’s a little warmer, one’s a little cooler. I kept the original irises, I liked the triangles! I find myself using them less and less for the focal length, but more for the vibe. That’s the magic of vintage… it’s not just getting an old set.”
Fast modern cameras make many of Wonder’s favourite quirks easier to control, though modern sensors can highlight the difference between a lens which can reasonably be said to cover a sensor in a sharply-resolved image, and a lens which merely manages to project light from edge to edge. “The Master Primes never look good on Super 35mm to me,” Wonder says, by way of example. “They were so sharp. Then the Alexa and Mini came out, and the sensor is a little bigger. Zeiss overengineer the image circle on all of them, but I remember doing my first car
spots with a Mini, and because of that extra area of the sensor I was getting all these weird swirly corners even on the Master Primes.”
Modern sensors, then, might make quirky lenses look quirkier, but Wonder has encountered few limitations even in the famously fastidious world of commercials. “Car commercials are interesting. Some clients are Master Prime clients, and some are old glass clients. Sometimes I’ll put a modern lens on the arm car, and put my vintage Zeiss handheld inside. It’s amazing. There’s so many films where I shoot Super 35 mode and Super 16 mode on the same camera.”
Similarly, current post production techniques have allowed cinematographers to overlook characteristics which might once have been dealbreakers. “Two things that happened at once. The glass is getting older and harder to match, but at the same time the colour correction is different. When I’m wide open they have terrible chromatic aberration. I used to rent Master Primes on bigger car jobs, but now in Resolve I can zap the magenta corners and not see the aberrations.”
Despite Wonder’s clear enthusiasm for his prized set of vintage lenses and for classic glass in general, his approach is tempered by the perennial truism that filmmaking is not about the toys. “Intention is everything,” he states, “and I don’t think a vintage lens is an intention. There is no one-size-fits-all, but when there’s more movies on Netflix than any of us will watch in our lives, we have to ask what intention we’re bringing to cinema and what fingerprint we’ll leave behind.”
“I’m a Zeiss guy. But I remember that first Leica lens and the way it bloomed wide open, and how much a lens becomes your fingerprint. Would I do vintage now, if I were starting again, when I can go and buy a $200 Chinese lens that looks pretty good?”
The need to differentiate pictures which are characterful from pictures which are merely fuzzy is, Wonder says, an issue which has provoked him - reluctantly - to abandon old ideas. “I had set two of the Baltars that Alex [“Zero Optik”] Nelson made, and I sold them for that reason. They were 2.5s, but they looked best a stop and half down. In a room where it was dark, I couldn’t get any vibe off them. People say with [fast cameras] it makes less of a difference - look at A Complete Unknown, they shot at 12000 ISO and they shot that movie at an 8.”
“THE THINGS YOU LIKE TODAY YOU PROBABLY WON’T LIKE IN 10 YEARS AND THE THINGS YOU SELL TODAY WILL BE THE THINGS YOU WANT AGAIN IN 10 YEARS. I’M GLAD I GOT MY B SPEEDS. I HAVE SOLD STUFF THAT IS WORTH FOUR TIMES AS MUCH NOW.” ANDREW WONDER
There is, Wonder suggests, a sort of watershed between irrelevant obsolescence and coveted antiquity. “The things you like today you probably won’t like in 10 years and the things you sell today will be the things you want again in 10 years. I’m glad I got my B Speeds. I have sold stuff that is worth four times as much now. It’s an interesting question we must ask ourselves. A vintage set of K35s that was once worth 35K is now worth 250K. Will they one day be worth 500K?”
Wonder hints that the advance of machine learning and completely orthogonal technologies such as light field arrays might be disruptive but otherwise hazards the prediction that “we’ve hit peak glass. The market is so oversaturated… what we now know as vintage glass might be replaced by something else. I think we should enjoy them, before the robots or the light field take it all away!” n
The Sunbelt Rentals Camera division has relocated to our London facility, located in Wembley. It has been designed with cinematographers, crew and camera departments in mind. The space has been carefully crafted to meet the needs of both established and aspiring camera departments. The space consists of 180,000 sq. ft of equipment, with the widest range of digital and film cameras, lenses and support equipment for every creative vision.
The Sunbelt Rentals Camera division has relocated to our London facility, located in Wembley. It has been designed with cinematographers, crew and camera departments in mind. The space has been carefully crafted to meet the needs of both established and aspiring camera departments. The space consists of 180,000 sq. ft of equipment, with the widest range of digital and film cameras, lenses and support equipment for every creative vision.
The Sunbelt Rentals Camera division has relocated to our London facility, located in Wembley. It has been designed with cinematographers, crew and camera departments in mind. The space has been carefully crafted to meet the needs of both established and aspiring camera departments. The space consists of 180,000 sq. ft of equipment, with the widest range of digital and film cameras, lenses and support equipment for every creative vision.
The test rooms are spacious and can accommodate productions with multiple camera packages, allowing crews to prep efficiently in one single space. An invaluable resource is the pre-lit set, designed by Dan Betteridge providing cinematographers with a structured
The test rooms are spacious and can accommodate productions with multiple camera packages, allowing crews to prep efficiently in one single space. An invaluable resource is the pre-lit set, designed by Dan Betteridge providing cinematographers with a structured
The test rooms are spacious and can accommodate productions with multiple camera packages, allowing crews to prep efficiently in one single space. An invaluable resource is the pre-lit set, designed by Dan Betteridge providing cinematographers with a structured
environment to test lenses and camera setups under realistic lighting conditions. Technicians are on hand throughout to discuss lens and lighting options and to offer technical advice where needed. The dressed set is available with an inventory of props, interchangeable backdrops with differing materials and textures along with an array of LEDs and other household lighting that a cinematographer may encounter whilst on location. The set is available upon request for make-up tests, areas can be dressed, and wall panels covered with materials that the production intends to use.
environment to test lenses and camera setups under realistic lighting conditions. Technicians are on hand throughout to discuss lens and lighting options and to offer technical advice where needed. The dressed set is available with an inventory of props, interchangeable backdrops with differing materials and textures along with an array of LEDs and other household lighting that a cinematographer may encounter whilst on location. The set is available upon request for make-up tests, areas can be dressed, and wall panels covered with materials that the production intends to use.
environment to test lenses and camera setups under realistic lighting conditions. Technicians are on hand throughout to discuss lens and lighting options and to offer technical advice where needed. The dressed set is available with an inventory of props, interchangeable backdrops with differing materials and textures along with an array of LEDs and other household lighting that a cinematographer may encounter whilst on location. The set is available upon request for make-up tests, areas can be dressed, and wall panels covered with materials that the production intends to use.
The set incorporates an LED volume backdrop which is supported with a variety of extended reality production environments, or alternatively
The set incorporates an LED volume backdrop which is supported with a variety of extended reality production environments, or alternatively
The set incorporates an LED volume backdrop which is supported with a variety of extended reality production environments, or alternatively
productions can supply their own to be pre-loaded into the system.
productions can supply their own to be pre-loaded into the system.
productions can supply their own to be pre-loaded into the system.
Adjacent to the pre-lit set is a fifteen-seat viewing theatre fully equipped with a DaVinci Suite, 4K/8K projector and a cinema-grade sound system. Rushes acquired during testing are complemented by the theatre whereby cinematographers can utilise the suite to grade and view these on site. There is also a dedicated VFX Grid Test room.
Adjacent to the pre-lit set is a fifteen-seat viewing theatre fully equipped with a DaVinci Suite, 4K/8K projector and a cinema-grade sound system. Rushes acquired during testing are complemented by the theatre whereby cinematographers can utilise the suite to grade and view these on site. There is also a dedicated VFX Grid Test room.
Adjacent to the pre-lit set is a fifteen-seat viewing theatre fully equipped with a DaVinci Suite, 4K/8K projector and a cinema-grade sound system. Rushes acquired during testing are complemented by the theatre whereby cinematographers can utilise the suite to grade and view these on site. There is also a dedicated VFX Grid Test room.
Sunbelt Rentals’ Technical Director, Andy Mossman believes that having a facility constructed with the cinematographer and crew in mind is invaluable. He said, “The benefits of enabling cinematographers to make informed decisions on camera and lens combinations in a controlled,
Sunbelt Rentals’ Technical Director, Andy Mossman believes that having a facility constructed with the cinematographer and crew in mind is invaluable. He said, “The benefits of enabling cinematographers to make informed decisions on camera and lens combinations in a controlled,
Sunbelt Rentals’ Technical Director, Andy Mossman believes that having a facility constructed with the cinematographer and crew in mind is invaluable. He said, “The benefits of enabling cinematographers to make informed decisions on camera and lens combinations in a controlled,
SUPPORTING CAMERA DEPARTMENTS THROUGHOUT PREP IN ONE SINGLE SPACE, DEDICATED TO KEEPING YOUR PRODUCTION MOVING SEAMLESSLY, SUSTAINABLY, AND IN ONE LOCATION.
SUPPORTING CAMERA DEPARTMENTS THROUGHOUT PREP IN ONE SINGLE SPACE, DEDICATED TO KEEPING YOUR PRODUCTION MOVING SEAMLESSLY, SUSTAINABLY, AND IN ONE LOCATION.
real-world testing environment is essential.
real-world testing environment is essential.
“Cinematographers will often approach us with a list of possible lens options based on a project’s intended aesthetics. We house an extensive catalogue of optics, spanning vintage through to modern lenses, with a varied selection of Full-Frame, Anamorphic, and 35mm options available.
“Cinematographers will often approach us with a list of possible lens options based on a project’s intended aesthetics. We house an extensive catalogue of optics, spanning vintage through to modern lenses, with a varied selection of Full-Frame, Anamorphic, and 35mm options available.
“We build strong relationships with our customers. We take the time to truly understand their needs and due to the depth and diversity of our inventory, we’re not only able to deliver exactly what’s requested, we can also suggest additional options with the required characteristics that may not have been considered.
“We build strong relationships with our customers. We take the time to truly understand their needs and due to the depth and diversity of our inventory, we’re not only able to deliver exactly what’s requested, we can also suggest additional options with the required characteristics that may not have been considered.
“Our extensive range of anamorphic lenses ensures that we’re able to supply multiple sets of Hawk, Atlas, Cooke and Scorpio lenses including vintage options, such as the Xtals, Kowas and Lomos.
“Our extensive range of anamorphic lenses ensures that we’re able to supply multiple sets of Hawk, Atlas, Cooke and Scorpio lenses including vintage options, such as the Xtals, Kowas and Lomos.
WITH AN EXTENSIVE RANGE OF ANAMORPHIC LENSES, WE’RE ABLE TO PROVIDE MULTIPLE SETS OF HAWK, ATLAS, COOKE AND SCORPIO LENSES
WITH AN EXTENSIVE RANGE OF ANAMORPHIC LENSES, WE’RE ABLE TO PROVIDE MULTIPLE SETS OF HAWK, ATLAS, COOKE AND SCORPIO LENSES
“We have a wide variety of rehoused lenses, supplied by respected re-housers and manufacturers: TLS, White Point Optics, Gecko-Cam, and Iron Glass. Options include Fujinon EBCs, Mamiya 645s, Canon Rangefinders, Nikon AIS, and High-Speed Zeiss Distagons.
“We have a wide variety of rehoused lenses, supplied by respected re-housers and manufacturers: TLS, White Point Optics, Gecko-Cam, and Iron Glass. Options include Fujinon EBCs, Mamiya 645s, Canon Rangefinders, Nikon AIS, and High-Speed Zeiss Distagons.
“Some of these lenses are available with interchangeable elements, offering the choice between uncoated and single-coated glass for greater creative flexibility. In addition, cinematographers now have the option to remove speed boosters, enabling certain Full Frame lenses to cover a 65mm sensor.
“Some of these lenses are available with interchangeable elements, offering the choice between uncoated and single-coated glass for greater creative flexibility. In addition, cinematographers now have the option to remove speed boosters, enabling certain Full Frame lenses to cover a 65mm sensor.
“Supported by our in-house skilled camera technicians, together, we're looking forward to welcoming new and existing customers to our bespoke London camera facility.”
“Supported by our in-house skilled camera technicians, together, we're looking forward to welcoming new and existing customers to our bespoke London camera facility.”
Since at least the Nimrud lens of the 7th century BCE, engineers have been quietly dedicated to making better optics. Definitions of better recently expanded to include behaviours smart people sweated for centuries to minimise and which technicians now coax out of modern lenses so modern productions can sidestep blowing the dust off actual, decades-old optical antiquities.
Denson Baker ACS NZCS seems keen to avoid an archaeological expedition to the back rooms of a rental house, especially given the lenses there will likely lack a few modern conveniences. “I’ve seen situations where we found vintage lenses we liked, but realised there would be some restrictions, inflexible choices, or low-light situations. That’s where it gets very interesting - when you can approach someone like ARRI Rental or Panavision to detune modern lenses, and create that look you’re after in a lens set that is mechanically sound.”
On Shiver — a recent production Baker shot in Vancouver — he found a way to combine deliberately-characterful lenses with others modified to approximate their behaviour. “It’s a teen romance where they’re not strictly werewolves, but people who turn into wolves. We wanted the poetic quality of a wolf, rather than it being a vicious werewolf. They have a specific way of looking at things, a sharp central field of view and broad peripheral vision. I looked for wide lenses with a sharp centre, but a dramatic drop off on the sides to simulate what the wolf would see.”
Baker tested a range of lenses “and the ones that felt right were ARRI Rental’s Heroes Look lenses. They’ve got a variety of modern and vintage elements, and they’re a variable look. They have variable tuning so you have a third ring on it, so you can control the level of detuning. They only had a set of two, and we needed to carry that look across other focal lengths. So, Matt Kolze in LA tuned a couple of lenses, another couple of focal lengths, to match that look.”
Baker’s approach was to find the best available match and adjust it to taste. “Starting with something we already liked, we pushed it a little further. The lens Matt modified was a 20.7mm Tribe7 Blackwing. It already had nice characteristics we wanted to push even further.” The first revision produced effects Baker felt were slightly understated, and he liaised with Kolze to iterate toward the desired result with Kolze showing what the effect was like wide open or stopped down, so Baker could see the characteristic change.
The right result was quickly reached, although the details of the process tend to remain behind closed doors. Often, it involves slightly altering the position of elements. “I’ve been told they’ll swap out elements and use elements that don’t have coatings, or different coatings, which change the colour of the flare,” Baker adds. “There’s a feeling of alchemy and a few trade secrets too. There wasn’t much information about the specifics. We’d talk about the qualities of the look, but I saw there were some secrets and I respect that.”
The idea of deliberately degrading an artist’s toolsagain, depending heavily on the semantics of degrading - might have been seen as somewhat sacrilegious by the practitioners of old, and Baker describes a careful process of informing other creatives about his intent. “I always go for very early buy-in from the production designer, costume designer, makeup department. And test - preferably on location, at least on a set, and if those aren’t ready the production designer can maybe set up some flats and colours and furniture… get it as close to an actual shooting situation as possible, then we’re really putting it through its paces.”
Testing in realistically-imperfect scenarios, Baker adds, is important. “I’d rather take the camera outside and shoot in the kind of light we’ll shoot our project in... I’ll do a series of tests, early tests when I play with things technically, but the last line is when LUTs are designed and the colour palette is designed and locked in - that’s usually in the last couple of days before the production. Hopefully we have some sets built, and some locations locked in.”
A common tension arising from test results, Baker says, is that photographic creativity and practical necessity inevitably interact. “We’ve had it blow up where we’ve chosen lenses with pronounced flares, or soft focus edges, and the flare ends up across the actor’s face, or the area where the director would like to compose the actor in the frame is soft. We end up in something of a creative compromise. That’s why I like doing a lot of camera tests and having the director on board so there’s no surprises on set.”
Given those concerns, thoughts inevitably turn to less indelible, more flexible routes to similar results, especially where a detuned lens might struggle to keep up with production demands. “I’ve dabbled in some of the post options to recreate some of those looks,” Baker reflects, “and there’s some interesting things there. It’s not the same as creating it in camera with the optics, but you can get away with it if there’s an odd shot where you need to use a faster lens, then twist it a bit to match the other looks. But personally, I wouldn’t commit to that being the approach.”
Early in Baker’s career, he admits he had a few ‘yikes!’ moments. “A producer saying ‘that’s not what I thought we were doing!’ Not that it was bad, it was just different. That’s why I’m a big advocate for shooting tests. I’ll set up LUTs, set up frames, share and get a signoff, so a producer can say ‘I see what you’re going for, and I like what you’re doing.’ It’s about getting people behind it and being enthusiastic about a unique look.”
Carrying a set of more straightforward lenses alongside the modified set is, Baker says, something of an insurance policy. “If you have very extreme characteristics in the lens you don’t want to get in a situation where you can’t dial it back or get something a bit more neutral. You always want to have a set of cleaner lenses. When photographing actors and performances, you don’t want to get the optics in the way of a clean performance.”
No matter the production, finding the sweet spot between the pictures made by the original lens and the detuned variation, Baker admits, is enormously subjective. “My philosophy is it’s an instinctual thing. Often, I’ll make a selection I feel is in the right zone, and put them up on a camera so I can look at the aesthetic. When I see a look which feels like the look for the movie, or a particular scene, that’s what guides it. I want to
evolve and change with every project, and a lot of the projects are led by the scripts.
“The Colour Room,” Baker remembers, “was led by the colours, photography of the period, and art of our character. That led to a lot of our choices. With Shiver, a contemporary story, colour and ways to look at things was a good starting point too. I go to the great masters, the painters and cinematographers of yesteryear, whose work is a great starting point. You have their idealised version of reality… the most well-conceived or beautifully-constructed version of what their artwork might be.”
Baker proposes that those historically inspired approaches to photography arise from something fundamental enough that it echoes down to the present day. “I think that’s something we do as filmmakers, as well. We’re not taking reality as it comes, we’re making a fictionalised version of it that best suits the narrative. That’s why I like the testing period because you have time to have a bit of a play, find a starting point, and see where that takes you.” n
Chloé Deleplace experimented with unique dioptre filters and dual framing to craft a visually emotive storytelling experience in Universelles.
There was a time when filters mostly meant different grades of mist or diffusion, but the modern push for real-world optical effects has created an inexhaustible demand for interesting new options. Everything from fabric to plant material has since been mounted between two sheets of glass for sliding into a mattebox, simultaneously provoking tantalising possibilities - and a degree of creative riskfor anyone willing to experiment.
Chloé Deleplace tackled those risks on Universelles, a series of shorts currently available from the Belgian broadcaster RTBF. “During the pandemic I was developing a production with a friend,” Deleplace begins, “which was originally a short film, six episodes of five minutes each which became a series, and we decided to shoot that in Brussels.” Intended for online distribution, the production was to be shot with framing protected for both 1.85:1 and 4:5 delivery.
Dual framing inevitably demands careful shot design, but it would later interact with Deleplace’s choice of filtration in a way that might not have applied to everyday mist or diffusion effects. The approach, meanwhile, would be guided by story: “It’s about two women who meet in Brussels for the first time and each episode would represent a step in how they fall in love. It was very much about the emotional connection of these two women, and how they’re discovering one another. We wanted it to be very natural.
“We were very inspired by a lot of medium format photography, but we didn’t want it to feel gimmicky, we didn’t want to overdo it. We considered 35mm and large format sensors. What shifted our choice was that a few years ago I saw Post Tenebras Lux directed by Carlos Reygadas - it’s a very strong visual piece. It was shot by Alexis Zabé [ASC, AMC] and there are moments where we’re in the character’s head, where we really feel the character, and it stuck with me.”
“From when I first saw Alexis’s work, the visual effect I was looking for was the distorted images which has that polished centre,” Deleplace reflects. “I wanted to know how Alexis did it, but I didn’t want to copy-paste. I did some research and there wasn’t much information on how he did it, so I contacted him and he said he used Vantage squeeze dioptres. I got in touch with Vantage and they said there’s only that one set in continental Europe. So, I watched some tests from One Stop and they had a similar set, but better for our budget.”
Whether or not a dioptre with a plano (that is, flat, zero power) area in the centre is a filter is perhaps a philosophical consideration; the design unmistakably begins to cross over with lenses themselves, requiring a round mount on a lens of a suitable diameter. Deleplace, meanwhile, was keenly aware of the importance of a careful test process, in order to control the effect of such a unique and potentially powerful design - especially given two different frame sizes which would reveal different amounts of the resulting corner distortion.
Happily, Deleplace continues, the full set of filters provides a lot of options. “There are different diameters - 25, 50, 75mm, that’s the part where your image is clear and all >>
- S35 and FF coverage with the Scope Boosters easy switch between the formats
- Fast aperture of T4 at S35 and T5.6 at FF - Full 360° Pan, Tilt and Rot - Iris and Focus - superclose - Image rotation compensator
- Internal focusing - Lens mounts available: LPL, PL, EF, M
- comes with a basic lens set of 24, 35, 50, 75 and 90mm - more accessories coming
around it you have a degree of distortion. It’s a a bit like the Petzval, where it’s very circular. They also have different strengths, plus one, plus two or plus three, so you can really play with how much you see polished, and how strong you want the effect to be.”
Choosing a lens to go behind a filter might seem like a reversal of the usual approach, though Deleplace’s choices were limited by both availability and the need for a full-frame lens to potentially suit a fullframe camera. “We didn’t have that much choice in the sense of what the rental in Brussels had, because they were fully booked out, but I wanted a vintage piece of glass. We opted for Olympus Zuikos, the TLS rehouse.” The screw-in filters would require a consistent front diameter, making the rehoused option particularly valuable: “We didn’t have to worry about all the things we’d usually have to think about with vintage casings. We knew all the front diameters would fit for all the dioptres and the effect would be pretty much the same in terms of the science of it. That was helpful for us.”
then we ended up with the plus-two. It had the progression of emotional charge.”
Optically, though, the challenge of those unusual dioptres was clear, as Deleplace goes on. “I was concerned about the strength of the effect, especially as we were shooting two formats, so the [horizontally narrower] four-by-five would still show the effect of the filter even though it would be quite minuteI was told it would be the primary format but I wanted to focus on both. I first tried both of them with the 16:9 sensor size to see how they looked with equivalent sensor sizes with equivalent focal lengths.”
That process, Deleplace says, led to a straightforward conclusion: “on Alexa 35 the effect felt too visually present, and the more we talked about the look, the more I was getting attached to the large format visual style. We ended up going with the LF. It was about fine-tuning the dosage and how much we’ll see the filter at a particular focal length. The wider we were the more we’d see the effect, and the tighter, the less we’d see it. I think we decided to start on the first episode with the plus-one, so it was present but quite subtle,
It would not be unusual for a production shooting with a large, high-resolution sensor and the demand for two different outputs to frame generously and make final decisions in post. With the filter effect also serving to frame the image, however, Deleplace avoided doing so, making her choices in camera in pursuit of consistent filtration results. “We did think about it – there were a lot of talks about what we should do in post and how much money or time it would save us. What we ended up doing was to create our own frame guides where we had both on all the monitors, even for our Steadicam operator. It was quite tricky, but it was a necessity.”
Universelles was mainly recorded using the Alexa LF’s 4.3K-wide 16:9 frame, although Deleplace took full advantage of the option to use other sensor areas to fine-tune the effect of the dioptre filters. “When it came to the shots with the dioptres, we had to change the sensor size so it would fit the look better. I tested that to see what would work. I knew the Hollywood Black Magic and I’d adjust the strengths for the shadows and the highlights, but I went in there thinking that what I’m going to see in camera is what I’m going to get.”
In a practical sense, Deleplace reflects, the generally wide framing chosen for the piece was key. “I don’t think we did anything tighter than an MCU - it was very much vignettes, within the lives of these women. All these elements helped make the use of the filters work for the story. If it had been tighter shots or handheld, close-up to close-up, it would never have worked.”
Universelles is a testament to the ability of modern crews to operate with minimal support, even while dealing with a complex project involving dual framing and filter effects directly influencing, and influenced by, that framing. “It was just me and the gaffer,” Deleplace points out, “and we had huge locations to light, and a very tight schedule - two or three locations a day. Realistically, we were very limited and we had to be very creative and go with the tools we had. Trust the light meter, trust the monitor and trust the numbers and the colour science of the camera. It was a real-life story in a real environment, and it really worked out.” n
Most rental houses claim to meet every need, but few truly cater to a cinematographer’s discerning eye. Even fewer offer rare lenses and expert guidance.
ATM SYSTEM, Poland’s largest independent rental house, is a hidden gem. Based in Warsaw since 2003, it boasts 600+ unique lenses sourced globally for standout visuals.
To maintain everything in working order, ATM rely on chief lens tech Paulina Hryc — one of the youngest and most experienced technicians in Europe, with a reputation for helping DPs explore new looks and re-engineering optics.
“Because anybody can rent all the well-known lens sets off-the-shelf we wanted to set ourselves apart by curating a library of cinema optics all of which have a story to tell,” says Marcin Mikołajczyk, Lens Sommelier, ATM SYSTEM. “Our lenses have character, history and are full of possibility.”
One of the special services from ATM is that of a lens sommelier — for those undecided or wanting to know more about the lenses. “I started advising people what would be the best solution for their next project,” Mikołajczyk recalls. “Someone joked that it’s like being a sommelier, but for lenses, and here we are, I’m a lens sommelier now.”
DP Bartosz Bieniek PSC chose ATM’s lens sommelier service when prepping for Dziadku, wiejemy! (Let’s Go Grandpa!), directed by Olga Chajdas. After testing several options, he selected a vintage Voigtlander Zoomar 36-82, Ancient Optics Petzvalux and a set of rehoused KOWA FF sphericals.
“This was possible thanks to the blind test which I often recommend for creative teams,” says Mikołajczyk. “The director and cinematographer can focus on what they really like for the project by look alone and not be swayed because a lens has a famous brand or has been used before by someone else. That’s often the best way to decide how to tell your story.”
Polish DP Piotr Sobocinski Jr. PSC worked with ATM to find the right combination to shoot historical drama Scarborn (aka Kos), winner of the Golden Lions Award at the 48th Polish Film Festival.
Other DPs to commend the lens sommelier include Lasse Frank DFF; Jann Doeppert FNF; Radosław Ładczuk PSC and Nicolás Villegas ADFC PSC who says, “Consultations with Marcin and his team have helped me mix different manufacturers in the same project without creating a large discrepancy in the result. It is a joy for me to be able to play with different ‘flavours’ in the vintage selection, which often have great character, colour and contrast that modern lenses lack. The lens selection is carefully paired with accessories like specialty filters, periscopes and solutions that can be manufactured in house according to my needs.”
Poland’s best-kept filmmaking secret, ATM SYSTEM pairs rare vintage lenses with expert tech and sommelier-style service, helping DPs unlock bold, character-rich visuals.
It’s also possible to alter perfect lenses by adding special filters and exchanging lens elements with uncoated ones or even altering the position of elements to achieve a unique look.
ATM has recently acquired exclusive sets of Tamashii and Statera lenses, of which only a few exist worldwide. It also developed new Lomocron lenses, combining Leica R glass with Lomo square fronts. Another standout project is a rehoused P. Angénieux 25-250 from 1962, adapted to shoot both anamorphic and full-frame.
“I always look for something original and rare to revive for today’s DPs,” Mikołajczyk explains. “That’s why we built a full LOMO 70 Series and a modified set of Contax645 lenses suited for cameras like the Blackmagic Ursa Cine 17k or Fujifilm GFX Eterna. With bigger sensors in demand, we’re ready with the coverage.”
Also, on-site ATM has a full range of professionally serviced cameras, lighting and stage equipment and mobile production facilities – with good discounts available.
“We’re always open to collaborating with international cinematographers. If you’re shooting in Poland or anywhere nearby, feel free to reach out—whether you’re after a specific lens look or just want to explore what’s possible. We’re ready to help you find something truly unique for your next project.” n
Find out more at: https://atmsystem.pl/en/
Markus Förderer ASC BVK has a passion for exploring lens flares, creating the Cineflares library to document their optical effects, shaping unique visuals in film.
Whether or not a lens flare is a flaw is a matter of photographic philosophy, but making a science out of something that might be a flaw is no small achievement. Markus Förderer ASC BVK had done just that, creating the Cineflares online reference library while building a credit history including - most recently - the historical drama September 5 and Apple TV’s science fiction Constellation. Both are productions which aimed for very different results via Förderer’s carefully research-based approach.
Running a website which specialises in documenting lens flares, Förderer is perhaps more aware than most of the world’s touching enthusiasm for them and begins by carefully defining his terms. “Designers call it lens narcissism when lenses show themselves. When people hear about flares they think it’s overused, or it’s eye candy, but it can also evoke a sensation of period or of beauty. That’s what we did on September 5: it’s more a bloom, a veiling glare.”
Förderer prefers, he says, to find a purpose beyond sheer fancy. “Some people use flares for eye candy on a music video, but ideally it’s for story. In Dune: Part Two, during the sandworm riding sequence when he’s running on top of the dune, the sun is right behind him, wiping the lens and the way it’s edited it’s unbelievable. It adds to the story, if it was on a clean lens it wouldn’t have the impact.”
Moreover, Förderer was, he says, keen to achieve something positive during such a grim period of world history. “I thought ‘we have so much time now, and all the gear is in the rental houses.’ If you go to Panavision usually, all the interesting gear is out working. So, that’s when I started shooting this all from scratch with a motion control system so it’s all consistent, and we started Cineflares - now Cineflares Lens Lab. Between projects I shoot tests with a small team of people, and it’s always the exact same methodology.”
The setup Förderer developed for Cineflares will be familiar, although repeatability was new. “It’s a torch with a lens collimated at infinity, twelve feet from the camera lens. There’s black masking so that the dot you see appears to the lens to be near infinity. The focus I always set on purpose not to be on the plane where the light is. We launched this at Cameraimage two years ago and since then it has grown quite a bit. We’re now shooting not just flares but trying to map the bokeh and distortion.”
As well as the familiar reference shots of flares against a black background, Förderer’s library provides what he calls “a scene preview for people to see what it looks like in a real world environment. We can’t go out into the real world and shoot hundreds of lenses, so we went into the desert and shot with an 8K Raptor, with a very clean spherical lens. I put a flag on a C-stand to block the sun, so there’s no flare whatsoever in the original plate, then we removed the flag to create a clean plate.”
Even before the current boom in lens selection, Förderer accepts, any attempt at a fully comprehensive library would inevitably
have been a completionist’s nightmare. “It’s a neverending story. I’m still working as a cinematographer while I’m doing this. These days there’s a free educational version which has quite a lot of lenses, but because I had to invest quite some money for programmers, for people who are really into this, there’s a pro version which has the full library.”
Not every production will be interested in boldly visible flares, but Förderer suggests that they are a particularly powerful way to assess related aspects of a lens. “If I could test only one aspect of a lens, I would shine a light into it, and see a flare. It shows the colour response, you can see distortion, you can get an idea of chromatic aberration. I’m not necessarily interested in the flare itself. On September 5 I didn’t want to have flares creatively, but I used the flare testing to find the right lenses which have a vintage look.
“And that’s what I learned from my film school project. I had to write a technical paper on how flares work. I learned so much. It’s a reflection within a lens, so when you have the sun in your frame you get a reflection of itbut there’s also some examples I shot where you have a face in your frame, or a bright edge light, it reflects and it softens the contrast.”
To some extent, Förderer suspects, this sort of behaviour goes some way to explaining “what people respond to when they see skin tones in an old lens. It’s a reflection. Maybe it’s only two per cent visible, but it adds to a gentleness which we think is a film look but it’s actually part of the lens.”
Meanwhile, the Cineflares collection continues to grow. “We just published the Franscope Brevet Supermatic, one of the earliest anamorphic zooms. It vignettes extremely on the wide end. There were only a few made, and this one is owned by Dan
“IF I COULD TEST ONLY ONE ASPECT OF A LENS, I WOULD SHINE A LIGHT INTO IT, AND SEE A FLARE. IT SHOWS
Kanes from Atlas Lens. It has amazing half metre close focus. Even for a spherical zoom that’s good. It has interesting amber flares.”
No matter how comprehensive Förderer’s test collection becomes, though, some realities will mean that per-production testing will remain essential. Testing a set of Super Baltars, Förderer discovered that not every apparently-identical focal length behaved identically. “Some Panavision lenses can be very different from serial number to serial number - they do all this detuning and sometimes it doesn’t get put back to the original state. For some Panavision series I tested more serial numbers and we published the serial numbers. The modern lenses, the factory produced Zeiss, Cooke and all the Chinese stuff are fairly consistent.”
One benefit of all this, Förderer says, is that flare spotting becomes an entertaining pastime during films that fail to entertain. “When I see a movie and I’m a bit bored and it’s not my kind of movie, I try to figure out what lens it was shot with. The Minolta Rokkor 17mm is quite unique and I saw that exact pattern in an anamorphic lens and I thought ‘wait a second, they must have used this element!’ You can see what lenses are put where. It’s like a fingerprint.” That sort of diversion aside, reiterates that lens flare may not involve the most stereotypical effects. “Sometimes I shot on lenses so many times and I thought I knew them inside and out, but no. People think of a flare as a circle, a spot or an orb but there’s also veiling and glare that lifts the blacks. Now you can do it with lenses. Of course we’ve used smoke, too, but if you use smoke with a modern lens the foreground looks super crispy.” For Förderer, the Cineflares project has a certain clarity of purpose which has attracted attention from beyond the camera department. “Visual effects houses have been very interested in the database. The flare tells you so much about the lens, not only from a technical standpoint but also creatively. It’s the purest form of photography. There’s not even a subject. It’s just light, photographed.” n
Zooming may have gone out of fashion, but is it coming back around? Five DPs discuss fresh approaches to the dynamic technique.
“Zooming as a general technique is so versatile,” says DP Lorene Desportes.
“A slow zoom, famously used by Kubrick for example, will work great in a horror film, whereas a Tarantino-style crash zoom will add some comedy or drama to a shot and a dolly zoom might suggest the disorientation of a character. It’s about what we, as a common unconscious,
associate those movements with and if we want to perpetuate those traditions or break the rules in today’s filmmaking.”
Desportes chose to use zooms in an ad for Rosewood Hotels, shooting the whole piece on a Canon 8-64mm. “It’s a film promoting Rosewood as a lifestyle so we had to think about ways to incorporate this in the cinematography,” she explains. “It had to be elegant, yet modern and attractive to a young, international crowd with ties to the design and culture worlds. Most online content nowadays, especially commercial, is consumed in tensecond periods, so the dynamism of crash zooms helped us create that stimulating rhythm the target audience is used to.”
The zooms are intercut with wide angles that show off the architecture and interior design of the hotel. “I think this
combination really helped translate both the classy decor and the trendy vibe of the hotel,” Desportes comments.
Matthias Pilz also used a Canon zoom - a vintage K35 25-120mm macro - on an upcoming BBC 2 documentary. “It’s a beautiful lens,” says the DP. “It’s a T2.8 all the way through, so it’s pretty fast for a vintage zoom. I liked it also because it has quite a long range…” Pilz wanted the documentary, which focuses on a cult, “to create a bit of a hypnotic feel in places and to pull the audience further into the story. We used zooms in interviews, which was a challenge but also very rewarding. It’s not easy to get the timing right, without interrupting the contributors, as they were talking about very emotional topics.”
The DP discussed the interviews with director Eleanor Wood ahead of time. “Initially you feel like there’s lots of moments where you can zoom in,” Pilz continues, “but then you also realise, we need to save those zooms for the moments which are precious or which are good and which are right… I offered that [Wood] can nudge me or something, but she actually never did.” Instead the DP used his own judgement to time the zooms, while a second camera with a prime captured a fixed mid shot.
Zooms were also used for the documentary’s B-roll. “We further have a fairly abstract visual layer, with deteriorating nature, where we used the same vintage zooms and primes,” says Pilz. “We chose this way of storytelling as opposed to doing more conventional reconstructions, as we believe it works better on an emotional
The feeling of being watched is what Kim Jiyong sought when he shot the second season of South Korean Netflix hit Squid Game. Discussing the first episode, Ji-yong offers: “The main character and his gangs try to find the Suit Man, the Ddakji man [who recruits players to the game], and to enhance that feeling I used a zoom lens to have a little voyeuristic feeling.” These zooms were carefully planned with the director, and generally shot on an Angénieux Optimo 28-340mm.
Later in the season, when protagonist Gi-hun is back inside the game, the purpose of the zooms changes. “I wanted to have immediacy,” says Ji-yong. “I want the viewers to feel like they’re participating in the game… Part of it, I wanted to make it look a little bit like a reality show, but I didn’t want to go too much.” To that end he often shot handheld, close to the cast, using lightweight zooms: the Angénieux Type EZ-1 and EZ-2, and the Fujinon Cabrio 19-90mm. The timing of the zooms now needed to be felt out rather than planned. “It was really up to the operator; I operated. To be physically close to the actors and to the events, I couldn’t use multiple cameras, because I’m very close to the actors.”
Ji-yong came to Squid Game 2 from the HBO Max miniseries The Sympathizer, where he’d used zooms to complement the 1970s setting. He found he enjoyed the freedom it gave him. “I like to bring some old-fashioned techniques to modern cinema, because it feels a little newer to new generations, even to me,” the DP reflects. “I didn’t work back in the seventies. It felt new to me, and I don’t overuse it. I could use it creatively, because back then I don’t think they could be handheld and zoom. [Now] we have lighter cameras and lighter zoom lenses.”
“A subtle retro flavour” was one of Benedict Spence BSC’s reasons for zooming in another Netflix series, the psychological thriller Eric. “Being set in the eighties I thought that some slow zooms would work well within the period,” he says, “and being a mystery thriller I was also keen to build a language of clues and red herrings. I felt that using the
zoom was a simple and unobtrusive way of saying to the audience, ‘This is important,’ even if it was misdirection!”
Like Ji-yong, Spence used the Fujinon Cabrio 19-90mm. “It was built as a TV-style zoom, which is why it has such a useable zoom range, but it’s fantastically well made,” Spence remarks. “Its size also means that it’s very quick to put on and off the camera, making it incredibly speedy and versatile. There is some pincushioning on verticals, but that is easily fixed in the grade. It blended in perfectly with our [Zeiss Supreme] primes.”
Helena Gonzalez shot anamorphic for the short thriller A Matter of Minutes. She mixed Panavision B- and C-series primes with the AWZ2.3 3785mm zoom from the T series “which blended seamlessly with the primes and was ideal for shooting within the confined house setting.”
Taking place at a party, A Matter of Minutes follows teenager Ava, whose night takes a sudden lifethreatening turn when her severe nut allergy is triggered. As anaphylaxis takes hold, she must fight through a sea of oblivious partygoers to reach her EpiPen in time.
“With Hannah [Beach], the director, we recognised the film’s two distinct halves - before and after the allergic reaction,”
says Gonzalez. “The first half builds tension through subtle red flags, hinting at the danger ahead, with the chocolate cake serving as the central trigger. We wanted the visuals to act as a warning system, almost as if Ava’s allergy itself were trying to alert her. Dynamic zooms played a key role in this, guiding the audience’s attention - zooming in to find Ava in the crowd, emphasising crucial objects like the cake or her EpiPen, and zooming out to transition between moments. I love using zooms to reveal or conceal elements within a space, making them an effective storytelling tool beyond just speed or efficiency.”
Gonzalez believes that zooms are making a comeback. “I particularly enjoyed how they were utilised in Sick of Myself [shot by Benjamin Loeb FNF] in a smart, integrated way that enhanced the visual storytelling rather than feeling like a gimmick. That’s what I tried to do on A Matter of Minutes, to really integrate them in the visual language.” n
CVP’s European Lens Summit returns, offering knowledge, networking and insightful sessions designed around real tools and real-world tests.
In a digital world of bits and bytes, lenses remain reassuringly analogue and a solid unbreakable link to the way that content has been shot since the early days of film.
Cinematographers will often talk about lenses as if they’re characters. “This one’s got soul”. “That one’s too clean.” Or sometimes, “It flares just right.” There’s more than an acknowledgment of the fact that lenses are the part of the creative process that balance artistry and science together like no other. Where else can something be prized as much for the decades of imperfections they bring to an image as for the volumes of crisp metadata they contribute to precise post production?
But for all the poetry surrounding them, cinema lenses remain one of the most technically misunderstood parts of the imagemaking chain. Few people get to see behind the curtain—to the physics, the tolerances, and the decades of design thinking that go into shaping that character.
That’s why the European Lens Summit (ELS) has been such a success. In a world where cinematographers often take the spotlight, the European Lens Summit exists for the people behind the precision: the lens technicians, service engineers, and optics specialists who quietly ensure that every frame is tack sharp, mechanically sound, and character-consistent.
Scheduled to return to CVP’s Brentford facility on 12 and 13 July, the European Lens Summit is more than a networking opportunity or trade showcase. It’s a technically rigorous, handson forum for sharing deep knowledge about cinema optics. The sessions aren’t designed for
passive viewing. They’re for the lens techs who ask: Why is that element flaring early? Why does that rear group drift under thermal load? And what’s actually going on with that out-of-spec back focus?
“We want to foster an environment where technicians feel comfortable asking questions, sharing ideas, challenging assumptions, and refining their understanding,” says CVP’s lens engineering manager, Gary Leach.
In putting it together, the team behind the Summit had a huge number of conversations with the people who live and breathe glass day in and day out. As a result they have identified three key issues that lens technicians currently care about, and taken together they provide a fascinating insight into one of the last great alchemical outposts of digital transformation.
1Servicing and sustainability: lenses that last
As budgets tighten and expectations rise, long-term serviceability has become just as important as optical quality. Technicians, rental houses, and DPs are increasingly wary of boutique lens brands that launch with plenty of hype but offer little to no support 12 months later.
It is a double-edged sword. On the one hand the surge of affordable lenses from Chinese manufacturers has opened up new creative options for filmmakers. But for technicians there has been a huge downside to this. What some celebrate as accessibility, others characterise fairly as “disposability.” Parts are scarce and support is often non-existent.
“Too many of these lenses look great until something breaks — then they become paperweights,” says one senior rental technician. “If there’s no service path, we just can’t risk them.”
It’s a growing concern, and one reason why the Lens Summit has begun pushing manufacturers harder on training, spare part availability, and long-term servicing strategies.
Downtime is, of course, lost revenue. A lens that sits on a bench waiting for unavailable parts is no good to anyone. In today’s market, the true value lies not just in performance—but in the ability to service, calibrate, and keep a lens running reliably.
Leach says that at CVP the company is now judging lenses by the following criteria: Availability of spare parts, manufacturer response times, long-term viability and support, and repairability by independent technicians.
It’s not a binary proposition. Lenses don’t have to either be effectively disposable
at one end of the spectrum or cost five figure sums at the other end. There is a balance that can and should be struck here.
2 Everyone wants character again
The call for character-rich optics has returned. DPs are increasingly turning away from sterile, “perfect” lenses in favour of glass that flares and falls off in interesting ways.
Vintage isn’t just a fashion though, it’s a whole workflow that has to be considered. Yes, rental houses are busy rehousing Canon FDs, K35s, Zeiss Super Speeds, and other optic stars
“Before we even talk about how it looks, we have to confirm it works,” says one rental house team lead. “That’s the reality now — format first, aesthetics second.”
The key takeaway? Double the stock. Double the tests. Triple the headaches.
All these subjects and plenty more will be discussed at the European Lens Summit. But it is worth pointing out that this is far more than just a debating chamber; there’s a hands-on practical element to the Summit that is hard to find anywhere else.
Partly this is because of where it’s being held. CVP is immensely proud of its manufacturer approved, state-of-theart facilities. With a 32ft projection room, dedicated workshops, a lens testing bay, and access to an unmatched inventory of modern and legacy glass, CVP Brentford is uniquely suited to support hands-on exploration.
from previous eras. But with vintage character comes vintage headaches: inconsistent behaviour, scarcity of parts, and the ongoing and decidedly non-trivial challenge of set matching.
For lens techs, this means endless hours chasing reliability across inherently inconsistent gear and a delicate ongoing balancing act that seeks to give producers the character they crave without sacrificing the consistency they also demand.
What is interesting to note is that where vintage can’t go, modern lenses are being detuned to effectively send them back in time. They are being stripped of coatings, optically altered, or physically modified to emulate the quirks of older glass. It’s highly technical work, often experimental, and always evolving. Feedback from CVP is that tools and techniques for detuning are a regular topic in CVP’s community, with recent experiments around the Angénieux EZ series in particular drawing attention.
The new normal? ”Make it imperfect— but make it perform like it’s perfect.”
Full-Frame vs Super35: a battle, not a transition
Anyone who thinks Super35 is dead hasn’t been around the sharp end of the industry lately. The Alexa 35 brought it right back virtually singlehandedly. Smaller glass, better depth control, cheaper rigs, and loads of legacy stock made compelling arguments in the market.
But Full-Frame isn’t going away either — it’s just less dominant than the initial hype perhaps said it would be. Leach says that CVP is still having to carry full sets of lenses for both. The real issue is that vintage glass rarely covers both well, so it’s a logistical mess.
As a result many of the Summit’s sessions are designed around real tools and real-world tests. Subjects on the table this year include: collimator calibration and back focus accuracy; evaluating breathing and optical performance on the projector; and, of course, plenty of side-by-side set comparisons under test conditions.
Yes, there is plenty of talking too and, as you can see from the above there is a lot to talk about. But it’s a special type of discussion, one that is designed for a specific audience. Anyone who has ever logged inconsistent torque settings or re-collimated a prime after a hard drop? This is your kind of conversation. n
CVP’s European Lens Summit takes place on 12 and 13 July 2025. For more details, visit: cvp.com/events/european-lens-summit-2025
For most of the history of filmmaking, field of view and focal length has existed in a fairly fixed relationship. Beyond adjustments for anamorphics and 16mm, it was only spectacular large-scale formats developed to fight mid-century television which changed how focal length worked. This has changed as sensors have evolved.
Now that silicon sensors come in all shapes and sizes, it has made focal length, depth of field, field of view and rectilinearity into concerns for cinematographers working with every camera, from mirrorless to IMAX. Perhaps unusually for someone working in 2025, Duncan O’Bryan’s recent experience involves a lot of photochemistry alongside the well-known digital capture tools. The resulting variations camera behaviour, O’Bryan says, prompted new ideas about picking the best
large format sensors and optics which are coming out. Everyone’s making new large format lenses. I’ve found myself putting lenses designed for larger formats onto a 35mm film camera.”
The relationship between sensor size and field of view is elementary, though O’Bryan echoes common concerns about terminology inherited from still photography. “It’s something I’ve been on a personal crusade about - ‘oh, it’s a crop sensor, a large sensor’ - everyone tries to do the math in their head.” Too often, O‘Bryan suggests, discussions rely on that legacy terminology when it may not make much sense, format commonly refers to sensors smaller than those a stills photographer
Associating a choice of lens with a particular cinematographer is not always easy, although stand out examples exist in the work of Christopher Doyle HKSC using ultra-wide angles. O’Bryan’s taste is, he says, cosmopolitan, though recently evolved: “A couple of years ago, if you’d asked me [about focal length], I’d have somewhat naively said that I’m a wide angle guy, defaulting to a 35mm, or the nearest I had, or going wider if I had a chance. And I couldn’t particularly tell you why, other than perhaps I was still growing as a cinematographer. But there are stories which have to be told in extreme close-ups, where it’s looking into the character’s soul.”
Crucially, that choice is influenced directly by choice of format, since not every lens set covers the extremes, especially those designed to cover beyond-full-frame formats. “I did a shoot where we had the MasterBuilt vistas,” O’Bryan recalls, “and I took the longest one, the 105mm, and we used it on a handful of shots where this young woman is pleading with her estranged dad, staring deeply into the soul of the audience and begging him to show her any attention and care about her.”
Blocking and framing naturally vary to suit. “The camera would have had to have been on top of her at any other focal lengtheven an 85mm didn’t feel appropriate to that point in the movie. We needed something that would reach right out and see the fire in her eyes when she delivers those lines.”
Conversely, O’Bryan says, “I’ve also done shots where you’ve got a girl alone with her thoughts, and she’s in this giant room, and you want to show off the room, and show off her isolation. We had an 18mm - that was the widest we had on set. She was a tiny speck in frame, and that was the story. She was alone with the demons in her head.”
These choices have been part of the craft since the dawn of photography, but applying lenses such as the Vistas, built to cover Alexa 65, to a much smaller effective imaging area naturally affects the lens effects a cinematographer might have in mind when choosing such a set. The visibility of aberration, softness, vignetting, and many other optical behaviours might be a blessing or a curse, but, as O’Bryan confirms, they will be less visible on a larger format.
“If you’re capturing a wider piece of that image circle, the characteristics are of course going to be completely different,” O’Bryan points out. Meanwhile, the option
to shoot wide yet maintain a shallow depth of field is, he says, “another benefit of larger sensors. If I want the audience’s eye to go to a certain place, and if I’m forced into a corner with a wide lens that shows almost no depth of field, I lose that option. That’s the magic of this renaissance of larger sensors becoming more accessible for filmmakers.”
But O’Bryan cautions there are technical reasons lenses built for older formats may not play well with newer ones, particularly at extremes of focal length.
“On Super 35mm, one of my favourite lenses to shoot stills is the Zeiss Hologon 16mm in Leica M mount. It’s such a wild lens - it looks like HAL-9000. It has a big bulbous front and you have to be very careful how you hold the camera because it sees all the way to the edges.”
them. “It’s not just about the lens. It’s about the lens and the sensor as a pair. I think now as lens designers are cranking up the image circles to cover larger and larger formats, there’s a lot of compromises that have to be made.” One of those compromises arises from the difficulty of making very short, or very long focal length lenses for large sensors - especially fast lenses, and particularly in sets with glass derived from medium-format stills lenses.
Aside from the potential for mechanical fit issues, O’Bryan explains an issue which has sometimes confused people trying to use legacy stills lenses on digital formats. “Film doesn’t really care what angle the light hits it from. It can hit at a very extreme angle, and it will capture it just as if it had come out of the barrel of the lens and hit it at 90 degrees. On digital, sometimes [the photosites] can only receive light from a certain angle, and if you go off-angle too much, you start to introduce chroma vignetting and all those other problems. On film you shed those limitations - you can dump that light in any direction you want so you can get down to a crazy 8mm lens and you’ll still get it as clean as the designers can get it out of the factory.”
What matters, O’Bryan emphasises, is not the performance of any one piece of equipment, but of the relationship between
“A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO I’D HAVE SOMEWHAT NAIVELY SAID THAT I’M A WIDE ANGLE GUY, DEFAULTING TO A 35MM. AND I COULDN’T PARTICULARLY TELL YOU WHY, OTHER THAN PERHAPS I WAS STILL GROWING AS A CINEMATOGRAPHER. BUT THERE ARE STORIES WHICH HAVE TO BE TOLD IN EXTREME CLOSE-UPS, WHERE IT’S LOOKING INTO THE CHARACTER’S SOUL.” DUNCAN O’BRYAN
“With the ultralarge format coverage lenses, if I’m lucky they might make a 45mm and it’s probably going to be slow, probably an f/4 or slower, an f/5.6,” O’Bryan laments. “That’s probably the maximum just based on what physics will allow them to do without the lens being monstrously huge.” Shot on their intended formats, meanwhile, things work well. “When you’re shooting on something like 65mm, a 45mm is a pretty wide lens. If you shoot medium format on those lenses, as they were originally intended, you don’t want to shoot any wider than that because it would start to look fisheye, but you’re still hanging onto the 45mm depth of field. So, it goes back to lenses not being a choice that’s happening in a vacuum. It’s a marriage between lens and capture format.“
Keeping that pair in tune, especially as influences such as filtration, lighting, and specialist cameras play their part, is something O’Bryan describes as “the balance. As cinematographers, our job is to juggle all of these technical decisions that need to happen to make that shot work, doing the best job we can do… the pursuit of perfection is one thing but on the other side of that coin is serving the story. If the story is satisfied, and it feels like it’s getting the moment it deserves, well. Everything I’m doing only matters insofar as the story is being told right.” n
Through the careful choice of focal length and field of view, a DP can dramatically affect how the audience sees a character and their relationship to the world around them.
he choice of focal lengths will affect how we see the world as an audience is modulated,” says Alex Grigoras. “If our normal human vision gives us some kind of reference point, then we can go towards putting the audience in a more familiar place, or a more special or unfamiliar or new place of seeing a world.”
Grigoras is the DP of Atom and Void, a unique sci-fi short starring live spiders as its main characters. “This was the dilemma: how do we make something that’s quite repulsive appear familiar to the audience?”
Shooting initially on a full-frame camera, Grigoras and director Gonçalo Almeida purchased a 24mm Laowa probe lens. “What we discovered was that the images were quite impressive, because the field of view was quite wide,” says the DP. “It was pushing us to reduce the subject-to-camera distance, to get really close with the camera to the spiders, which created this impression that we were watching aeroplanes in a hanger.”
Over a long period of testing and filming, the filmmakers progressively reduced the field of view without changing the lens, by moving to smaller sensors. They ultimately landed on micro-4/3, using a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K, where the 24mm was equivalent to about 50mm in full frame. Here they found the spiders appeared less frightening and more relatable.
Although Grigoras used a Fotodiox 0.7x focal reducer to get occasional wider shots, the field of view in the finished film is mostly constant. “We felt like having a limited variation of perspective through the combination of focal length and camera/subject proximity would contribute to - let’s call it - familiarity of the audience, and also the feeling that we were travelling together with the spider.”
Trevor Forrest made canny use of focal length when he shot Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Martin Luther King in Genius: MLK/X. “Having recently completed his role in Chevalier, shot by Jess Hall ASC BSC, Harrison arrived significantly slimmer than the historical Martin Luther King Jr.,” Forrest reports. “Although he worked diligently to gain weight for the role, we employed wider focal lengths to enhance his physical presence on screen (24-35mm) for the first two episodes, and then tailored our approach to longer lenses [40-50mm] with the shift of Kelvin’s weight and the period… This subtle evolution of focal lengths paralleled his character’s journey from emerging leader to iconic historical figure.”
For King’s counterpart Malcolm X (Aaron Pierre), Forrest’s lensing again got progressively longer, but started in the 3575mm range and ended up at 75-100mm. “The pivotal prison sequence marked a significant visual transition,” explains the DP, who chose Panavision Primo sphericals for the series. “When Pierre donned Malcolm’s signature glasses post-imprisonment, we shifted exclusively to longer focal lengths, enhancing the sharpness and intellectual intensity that defined the historical figure.”
Reflecting on his approach, Forrest adds: “Most of the time there is a need for continuity and matching the feeling of the lens, but the decision to shift is a decision that moves the audience and punctuates the storytelling… The abrupt transition from Harrison’s wide-lens framing to Pierre’s telephoto portraits created a visually dynamic editorial rhythm.” >>
Rudar, or The Miner, is a feature about a Slovenian miner who discovers a mass grave. DP Matthias Pilz and his director, Hanne Slak, decided that the moment of this discovery was a crucial turning point. “We chose to restrict ourselves with the lenses in the sense that we said: up to a certain point in the story, we use wider lenses, wider than the 50,” Pilz relates. “Then we changed to longer than the 50 after the dramatic turning point.”
The longer lenses in the second half of Rudar reflect the miner’s desperation as he tries to decide on the right thing to do. “We changed onto the longer lenses to compress the space around him, to single him out in the world, to get more into his head and into his perception of the world… He’s sleepless. He’s haunted by dreams.” The long lenses were applied to wider shots as well as close-ups. “When we find him in spaces, the focal plane is on him, and it’s not on the whole space. It narrows the rooms down. It doesn’t show as much breathing space as if you use a wider lens.”
A dramatic turning point also guided Helena Gonzalez’s lens choices when she shot Sense Filtres (No Filters), a Spanish limited series. The three episodes follow Alícia, a young aspiring rapper who gets into a toxic relationship with an established musician. “At first, he seems like someone who can help her career, offering her opportunities and guidance,
but as their relationship deepens, she realises he is not who she thought he was,” the DP explains. “A pivotal moment in episode two drastically alters the tone, pushing her into a darker, more isolating emotional space.”
Working primarily with Cooke Panchro S2 glass, Gonzalez shot her protagonist with varying focal lengths “to shape how she perceives people, spaces, and environments… In the first half, we framed Alícia with wider and mid-range shots, maintaining some distance (using the 25mm and 32mm), as everything in the story remains relatively positive. As her world becomes more overwhelming in the second half, we introduced extreme wides (12mm and 18mm) to isolate her within negative space, making her surroundings feel distorted and oppressive.”
A second tier of shots in Sense Filtres are Alícia’s “private” close-ups - moments that only the audience witnesses. “After the turning point, when she is in shock, unable to react to what she has experienced, we used profile closeups on tighter lenses (50mm, 75mm, and occasionally 100mm) to emphasise her detachment,” says Gonzalez. “As she begins to acknowledge her emotions and
process what has happened, we started using the 18mm and 25mm for close-ups, forcing the camera physically closer to her. The subtle distortion of her face made her internal struggle feel even more tangible, visually reinforcing her emotional journey.”
Distortion was something that Lorene Desportes was cautious about when she employed wide lenses on a Remington shaver commercial. The ad intercuts a bathroom mirror’s POV with extremely close coverage of the shaver travelling over the actors’ faces. “The main challenge was to find a lens that gave us the right amount of distortion to achieve the eccentric look whilst maintaining a certain amount of appeal,” Desportes explains. “We tested about five or six different lenses ranging from fisheye to 35mm before settling on the 12mm Signature Prime.” A magic arm between the razor and one of the camera’s moose bars kept the frame locked to the product’s movement.
“Commercial cinematography can be quite codified,” Desportes reflects. “We still see some classic, high-fashion and beauty ads being shot on the more flattering end of the spectrum to inspire confidence in an established, long-standing and sophisticated brand. Meanwhile, food and other products targeting the younger generation tend to show faces on a wider lens… The good news is, we need rules to break them, so once each of us plays their part in adding to those rules, we can all start to play with them and eventually break them when necessary.” n
With optical innovation at its core, Panavision’s lens rental inventory offers new advancements while continuing to support legacy lenses.
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An artist might use airbrush or acrylic or oil or spray paint, and the people who make those products don’t decide what art is going to be made with them,” says Charlie Todman, technical marketing director for Panavision UK. “In the same way, our job is to provide cinematographers with as many different lenses as possible so they can choose what’s right for a particular project.”
With that focus, Panavision has released approximately 30 proprietary lens series since the company began making cinema lenses in the mid-1950s — not to mention countless special optics, custom focal lengths and prototype lenses that remain part of the company’s rental inventory alongside a vast assortment of lenses from most third-party manufacturers.
Among the most recent additions to Panavision’s inventory of proprietary lenses are the Ultra Panatar II 1.3x-squeeze anamorphics, VA spherical primes and Array Lenses. Exhibited at this year’s BSC Expo, the high-performance Array Lenses are precisionmatched and calibrated specifically for use with Panavision’s camera-array baseplates, providing a streamlined solution for capturing background plates for VFX or LED volumes.
The VAs and Ultra Panatar IIs, meanwhile, offer largeformat coverage while also delivering excellent performance on 35mmformat cameras.
Cinematographer Jomo Fray worked with VA primes for director RaMell Ross’ feature Nickel Boys, which was meticulously crafted with a first-person visual language. Fray shares, “The optical qualities of the VAs were like nothing I had seen before. They were so unique that they instantly pulled me in — they have a distinctly three-dimensional quality that felt incredibly immersive to us. They are also fast and surprisingly lightweight, which were both important given our space restrictions with so many of our point-of-view builds.”
The 1.3x squeeze of the Ultra Panatar IIs harks back to Panavision’s very first series of camera lenses, the APO Panatar prism anamorphics, which featured a 1.25x squeeze and were designed for 65mm film capture. With credits that include such classics as Ben-Hur (1959), the APO Panatars were refurbished for writer-director Quentin Tarantino and cinematographer Robert Richardson ASC’s use on the 2015 release
Alice Brooks ASC was the first to put a set of prototype Ultra Panatar IIs through their paces when she reteamed with director Jon M. Chu for the feature Wicked and its upcoming sequel, Wicked: For Good “The lenses are so beautiful,” Brooks says, highlighting their unique character. “I love the imperfections, and they weren’t obvious. They were very subtle, making our world feel a little different.”
The Hateful Eight. More recently, cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski chose to pair the APO Panatars — supplemented by select focal lengths of Ultra Panatar 1.3x anamorphics and H Series spherical primes — with the ARRI Alexa 35 camera for director Mimi Cave’s feature Holland. “Wherever the focus fell was so sharp,” he says of the vintage anamorphic optics. “The eyes were amazing, but then the skin was so soft.” When prepping Captain America: Brave New World with director Julius Onah, cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau ASC landed on a lens package that mixed multiple anamorphic squeezes with spherical lenses as well as vintage and modern glass. He explains, “Panavision [2x-squeeze] C Series anamorphic lenses were chosen for their unique vintage character, adding a nostalgic and grounded feel to the film’s aesthetic. VA primes were used for shots we couldn’t achieve with the C Series, such as super wide-angle, close focus or fast T1.4-stop shots. We also shot a portion of the film for IMAX with Ultra Panatar II lenses in a 1.90:1 aspect ratio.” Both Morgenthau and Pogorzelski collaborated with Panavision’s Special Optics team for select customisations within their chosen lens packages. “It’s so cool to be able to make these adjustments,” Pogorzelski says. Between Panavision’s ability to customise lenses and the tremendous variety of proprietary and third-party lenses in the company’s rental inventory, “You can really bring the project to life,” Pogorzelski adds. “There are so many lenses to choose from. The vault seems infinite. Let’s keep looking.” n
High-end filmmaking has long been a discipline in which huge efforts were made to put the most capable equipment in the most interesting places, but ever since crews hauled 65mm into the deep desert for Lawrence of Arabia, ambitious cinematographers have pushed for smaller, easier gear.
Better film stocks and digital cameras helped cinematographers in their pursuit for lightweight filmmaking, but the dimensions of lenses were fixed by the laws of physics until computer-aided optical design - and much faster cameras - made lighter options possible. Those lightweight options became particularly relevant to Xavier Dolléans AFC on Rivages, directed by David Hourrègue for France TV. Planning an ambitious slate of photography on and under the sea, Dolléans needed equipment to suit a variety of underwater housings and surface grip equipment. “We wanted to be full frame to have a shallow depth of field. We shot in, below and above the sea, on a crane running with a heavy head, but mostly with a Ronin as a remote head. We shot in a water tank studio and in many different setups.”
Traditional approaches, Dolleans points out, could not work. “I was looking for full frame anamorphic so the only thing we could do was go for Atlas Mercury. They are well-engineered for the camera assistant, and we needed them to be available in quantity for two cameras. They’re not old lenses, but they have the old look.”
Horizons of compact full-frame anamorphics have broadened, Dolléans says, even since the end of 2023, though those new options are not always without compromise.
“Now you have more options with fullframe anamorphic but [then] it was not so obvious. Now you have many lenses from new manufacturers - sometimes you don’t know the quality, the build. Sometimes it’s looking more like a still photo lens, but with Atlas I liked the look and build.”
Dolléans paired his Mercury lenses with the Sony Venice, using the Rialto option to separate the camera head from the body. “Using the Rialto with Mercury lenses, it’s the smallest full frame anamorphic possible. It’s very lightweight and you’re shooting some of the best formats you can expect. It was liberating shooting with a very small camera with such a wonderful quality.”
While that combination served much of Rivages’ photography well, Dolléans knew such a complex shoot demanded more flexibility. “We needed anamorphic zoom lenses, to match the look of the Mercury we were supposed to shoot in the sea, when we didn’t have time to change lenses. I used the Angénieux 56152mm Optimo Anamorphic. That was - for an anamorphic zoom - not so lightweight, but lighter compared to other options.”
While technology has not so far found a way to alter optical physics, it can offer workarounds. “The Angénieux is a rear anamorphic, so you don’t have so much anamorphic look. I put in an orange streak filter to emulate the look of the Mercury. The match was not perfect, but there was a similar nature of orange flare. And [post production] was using Baselight, so I shot some Mercury flares on black background as a reference, and we mimicked them with some Baselight tools.”
Despite the excellence of the RialtoAtlas combination, considerations beyond sheer bulk pushed Dolléans toward another approach for his underwater work. “We had to stick to spherical to go underwater, for many reasons. When you go underwater you lose so much definition - you have so much debris in the water, you lose colour, you lose everything. We shot with Venice 1 under water and Venice 2 above the water for economic and practical reasons, but the underwater cinematographer told me anamorphic below water is not so beautiful, and quickly you lose definition if your lens is not perfect at the sides. Nobody’s going to notice the difference because it’s so different to shooting above water anyway.”
Dolléans’ need to maintain proper colour rendering had a specific story point. “The monster emits magenta light. We shot it in a water tank in Belgium. I had a choice to use the anamorphic lens or the Angénieux 22-60mm EZ-2 zoom. We did a test with the anamorphic Mercury when the camera operator was five metres from the light box and it was fine, but when he was 15 metres from the light box below the water, no more colour. At some point we switched to spherical and suddenly the colour appeared again. The coating affected the way the light is transmitted by the lens so we stuck with this more perfect, less interesting lens. It was an interesting journey mixing everything and finding a balance.”
The need for lightweight equipment is not limited solely to the complexities of underwater shooting, as Dolléans found on Marinette, a biopic covering Marinette Pichon, the first French woman to become part of the American professional soccer league.
After exploring options that would make it possible to run behind a footballer on a soccer field, Dolléans returned to Atlas, this time opting for the Orion series. “It was the only option that would allow working with many sets of lenses, lightweight, with an anamorphic look. If you want two full sets of lenses, you have to go, most of the time, to recent anamorphics, and if you look for some character from your lenses this is difficult. It’s great that manufacturers are trying to create new lenses, not so well corrected spherical or anamorphic formulas, and to offer some lightweight options. I’m happy to live in this time of experimentation with lenses, sizes, formats and framelines, coatings that you can customise.”
What helps, Dolléans says, is that the capability of modern cameras has brought more practicability to older, slower lenses, or lenses which work best at narrower apertures. “I think speed is not an issue anymore, thanks to the sensors we have now. I pushed the Venice to 6000 ISO with good post production. On Venice 2, you switch to the second base ISO, which is 3200, and you have a good dynamic in the blacks and the whites. I chose the
camera on that project mainly for that reason. We knew we were going to shoot a lot at night and dusk.”
Interestingly, Rivages and Marinette allowed Dolléans to compare two lens sets from a single manufacturer which had both been chosen with portability in mind. “The Mercurys open up to a T2.2, which is very useful at night. The definition stays at the centre of the frame. When you are working with Orion, technically they open up to 2, but an Orion at 2.8 is soft. With the Mercury the centre of the frame is still very precise. I was shooting between 2.2 and 2.8 with Mercury.” Access to those options is one benefit of the modern world. The conclusion Dolléans leans toward, however, is to recognise a technological collaboration including camera and post-production technique. “When you do [high ISO], you bring some texture,” he accepts, “but you know you have some people behind you. Every time I finish a project, I’m trying to test new things, new lenses, new codecs, new formats. I’m trying to test many things. When you test Cooke anamorphics, full frame, it’s very heavy and
cumbersome but for some projects it’s working very well. For other projects, not so much.”
“The lens is just pieces of glass in a metal cylinder, but around this is the sensor technology, and the post-production technology, and you have this elastic post production capability where you can mix your lenses.” The result, Dolléans concludes, is a far vaster range of options than has ever existed. “This is a lot more creative than 20 years ago when I started. Anamorphic was limited, expensive and heavy and the maximum stop was something like 2.8 or 4. Now, with the sensors and the revolution of lenses, lenses are more and more interesting to explore.” n
Ed Moore BSC explores the evolving role of virtual production in cinematography, emphasising creative lens choices and the importance of fundamental techniques for believable visual effects.
In the days of miniature and optical effects, visual effects often used two lenses – one for photographing miniatures, the other for live action. With CGI, one lens became virtual, but virtual production has revived the idea of rephotographing something once captured through real glass.
Ed Moore BSC addressed the subject soon after wrapping the second season of Hijack. “I’ve just completed my fourth job with substantial virtual production, so I feel like I’ve got a good handle on what works and what doesn’t,” he begins. “But the industry has got better - it’s in a more sensible place now, and there’s lots of virtual production in Hijack 2. Before that, My Fault: London was the number one movie on Amazon for some timethat’s a young adult, teen romance car chase movie. We did loads and loads.”
collaboration with all the visual stakeholders… whether it’s green screen or virtual production, I’d want that to be a discussion. It’s a creative decision based on the vibe of the show rather than tech requirements. But certainly, when it comes to VP I’d feel particularly unrestricted.”
That lack of restriction, Moore expands, can itself help sell the effect.
“When you’re rephotographing your foreground elements and the [LED wall]
lenses for plate photography is another matter entirely.
“You live or die on the quality of [the plates] ...you want those to be shot with very straightforward lenses which are reproducing in the most flat, undistorted way possible.”
To make sure that’s the case, Moore prefers to get “as involved as I possibly can be with the plates. Hijack series two, which has just finished production, is Xtal Express, but we had array work done on ARRI Signature Primes, and on [other productions,] Ultra Primes or CP.3s - you need so many array cameras, it tends to be slightly cheaper lenses.”
“SOME VOLUME STAGES ARE BETTER DESIGNED THAN OTHERS. ONE THING YOU HAVE TO WATCH OUT FOR IS THE CEILING - TO COVER THE REFLECTIONS IN VEHICLES WITH CURVY
WINDSCREENS, YOU END UP LOWERING THOSE CEILINGS DOWN QUITE A LOT.” ED MOORE BSC
Moore’s lens choices encompass the extents of the current market. “On My Fault: London, all the interior vehicle stuff and various bits of locations were virtual production and that was Master Primes… and Hijack was Xtal Express. I’d see the lens choice as led by the cinematographer but as a
that’s a great opportunity to use whatever crazy lens you want, to apply that vibe across your final image.” With that in mind, though, another priority emerges: the need to ensure that optical personality arises from the lens on the taking camera, and only the lens on the taking camera. Choosing
Getting plates right, Moore emphasises, is a part of a battle which goes significantly beyond just lens selection. “The nature of how that array is configured is crucial. You want as much resolution as possible and you want to make sure you’re covered for the angles you’re likely to shoot on the car interiors. If you’re not careful, designers will put a lot of emphasis on the front and back angles, and you can end up with not a lot of resolution for profile shots.” Library material may not suit, and not only because it removes any control over the equipment used. “There is some good library plate stuff, but I really prefer if we can have the exact location and weather conditions. Lens height is very important. Street racing cars are very low to the ground and you must watch out. The library array footage is often shot from the top of a vehicle and the perspective is very hard to fake. You end up halfway up a double decker bus next to your cast who are supposed to be two feet off the ground!” >>
Virtual production is a convenient way to shoot car interiors, but Moore suggests that attention to fundamentals like space, layout and blocking can create unpredictable problems. “Everyone likes the idea of getting it in camera, and the extent to which you can do that with virtual production is a matter of experience. I think we’ve all realised that rule number one is not to throw focus to the volume - that doesn’t work - so depth of field is important.”
The necessary geometry, Moore says, depends on the layout of the facility. “Some volume stages are better designed than others. One thing you have to watch out for is the ceiling - to cover the reflections in vehicles with curvy windscreens, you end up lowering those ceilings down quite a lot. If the focal distance on your camera is four feet through the glass to the actor, then you have the volume ceiling two feet above, you can easily put the ceiling tiles at the same focal distance.”
At the same time, Moore cautions, reaching for large-format sensors and wide apertures may not help the effect either. “All of it is easier to control with shallower depth of field. But if you go too far the other way, the volume stages are often very large. [If the volume is] too far away it becomes fog, and it looks very, very fake.” In plate photography, meanwhile, the need for sharpness and cleanliness makes for easier goals. “Where you choose to put your focus on the array plates. It’s rare you’d want to shoot the array plates at anything other than focussed on the environment.”
Hybrid techniques, where backgrounds may be electronically defocused to suit, are entirely new to virtual production. Media servers such as those by disguise, Moore says, can apply “perfectly convincing live lens blurs. Are they going to be the exact optical way that lens defocuses? No, they’re not, but you can judge it by eye.”
At the same time, things which might provoke lens effects might not do so when displayed on a video wall. “Speaking as a flare aficionado - and I’m on the 10-step program to wean myself off them,” Moore admits, “you’re never going to get a specular highlight effect. Those LEDs are not going to reproduce a point
source, and even if they could get bright enough to flare the lens, that can’t possibly be on a bit of shot that you hope to retain any detail. You might hope for veiling glare.”
Provoking a characterful lens to work its magic, then, might involve a bit of lateral thinking.
“On Hijack season one we had lots of plates shot that had the sun in shot, and I ended up black tacking a tiny mirror on the front of the LED wall where the sun was, and we hit that with other sources that reflected back really effectively.”
While virtual production has become popular, Moore warns against the go-fever that can accompany flashy filmmaking techniques.
“Creatively, you need to make sure you’re believing what you’re seeing on the monitors. There’s a lot of impetus with virtual production for everyone to be like ‘this is fantastic!’ because it’s so expensive. That’s even easier when there are more people involved, because the responsibility diffuses out. You can have a result that isn’t believable, for whatever reason and nobody says anything. Really, take a moment and look at the image.”
Nonetheless, Moore reflects, the conveniences are hard to overlook. “Even if it’s cost-neutral, it’s so much more productionfriendly to go to a stage, run normal working hours… there’s a huge
difference between that and the world of low loaders and pod cars shooting at night and on location. Virtual production suits car stuff well because you’ve got a fixed environment for the car to be in. You’ve got panes of glass and pillars to knock the edge off it, you don’t have to worry too much about perspective change.”
“As for your decisions around which lens to choose,” Moore muses, “the factors are often no different whether it’s virtual production or not. Whether the environment is a set or a location, if it’s done correctly the stage is just another environment. The effort needs to go into making the VP aspects work, however it’s being rephotographed. It should be lens agnostic.” n
There is no such thing as one size fits all when it comes to creating a visual approach for film making. That is quite an obvious thing to say but with so many demands on a DP’s time these days in preproduction from budgeting issues, time restraints and even environmental and corporate policy how do you make sure to give the creative process enough space to do it justice?
Whilst we can’t help with everything, what we have built at No Drama and One Stop Films is designed to give the DP maximum creative freedom even under time pressure to choose the best camera and lens options to tell a story the way they want to.
Firstly, we stock an extremely broad range of carefully curated optics that are picked for their character, quality and performance and we keep these optics in tip top condition.
Any rehousing is done by the best in the business with TLS, Zero Optik and GL Optics giving new life to some of our older cinema lenses as well as providing incredible new creative options built from lenses designed for photography that haven’t been available for cinema until very recently. Every lens we add to our collection is hand-picked. We look at build quality, image character, rehousing potential, rarity, and history.
Much of the glass we go after is from small runs or lesser-known sets that offer something visually unique. They aren’t always easy to find and that’s part of what makes them valuable to the right project. These lenses are looked after by our dedicated lens technicians who have a complete understanding of the glass, it’s rehousing and any quirks in its back story.
Second, we will always go above and beyond to facilitate testing with a DP as far ahead of a production as possible. This gives them space to explore options in a low-pressure environment and match their vision to the right kit. Being able to do this at the start makes for better decisions and fewer compromises down the line.
It’s not just about collecting rare optics — it’s about offering DPs a broader set of creative tools, and having more control over the quality and availability of those tools in-house. We aim to have a real understanding of their needs and the kind of look they’re after. That way, we can offer options from our own inventory or suggest alternatives they might not have considered. Our collection includes not just full sets but also one-off pieces and more unusual lenses that can be used to create custom looks. That kind of flexibility is especially useful for projects that want something different without sacrificing consistency or quality.
At the end of the day, it’s about offering a deeper level of support and a wider range of tools to help filmmakers get the look they want — without compromise. n
Production: Him Then Us
Production type: Short film
Cinematographer: Sarah Tehranian
Director: Elika Norowzian
Overview of production and the visual approach you adopted: Him Then Us is an ambitious short, half shot in gritty urban London, half in the vast mountains of the Yorkshire Dales. This shift mirrored the emotional journey of three characters travelling north while processing personal grief. The film set out to capture the raw, erratic reality of young people navigating loss.
We used the move from dark to light settings to show their emotional turbulence. Inside the car, we embraced claustrophobia and the monotonous flicker of motorway lights. Creating active dark frames was challenging, but we leaned into naturally occurring rhythms, reflecting the shifting inner states of the characters.
I have a personal connection with Leica, dating back to my homeland, Iran. A family member worked as a private photographer for the Shah, using a golden Leica. As a teenager, I dreamed of owning one. When the SL2-S was released, it felt like the perfect moment to finally shoot with a Leica—a dream come true!
Look you needed to achieve: Our story is deeply personal and I felt the lens choice needed to reflect that. I wanted lenses that would highlight the emotional journey of
three characters in varied environments— interiors and exteriors, dark and bright scenes, and intimate car interiors versus the vast Yorkshire landscapes.
I was looking for neutral lenses— minimal focus falloff, low distortion, and no distracting breathing. The ELSIE series offered all of that. They were warm, soft, and beautiful to handle—cinematically rich, yet restrained.
Lens testing process: You don’t know what you don’t know. I kept testing, trusting that I would find the right lens—one with smooth skin tones, a warm palette, and neutral rendering. We tried Zeiss Ultra Primes—excellent lenses, but too familiar. Schneider Cine Xenon lenses from the 1960s had a beautiful vintage look, but not right for our film. Then I met Rainer Hercher from Leitz at BSC Operators Night. He suggested trying Leica R-Cine lenses. The director, Elika Norowzian, and I tested them the following week. The skin tones were stunning, but the lenses leaned too far into the stills-photography look, with visible distortion in the car interiors. At BSC Expo, I finally tested the ELSIE series—and it clicked. The lenses rendered colour and exposure beautifully. The 18mm lens had low distortion even at close distances in the car, and its build held up well in the unpredictable Yorkshire Dales. I immediately fell in love with the warm look and smooth focus pull.
Lenses: Leitz ELSIE lenses (1ti, 29, 40, 50, 75, 100mm)
Lenses supplied by: Leitz UK, via Sunbelt Rentals (while they were still based at Pinewood Studios, prior to their move to Wembley).
Camera: Leitz sponsored us, providing the Leica SL2-S camera and ELSIE lens kit. Our budget was tight, and other options would have caused more problems. The SL2-S gave me the flexibility to shoot handheld inside a small car and navigate fast-moving days in the Yorkshire Dales.
Why the lenses were the most appropriate: Beyond the technical qualities that made the ELSIE series perfect for our story, the lenses carry a powerful legacy.
The series is named after Elsie Kühn-Leitz, the daughter of Ernst Leitz II. She was a humanitarian who risked her life during WWII to help those in need. She helped smuggle employees and citizens out of Nazi Germany and was imprisoned for aiding Ukrainian forced labourers. After the war, she dedicated her life to humanitarian efforts.
Knowing that history gave the lenses added meaning. In today’s world, I believe it’s more important than ever to make thoughtful, informed choices about the products we use. Technical specs are essential—but a lens with a story and legacy carries a different kind of weight. In an industry full of options, few tools feel this personal.
Lensing techniques: Our story follows three boys dealing with grief after losing a close friend. Their emotional journeys unfold separately— sometimes in confined spaces like a car, and other times in open landscapes, running down hills or arguing by a wind turbine.
I wanted to get close to the characters, using wide close-ups that captured both their emotional expressions and the space around them. I rarely used the 75mm or 100mm lenses for this reason.
Inside the car, I was often just a breath away from the actors with the 18mm lens—an uncomfortable position for both them and me, but necessary to convey the claustrophobia. The 18mm gave me just the right perspective without distorting faces.
In one scene, I used the DZOFILM Vespid Prime 12mm T2.8 mounted inside the car to show all three boys trapped in traffic, devastated. The lens’s distortion suited the moment perfectly.
Out in the Yorkshire Dales, I returned to the 18mm to show the characters’ smallness amidst the vastness of nature. For close-ups,
I used the 40mm and 50mm to create clean and dirty frames with one or two characters.
Filters: I used a variety of filters to enhance both night car scenes and the transition from night to dawn in the landscapes. My approach is intuitive—like making a curry: I mix based on feel.
For the night driving scenes, we had to make the presence of passing lights more visible, especially on pitch black roads. I used Schneider Streak Filters (Blue, Green, Clear), which allowed me to exaggerate light sources like street lamps and brake lights. Being able to rotate and switch them quickly was a huge advantage.
For exterior scenes, we used a combination of Variable NDs, Rotating Polarizers, and Tiffen Pro-Mists, matched with Tiffen Warm/Cool VND filters. My ACs were constantly swapping filters throughout our five-day shoot. I prefer to achieve my look in-camera, and this was my way of “painting” each shot based on light and location.
Challenges faced and how they were overcome: The biggest challenge during night shoots was darkness on rural roads. Gaffer TC Thomas and spark Chiara Fulgoni rigged DMG LED lights inside and outside the car, controlled wirelessly to simulate passing traffic. These were enhanced by the Streak Filters to create expressive flares.
For exteriors, we battled wild weather— hail, sun, fog, and heavy winds, all courtesy of Storm Bernard. Light was constantly changing, and rain would arrive out of nowhere. We started recording our dawn scene early, which saved us later in post. I later read that spring dawns in high latitudes are among the most unstable weather windows. Lesson learned: next time I’ll hire a meteorologist!
Anything else to add? Lensing is an extension of your lighting approach. Make sure you understand your conditions before choosing a lens—consider ergonomics, weather resistance, and how much crew support you’ll have. Every detail matters, especially on small sets with limited resources. Him Then Us was an incredible film to have worked on, it was a privilege to work with a camera and set of lenses that married so well to our very intimate but expansive storyline. Telling a story of grief is not easy, it is simultaneously personal and universal and I’m very grateful our lenses adapted to that complicated task.
Lens lessons this production taught you: Testing is your best friend. Keep testing until you find the lens that speaks your visual language—regardless of what others are using. Tone, contrast, texture, and storytelling must align with your lens choice. Only then does the lens become a true creative partner. n
Production: The Creator
Production type: Feature film
Cinematographers: Oren Soffer, Greig Fraser ASC ACS
Director: Gareth Edwards
Overview of production and the visual approach you adopted: This film adopted a unique production approach for a film of its scale, embracing a minimalistic almost guerrilla/ documentary filmmaking style with the camera rigged on a gimbal and operated by our director. This required finding a lensing approach that would best lend itself to this filmmaking style, which led us to making a few bold but specific choices in selecting our lenses for the film.
Lenses: Kowa Cine Prominar 2x Anamorphic 75mm, Prototype Atlas Mercury 42mm, IronGlass Soviet Spherical Stills Lenses.
Lenses supplied by: Keslow Camera, Personal Lenses
Camera: Sony FX3
Look you needed to achieve: The film is a classical sciencefiction epic with a look evoking all of our favourite sci-fi films of the ‘70s and ‘80s.
Explanation of lensing techniques used: In order to give Gareth the freedom to shoot long, uninterrupted extended takes in the documentary style he sought to imbue the film with, the first big choice that was made was to shoot almost the entire film on one single focal length - the 75mm was determined to be the sweet spot, not too wide and not too telephoto. About 95% of the film was shot on that one focal length, and we carried three versions of that same lens and focal length in order to cover multiple different camera bodies that were set up in different configurations to be able to quickly switch between them as we shot.
Filters: Urth variable ND
Why your chosen lens was the most appropriate: The demands of the project and its unique production approach required a lens that gave us the nostalgic 1970s sci-fi look we were looking to evoke while balancing the need for a small, lightweight lens to support the small, nimble camera package operated by our director - the Sony FX3 and Ronin gimbal - which led us to the P+S Technik rehoused Kowa Prominar, which struck the perfect balance between our creative and logistic needs for our lens package.
Challenges faced and how they were overcome: Shooting an entire film on one focal length can be very advantageous - it removes the need to take time to swap lenses and rebalance gimbals or other camera platforms and allows you to just keep filming uninterrupted, and also lends a film a very cohesive and consistent visual look and style. However, in some instances, you just don’t have the space to back up far enough to get the compositions that you want. So in order to cover a wider field of view for tight spaces, we also carried an (at the time) prototype 42mm Atlas Mercury 1.5x anamorphic lens, as well as a handful of IronGlass Soviet spherical stills lenses with anamorphic iris inserts to cover a few additional focal lengths not covered by the 75mm that we used on a small handful of specialty shots throughout the film.
Lens lessons this production taught you: This production really taught me two very important lessons: first, the power of simplicity and removing complexities from the filmmaking process in order to streamline the workflow and maximise the time to be creative on set (for example, shooting on one focal length). And second, the confidence to embrace bold and unorthodox filmmaking approaches and technical decisions, and showing that there are many more ways to think about how to approach filmmaking beyond the conventional (and sometimes inefficient) ways that we are all most familiar with, and learning to question convention and embrace unorthodoxy can open up a whole world of exciting new creative approaches. The sky really is the limit. n
CIA cryptographer Charlie Heller (Rami Malek) has his life turned upside down when his wife is killed in a London terror attack.
Frustrated by the agency’s muted response, he overrides his remit and takes to the field, hunting down his wife’s killers. This is the premise of The Amateur, directed by James Hawes and shot by Martin Ruhe ASC.
Having already worked with ARRI Rental on the George Clooney-directed features Midnight Sky (65mm format with DNA lenses) and The Boys in the Boat (large format with ALFA anamorphics), Ruhe tapped them again for The Amateur. He says, “I really enjoyed my previous experience with the ALFA lenses because they are true anamorphics with a 2x squeeze, unlike many large-format anamorphics. I love the rendering, the bokeh, and the softness they have. Close-ups on faces just look so beautiful; they have such a presence on the screen. I shot tests and James loved them, so we decided on ALFAs.”
Ruhe’s choice of camera was the ARRI ALEXA Mini LF. “I operate the A camera myself and usually I have a B camera/Steadicam operator with me,” he says. “I often put two monitors on my camera so I can see what the B camera is doing and tell them over the intercom if I want to change anything. Some action stuff was on a U-Crane and we used a couple of car mounts, but in general the camera was always quite close to Rami because we wanted to experience this world, the places he’s going to, with him. That’s an advantage of anamorphic large format; you can be close to a character and still see a lot of the world around them.”
The production carried a full set of ALFA lenses, with Ruhe finding that focal lengths around 50mm gave the best perspective for shots following Malek. He notes, “In addition to the standard ALFAs, we had a few ALFA V1 variants that were tuned to stay sharp further across the frame. There was a 50mm V1 alongside the standard 47mm, a 70mm V1 alongside the 72mm, and a 105mm V1 alongside the 108mm. The V1s are useful if you want to put people more to the edge of the frame, or you have a big close-up with an eye
over on one side of the frame and you want to keep focus on that eye. We also had an 85mm ‘Portrait’ ALFA that I first used on The Boys in the Boat, which goes the other way and is a more extreme detune than standard ALFAs, designed for centre-focused compositions.”
Although the film incorporates significant visual effects, Ruhe reports that the VFX team was happy with the detuned look of the ALFAs. He says, “Often I was shooting at T2.8 so the edges would drop off quite drastically, but they embraced it. They mapped the ALFAs so it was pretty easy and there was never a concern about our choice of lenses. They loved the scope of our look and the two departments worked together really well.”
Of his relationship with ARRI Rental, Ruhe says, “I’ve worked with several of their global teams and love the positivity behind their lens developments. It’s great that ARRI Rental listens and comes up with these special lens iterations for DPs. They understand the character we want, and that it’s not all about perfection.” n
Production type: Feature film
Cinematographer: Stephen Murphy BSC ISC
Director: Josh Ruben
Overview of production and the visual approach you adopted: A horror rom-com with a visual style akin to ‘90s horror movies.
Lenses: Panavision B-tuned T Series Anamorphics
Lenses supplied by: Panavision New Zealand
Camera: ARRI Alexa 35
Look you needed to achieve: To evoke the visual style of ‘90s rom-coms and slasher movies.
Lens testing process: I projected two sets of these lenses to look at the distortion and edge sharpness and then had a look at them in comparison to other sets of Panavision Anamorphics to compare flare, contrast and character. Taking the time to compare multiple sets on a projector meant we could cherry pick a set that worked perfectly for our needs.
Why your chosen lens was the most appropriate: I was looking for a set of lenses that had the character of older C and B Series Anamorphics used in American studio movies of the ‘70s and ‘80s. I wanted strong anamorphic flare, with a colder colour as well as nice fall off on the edges of the lenses. I also wanted the
modern convenience of good close focus and consistent T-stops, something that doesn’t always go hand in hand with older anamorphic lenses. Dave Doyle in Panavision Ireland suggested these custom tuned lenses before I left for New Zealand, some of which had older B Series front elements mated to a T Series body and some of which were just T Series lenses that had been detuned to bring out a different character. The 40mm and 60mm had excellent close focus. I fell in love with them instantly. The distortion was lovely, the fall off was perfect and the flare was magical. They had a great size and weight so I could use them on Steadicam or handheld with no problems, and the close focus meant we used them in small spaces constantly, rarely needing to use diopters. Panavision anamorphics combined with hard backlight always looks like cinema to me. The backlight wraps around the actors, bounces around the lens and acts like a natural fill light. With a very active camera I could keep some of my light sources in shot and watch as the lenses reacted beautifully as the camera passed through them and flared across the screen with terrific energy.
Lens lessons this production taught you: It’s always worth asking Panavision what hidden gems they have on their shelves. They have so many custom options, I always find they can recommend something for me to test that I never even knew existed and they’re always able to find me glass that exceeds my ambitions for the story. n
CINEFLARES, created by Markus Förderer ASC BVK, offers a comprehensive lens database to compare flare, contrast, and colour for cinematographers.
CINEFLARES is a unique web app that allows cinematographers to test and compare lenses for their flare and image characteristics and find just the right lens for their story.
It is the brainchild of Markus Förderer ASC BVK (September 5, Red Notice, Constellation) who explains that it was born out of necessity. “I had a project where I specifically wanted to use flares as a creative tool but I realised there was no way to properly compare lenses.
“No two lenses are the same of course and when I wanted to compare glass side by side there was no benchmark available. That’s when I decided to build up a library myself.”
What began as Förderer’s private test suite has evolved into a professional database with more than 900 individual cine lens test clips at different focal lengths and T-stops and growing. started with flares, believing that a flare is “the fingerprint” of a lens revealing most key characteristics like dynamic contrast, colour reproduction, flare pattern and iris geometry.
“There are dozens of other lens tests being published but these are capsuled in time,” says Förderer. “The newest lens range will be shot against five or 10 alternative sets but what if you revisit that test two years later and want to compare it to new lenses? The original test is out of date and the exact setup can’t be replicated.”
CINEFLARES is designed to measure various attributes of individual vintage, anamorphic and spherical lenses against standardised metrics in a repeatable setting captured with high-resolution large format cameras and displayed with a time-code synced side by side player.
“By eliminating all visual distractions found in typical test scenarios and by focusing on the capture of a calibrated point light source in a controlled environment, each lens shot in the CINEFLARES LENS LAB reveals its unique response to light,” he explains. “We use exactly the same light source calibrated to daylight. We program the motion control system exactly the same way and calibrate the shoot to the same distance using the same photometrics, shutter speed and T-stop.”
With so many new lenses coming to the market, from rehoused vintage optics to detuned versions of newer glass, it is near impossible for DPs to keep track of them all. If, like Förderer, you want to be as thorough as possible when prepping a project then tests are essential. CINEFLARES is an into an indispensable resource to easily draw up a shortlist of lenses for further tests.
By capturing a bright point light source in a deep black environment, each optic shows its distinctive flare pattern, contrast-holding ability, and individual colour response.
“I see CINEFLARES as a research tool in pre-pre-production,” says Förderer, who uses the app to prep his projects. “I play around with the lens options on the lens library and select the best ones before testing them in practice. For September 5, for instance, I marked 12 lenses from the app and then went to different rental houses for a full test specific to that project. The idea is to be able to efficiently compare numerous lenses in a neutral environment. At the same time, with so many variations of lens, you can maybe discover something interesting that you didn’t know about.”
If you’re in search of a clean, neutral lens for VFX plates or one with a specific flare pattern reminiscent of a certain period, using CINEFLARES will instantly reveal these lens characteristics, to help make informed decisions.
To date, CINEFLARES has published over 90 lens sets with new lenses added frequently. Förderer is working on more ideas to expand the site’s functionality including reference data comparing bokeh coming later this year. n
The EKRAN primes’ imperfections reflected the gritty, dark world of Thirst (Credit:
Production: Thirst
Production type: Criminal drama
Cinematographer: Emils Spungis LGC
Director: Ronalds Mezmacs
Overview of production and the visual approach you adopted: The screenplay is originally written and directed by the director Ronalds Mezmacs and when I joined the project just a month before the production had started, he was very clear about the visual approach. We were going to shoot everything handheld and each one of the 65 scenes will be shot in a single long take.
The short pre-production prep time and just 12 production days really pushed us to think about how are we going to maximise time with actors and less about the technical concerns.
Lenses: Soviet high speed EKRAN prime, Angénieux EZ-Series
Lenses supplied by: BBrental
Cameras: RED Komodo, Sony A7S III
EKRAN lenses provided a compelling, atmospheric layer to every scene, paired with different cameras
Look you needed to achieve: The image had to feel like a point of view of a spectator standing by, watching the action unfold, so 90% of the film was shot on a 50mm focal length, which feels like the human eye. It’s a criminal drama, where most of the action takes places in underground supermoto bike hideouts which are dark, dusty and unpleasant, so the lens had to have some imperfections so it would reflect the environment where the actors spent the most time in.
Lens testing process: We chose the Soviet high-speed EKRAN prime lenses just a couple of days prior to the first shooting day, because we felt that the Zeiss CP2, which we thought we were going to use was giving us too much of a sterile image for the genre. Since this set of 20th century EKRAN primes hadn’t been rehoused and there were some technical, which is why we considered rehoused Leica R, Zeiss CP2 and the Zeiss HS.
Why your chosen lens was the most appropriate: The EKRAN prime was appropriate because it achieved an imperfect image with a hard 7 edge bokeh and soft/blurry corners of the image. In the worst case scenarios, when I had to open up the aperture, I was able to, because the 50mm opens up all the way to T1.4.
Explanation of lensing techniques used: The 50mm was my workhorse for the project. I really enjoyed that I could move dynamically and be close in the action with the characters with the 50mm focal length. The Angénieux EZ-Series 3090mm zoom was used for when we mounted the camera to a chase car jib, so we could get a variety of shots from a DJI Ronin Force Pro motion controller inside the car. We shot with a single camera.
Challenges faced and how they were overcome: I did need to ride the aperture in some scenes, when I was moving from the exterior to interior in a single long take, so at some points in the film you can see when the aperture is open all the way to T1.2 and the image becomes really soft/bloomy. I was worried that we would have trouble with the loose aperture ring, which tended to slip without turning the focus. My first AC Rolands Zelders took time off from his day job to help us on this production and was put to a test when he found out that each scene will be a single long take, and he was great!
Lens lessons this production taught you: Embrace the visual imperfections of an image the vintage Soviet lenses create and be more experimental with filtration to add to the dirty look of an image. n
Leitz Cine open up the creative options for cinematographers thanks to an array of storytelling tools including the HUGO, ELSIE and THALIA lenses.
Lenses with character remain widely used across all budget levels, but as more and more cinematographers try these old, classic lenses they discover trade-offs in consistency, flare control, and availability. However, some characteristics are non-negotiable. Skin tones must be accurate, colours should be natural, and faces need just enough softening for a pleasing, humane look.
Leitz Cine lenses have always prioritised colour and skin tones with just the right amount of warmth. With the Leitz HUGO lenses, we crafted a balance with more prominent character and aberration that has won over many cinematographers, and even won a Golden Frog at Camerimage 2024.
The Girl with the Needle, directed by Magnus von Horn and shot by Michał Dymek on HUGO lenses, earned an Oscar nomination as Denmark’s submission for Best International Feature Film in addition to the Golden Frog.
The Leitz HUGO lenses’ curved focus field softens corners with a bit less light as well as a falloff of sharpness and focus, drawing the viewer toward the centre of the frame. Many first time users note, “I would have added a similar effect in post, but now I can do it in camera!”
The lenses are extremely fast at T1.5 while remaining incredibly compact and lightweight, thanks to their Leica M photography lens heritage. Using the same Leica glass allows them to maintain the M lenses’ iconic look. We expanded the lineup with a beautiful wide 18mm, a large format must-have 135mm, and a 66mm using the design from a lens built for the US Navy’s top spies during the Cold War. Add in the famed 50mm-N T1.0 from Leica’s iconic Noctilux lens that must be seen to be believed for a full set of 13 lenses.
The Leitz ELSIE lenses maintain beautiful colour and skin tones while taking a different approach. ELSIE is perfect for those who want a subtle character in order to use filtration, lighting and production design to create their looks. Designed from the ground up for cinematography, these lenses avoid less desirable photo/rehoused lens quirks like breathing and chromatic aberration while maintaining a gentle field curvature, though less pronounced than the HUGO series.
ELSIE offers the artisan a beautifully prepared canvas on which to build their looks and a large focal range from 15mm to 150mm to paint with. Their image circle extends well beyond full frame and can work on large format/65mm productions at certain aspect ratios.
Speaking of 65mm, the Leitz THALIA 65 lens family, the first professional set of 65mm-capable glass available outside rentals, now includes 11 lenses. The new 20mm anchors the wide end, while the longest focal length is 180mm. The set contains
three creative macro lenses: 24mm, 55mm, and 120mm. The THALIA 65 90mm-T lens, inspired by the historic 1930s Leica Thambar portrait lens, creates soft, dreamy images wide open but cleans up when stopped down. We expect these lenses to be popular with the latest 65mm digital cameras from Blackmagic Design, ARRI, and Fujinon. Lenses are nothing without a secure mount. HUGO lenses have a large amount of glass behind their LPL mount, and most LPL mounts on the market didn’t fit them. So we developed LPL mounts (with PL Adapters) for Sony VENICE/VENICE 2/BURANO as well as the new Sony VES Mini System. These mounts fit every lens in the market, including those with rear filters and rehoused rangefinder lenses. These mounts simplify format swaps for crews and rental houses, eliminating the need to unscrew and change mounts ever again. n
Production: Atom & Void
Production type: Short film
Cinematographer: Alex Grigoras
Director: Gonçalo Almeida
Overview of production and the visual approach you adopted: The film follows Valya, a spider who leaves her burrow to investigate a strange disturbance, only to discover she lives inside a dead astronaut aboard a drifting space capsule. She unwittingly witnesses the destruction of Earth. Director Goncalo Almeida wrote the story to be shot with real spiders, aiming for a tactile, in-camera approach to help audiences empathise with a creature often feared.
Lenses: Laowa 24mm F14 Probe 2: 1 + Fotodiox focal length reducer/speed booster, Laowa Ultra Macro 25mm 2.5x–5x:1 (only for spider extreme close-ups).
Lenses supplied by: Bought from production budget.
Camera: Blackmagic Cinema Camera 4K micro 4/3.
Look you needed to achieve: As it is a story about loneliness set in space, we wanted to create a dark and desolate atmosphere with a single source of light coming from one of the capsules’ windows. As spiders cannot speak, we needed to tell much of the story through context and make the place a character, so we settled on a 2:39:1 aspect ratio.
Why your chosen lens was the most appropriate: The Laowa 24mm probe was the perfect choice for its size and affordability as having a set of lenses was out of the budget. Its increased DOF given by its fastest aperture of T14 contributed to making the world appear more real and avoiding the miniature effect macro photography can sometimes have. Also, its ability to go with the focus from 2:1 magnification to infinity was invaluable as it allowed us to tell more of the story in single shots. For example, by pulling the focus from the spider inside the capsule to the planet Earth outside through the window we were able to immerse the audience more into the story world with a progressive reveal.
Lens testing process: Over nearly two years, we prototyped and experimented to find the best way to tell the story. Early tests showed we needed to be very close to the spider, framing it like a human in medium and close-up shots. Most macro lenses and bellows were too bulky, casting shadows and limiting flexibility, so we realised a probe lens was the only viable option.
Lensing techniques: We chose just two focal lengths (32mm and 24mm Super35 equivalent) to maintain a consistent sense of familiarity and objectivity. Using a focal reducer on the Laowa 24mm gave us an extra stop of light and wider FOV—crucial for lighting at T14 during a rotating tracking shot that moved from a spider close-up to a capsule-wide view.
Challenges faced and how they were overcome: The biggest challenge was working with real spiders and creating a zero-G space capsule setting in the director’s garage with minimal crew and budget. Since the spiders couldn’t follow direction, some shots took over 100 takes to capture a few seconds of usable footage. Shooting in story order and getting lucky early on helped us persevere— with patience and a willingness to embrace the unpredictability of working with animals.
Anything else to add? I was impressed by how much creative freedom macro photography can bring. With the scaling down of the space in which the film takes place the resources scale up and a 30cm slider and a few Dedos and Red heads become as powerful as 30m dolly tracks and big lights on cherry pickers in the human scale world.
Lens lessons this production taught you: Shooting at this scale with such delicate beings made the lens optical/image character take a background roll allowing its size and shape to shape more of the film’s image. Proximity allowed us to embrace and capture in an intimate way more of the spider world and hopefully impose less of our arbitrary filmmaker vision. n
ZEISS Supreme Zoom Radiance offer cinematographers flexibility, consistency and controlled flares, allowing them to add texture and atmosphere to their cinematic creations.
ZEISS Supreme Zoom Radiance lenses are one-of-a-kind modern cine zooms with unique character.
A set of three purpose-built T2.9 high-end cine zooms –15-30mm, 28-80mm and 70-200mm, which let cinematographers create their distinct look with beautiful, consistent, and controlled flares and a pleasing cinematic image character, defined by a smooth focus fall-off and a beautiful bokeh.
“With the new Supreme Zoom Radiance lenses, we offer the only modern cine zoom family with a very characteristic look that not only matches the look of ZEISS Supreme Prime Radiance but is also well suited to be used with other prime sets such as regular Supreme Primes to add nice flares and thus provide more creative versatility on set,” says Christophe Casenave, head of business unit cinematography at ZEISS.
Like the Supreme Prime Radiance line, the Radiance Zooms can add texture and
atmosphere to visuals via their unique ability to control flare. “Flares can elevate the emotional depth of a scene, but they must be plannable and consistent to ensure the desired effect,” Casenave explains.
The Supreme Zoom Radiance’s T* blue coating enables predictable artistic optical flares in a controlled and reproducible way when aiming focused light down the lens barrel.
True to the ZEISS Supreme lens philosophy, the Radiance Zooms deliver a versatile and aesthetically pleasing image character. Thanks to their gentle sharpness combined with an aesthetic focus fall-off, a very shallow depth of field and elegant bokeh, the lenses offer exceptional shooting versatility. That’s why they also mix well with other regular prime lens sets like Supreme Primes to selectively add some stronger character when needed.
Engineered with professional workflows in mind, the Supreme Zoom Radiance feature consistent and standardized positions for iris, focus, and zoom rings, along with a front diameter of 114mm, ensuring easy interchangeability between Supreme Prime and Zoom lenses. This uniformity streamlines the on-set experience, reducing time spent on adjustments and increasing overall efficiency during production.
The T* blue coating not only facilitates the iconic blue flares but also provides a warmer colour rendition compared to standard coated lenses. This warmer tone adds vitality and contrast to the overall frame, helping to create a more vibrant feel.
Supreme Zoom Radiance lenses are equipped with the ZEISS eXtended Data technology, providing frame-by-frame data on lens vignetting and distortion in addition to the standard metadata provided using the Cooke /i technology protocol. This simplifies and speeds up workflows, particularly for VFX and virtual production.
Furthermore, the lenses are integrated into the ZEISS CinCraft ecosystem and available through the ZEISS Supreme Lenses Virtual Lens Package (VLP) that comes free of charge with the CinCraft Scenario camera tracking system and allows for skipping the laborious lens calibration process, when shooting with the Radiance Zooms.
Cinematographer Markus Förderer ASC BVK summarised his experience using the new Supreme Zoom Radiance lenses for his short My View: “I think ZEISS came up with something very unique: Full Frame zooms with character and lens data. […] With the nice blue flares, you get a colour contrast. Even if you don’t see the flare, it creates a warm-cool contrast. The skin tones feel slightly warmer, and the shadows get richer. […] These are good zoom lenses for features, commercials and anywhere you would want character and high quality. They’re very pleasing. The micro contrast gives you beautiful skin tones. The bokeh is beautiful.” n
See the lenses on the ZEISS stand at Cinegear in LA on 6th and 7th June, and at the European Lens summit in London on the 12th and 13th of July.
Production: Rumours
Production type: Feature film
Cinematographer: Stefan Ciupek
Director: Guy Maddin, Evan and Galen Johnson
Lenses: Cooke S2 TLS rehoused (1950s Lens set)
Cameras: 2 ARRI Alexa 35, 1 Fuji XH2S
Look you needed to achieve: A brave, surrealistic, vintage 35mm film aesthetic. I reviewed many of Guy Maddin’s earlier films which all have a very distinctive film aesthetic and used a variety of analog techiques and processes to achieve the look. In my preparation with the directors we kept watching films by Bunuel, Kurosawa and Dreyer. Even though it was clear that we are visually making a very different film, I wanted to reflect some of that feeling into my images for Rumours
Lens testing process: I compared many different lens sets in several test sessions over a long period of time and narrowed my selection down. I started with Bausch and Lomb Super Baltars, Canon K35, Cooke S2 (TLS Rehoused) Cooke Panchro Classic i35 and Kowa Cine Prominars. My main parameters that influenced my lens choice were: optical distortion of faces, especially of the wider lenses (25 and 32) as I intended to shoot the medium shots and closeups with those; general softness of the lens; focus falloff to the sides of the frame; optical vignetting; contrast softness of bokeh; general contrast; and impact of flares. I shot the majority of my tests on the Alexa 35 in OG. I did the initial test round in a studio/rental house set-up with a mix of test charts, colour charts and a stand in. I then took my favourite two sets into a forest location that I lit exactly the way I was intending to shoot the film.
Why your chosen lens was the most appropriate: The Cooke S2 added a beautiful layer of gentle optical distortion. I loved how it rendered faces with this gentle dimensionality and depth. I also loved the gentle contrast and how the focus fell off towards the image corners. Shooting on the Alexa 35 in OpenGate with 1:1.66 aspect ratio went well into the image circle the lenses were not intended to be used in. The vignetting on some of them went really dark, but with a slight reverse vignette in the grading I brought it ever so slightly back, and it looked beautiful and had a touch of old 1920s vintage glass. I also liked the way the out of focus bokeh got very soft at the corners. Even though through the aging of the lenses, the colour rendition was a little inconsistent between different lenses, I liked the warm/yellow hue it added to the skin. In combination with my colourful lighting and backlit fog these lenses were closest to achieving the surrealist look we wanted for Rumours.
Filters used: Diffusion filters Tiffen Glimmerglass 1/4 and 1/2, Black Satin.
Challenges faced and how they were overcome: We had to share one set of lenses between two cameras and couldn’t get another S2 set, so I added Cooke S4 primes (25, 32 and 40) instead and added one step higher diffusion filtration to them and shot those at wide open aperture (versus T2.6-T2.8 on the Panchros). I then crossmatched the vignetting and focus falloff as good as I could in colour grading, and it worked well whenever we needed it. The low T-stop of the S2s was a bit challenging as we shot the majority of the film at night in the forest. And especially on the wide lenses we would end with quite dark frame edges. But the combination of the extra sensitivity of the A35 and an adjusted lighting package for more exposure worked well in the end.
Anything else to add: In the grade we added another layer of image diffusion and halation using the Filmbox & Scatter toolkit and then added 35mm film grain to the image.
Lens lessons this production taught you: I used to be a bit less experimental and often leaned to more modern lenses for my feature films. I had the tendency to define the look of my films more through lighting and grading. I really enjoyed exploring vintage glass and how it can add a lot of character to the image. n
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