Tag Archives: SCHNEIDER

The last ISCORAMA anamorphic

ISCO BlUE STAR

 

I damn well know this is not an Iscorama 36, 42 or 54.

Iscorama Anamorphics are very well know among  anamorphic lovers for a variety of reasons.Above all they are tack sharp. Secondly with anamorphic adapters you have to  focus both the taking lens and the adapter, which it comes as no less than a pain in the neck – it requires time and patience and it might not always lead to the best results as the lenses are not working “in sync”.
The true beauty of the very pricy Iscoramas (getting sold for $3000 on Ebay and appearing in the listing once in a blue moon) is that you focus to infinity on the taking lens and then rack focus with the adapter .. like you would do with regular aspherical lens. Tour life will be a lot easier as a shooter. Next step from the Iscoramas are the Vantage Hawks ($30,000) or the Panavisions.. which you might only rent unless you’re rolling in money.

Converting a Bolex Yvar 36mm lens to Cmount

 

I know what you’re thinking.. why going through all this mess when this lens is not that fast. Thing is I own a 75mm Yvar AR and I love it to bits. It’s  sharp even wide open, contrasty and it’s got beautiful colors. And it’s a vintage 50 years old lens that can still produce stunning images on the cropped sensor DSLRs.

The Bolex camera was made in 8mm and 16mm versions. It’s a precision Swiss design and a variety of lenses were made in different formats from Kern Paillard themselves, along with Canon, Schneider, Cooke, C to name but a few . The Kern’s one are A grade stuff and perhaps they are so sharp because 16mm film has to resolve more details to look decent once projected.

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.