Lenses for M35

[Brian Valente]

<<<-- Originally posted by Andrew C. Stewart : With James' adapter and nikon lenses...are there any particular series of lenses that it's designed specifically for...or any series it WON'T work with? Are there other adapters/stepdown rings etc that allow any nikon lens to work? -->>>

According to James: The mount situation has been taken care of. Nikon, Canon AF and MF, pentax, PL, and OCT-19 will be available.

So pretty much if you have a lens that works with any of these mounts you are probably in good shape.

[Andrew C. Stewart]

Thanks brian...

I've been looking at some other Nikon lenses and some say AI, some AIS, some for what I assume to be different cameras(Sigma, Nikkor, Vivitar, Tamron, etc). I just didn't know if the mounts were the same or different...or at least compatible in some way.

Also...what does everyone recommend in ways of Autofocus and Manual?

I would assume that the AF in a lens wouldn't work with this type of an adapter and that MF would give you more control anyway. Is that the general concensus?

[Brian Valente]

I can't speak for others, but my strategy has been to invest in some high quality lomo cine primes with manual focus and assume I will invest in a follow focus rig sometime soon.... well, as soon as microfocus shows up!

[Cody Dulock]

will any focal length lenses get vingetting?? for example, if i were to use a 28mm f2.8 lens will it vingette with the micro35???

on some of the wide angles i have the glass thats on the side that connects to the body of the camera is smaller than my 50mm.

when i use this lens with my agus35 i get the vengetting.

[Larry McKee]

I can't speak for all lenses, but my lenses as wide as 18mm haven't caused any problems.

[Brett A. Noe]

Part of the problem is not zooming in far enough on the ground glass. ALL lenses vignette at some point. Zooming in tighter means you lose some of the image, but don't vignette. In an SLR everything is placed so that the 35mm frame is well within the circle of light projected by the lens, thus, no vignetting!

Brett

[Steven Fokkinga]

You could draw a rectangle of size 36x24mm on a piece of paper, that's the size of 35mm still film, and hold that as far from your camcorder as where your groundglass normally is. Now zoom in until you have the boundaries of the rectangle exactly in your view. This should be the approprate zoom level, so no still lens wil give you any vignetting (only maybe some fisheye, which will give the same vignetting with a still camera).

Good luck,

Steven

[Cody Dulock]

i figured out what i was doing wrong... i needed to move my camera further away from the GG then zoom in... i just have my camera set at the wrong distance to the gg.

[Brian Valente]

I wouldn't know... i have no gg or 35mm adapter!!

[Daniel Skubal]

:(:(:(:(

[Radek Svoboda]

I own FX1E and want to buy close up lens for it, achromatic. How many diopters close up lens will need for Micro 35? What is best strength, so lens focusing is about in the middle, when focusing on ground glass? How close is ground glass from camera lens, approximately, in Micro 35?

[Steven Schuldt]

I've heard a number of people saying they are getting/have gotten Lomo lenses for use with the micro35. Could a couple of these folks briefly explain why and how? I mean, there are some really nice lenses made outside of Russia by companies like Nikon, Canon, Leica, Olympus etc. Yes I know Lomo made spy satellite lenses which, while quite cool, isn't in itself enough for me to jump on the bandwagon.

I'm hoping someone could also explain how one would go about buying non-used Lomo gear and what might comprise a serviceable set of Lomo lenses for use on a micro35. The used Lomo stuff on eBay is rather frightening looking; typically rusted or beaten or otherwise very like something from the bowels of the Soviet empire circa 1957. I'm sure some of it is fantastic, but I'm partial to things like warranties and that new gear smell.

The Lomo web site is also quite bizarre, which is undertandable, as they are a Russian company.

Any insight into the mystery of Lomo appreciated. Thanks!

[James Hurd]

Radek,
The micro35 (pre-assembled unit) uses an achromat that has a focal length of 125mm.

The macro is about 4 inches from the gg. (The macro is mounted on a 72mm ring.)

Hope this helps Radek! We should have more detailed information up on the new website when it's released in the upcoming week.

James
www.micro35.com

[Joel Aaron]

<<<--
Originally posted by James Hurd :
We should have more detailed information up on the new website when it's released in the upcoming week.
www.micro35.com
-->>>

Hey James, have you done any HDV tests? I'm kinda curious as to whether the Micro35 is likely to work with the upcoming Panasonic HVX200. I'm hoping to get to NAB to see that camera in person. (I know it's not HDV) :-)

[Chris Leong]

You can try the Hawk lenses - Lomos with the same glass and that new gear smell you love so much. Basically add a zero or two to the price, though.

Movie lenses are made to smaller circles of confusion than stills camera lenses. A 35mm movie frame is equivalent to a half a 135 stills 35mm camera frame. Because we have essentially a half frame negative blown up to the size of a cinema screen, the acutance of the lens must be higher.

Zeiss, Canon, Cooke, and a very few other companies still make lenses to this specification. Check the prices of new Zeiss Primos.

Leica and Nikon lenses are made to cover the stills movie frame and even though they are plenty sharp enough if you're finishing on HD or DVD, their focus barrels aren't built for racking (i.e. the image could well shift from side to side as you rack focus back and forth), and their aperture settings have clicks in them (hard to pull aperture during a shot). They are designed to cover more negative/gate area and to be enlarged a lot less, so their unit cost is less. Also, they are designed to sell. A lot of lenses, for not a lot of money each lens.

Movie lenses are designed to work. Not that many sold, not particularly cheap. They have to be good.

Lomos are USSR movie camera lenses. The first two numbers of the serial number typically indicated the year of manufacture. The late 80's and early 90's (around the fall of the Berlin Wall) give you the most modern lenses. Like at least one US manufacturer, the spy camera business was dying out, so they turned their attentions to the next best thing. After that I don't know what happened, but I think they went the way of all things Soviet - i.e. ended up in the West.

I have a set of lenses from the 80's and another set from the 90's. The 80's set looks like the ones you're describing, and the 90's set looks like the ones that were rebarrelled and used on "The Titanic" and other movies. (I know, my friend a lens tech had a Lomo 18mm and a Hawk 18mm lens X-rayed and flouroscoped to check the internal element layout and coatings.)

You've seen a lot of movies shot with Lomo lenses, only the people using them were a little ashamed to tell you. They've just come out of the closet a little, is all.

Because Lomo had pretty good optical designers who were basically free of worry about selling the lenses they made, they tried, and in a lot of people's opinions, succeeded, in making good, serviceable lenses that are built like tanks and keep on ticking, to mix a few metaphors.

I bought my Lomo 18 around six years ago for $250, with case, hood, focus and aperture gears. Care to find out how much a comparable western 18mm lens costs? Heck, care to buy just the gear rings for that amount of money?

Say no more.
Cheers
Chris