Tag Archives: Konvas

A buying guide to LOMO LENSES

LOMO logo

 

I decided to write this post because I own a set of LOMOS and because the information about these wonderful lenses is scattered all over the web and not easy to find.
Russian glass is really too big of a topic to put in a single post but the crux of the matter is that you can buy a set of 4 standard LOMOS lenses for USD 1500. Special LOMOS would be at around 4 fold.

What if a country had the resources like the USSR did, so they could have access to the best chemicals available and of the highest grade to forge cinema lenses. It’s not quite what a privately owned company could possibly do.

OCT19 adapter for LOMO lenses

LOMO lenses are the answer of Russia to Cooke lenses.

As you surely know USA and URSS fought for years for the ultimate supremacy. Cinema was a field of excellence for the USA and indeed the Russian were trying to catch up.
Cooke lenses were widely in use in US movies, URSS had Konvas and Kinor films cameras and the best lenses available were the LOMOS.

With all this DSLR craze and especially with the introduction of mirror less cameras a hunt for vintage lenses started. Prices have raised a lot in the last years but you can still find some pretty good deals.
On mirror less cameras you can mount pretty much anything and that I think it is a strong point to go vintage for video work (on a budget). Indeed the 5dmkII dynamic range is superior, the full frame aesthetics are evident but looking for vsome legacy glass is one direction of DPing the art of film-making.