Introduction
To paraphrase a fellow photographer from a forum – if you want the real crazy bokeh, projection lenses are the drug of choice. The following article – coming from my hobby-ist passion for vintage glass and my direct experience using it – is kind of an informal review of seven projector lenses that I got / adapted / tested / enjoyed / kept.
This is a guest post written by Alin Leanca who you can also find on flickr.
The Old Cinephile – Hugo Meyer Kinon Superior 50mm 1.8
What a crazy idea – to mount on a camera a lens that was never made for this. Over the past few years, my photographic journey has taken me into the less common and more difficult-to-explore world of adapting projector lenses (for slides or movies). Guided by the little information available online and encouraged by curiosity, I eventually discovered the ninety-years-old Hugo Meyer Kinon Superior f=5cm (50mm) F1.8, a lens intended for movie projectors. The German company Hugo Meyer, founded back in the 19th century, would later become famous as Meyer Optik Görlitz (or Pentacon after WW2). The Kinon (which reached me by sheer luck) looked more like a museum piece. A tube of metal and glass, without aperture or focusing mechanism. So I started improvising, measuring, testing. A piece of plastic pipe…a focusing helicoid…a macro tube…electrical tape…some glue…and the thing in the photo was born. As if that wasn’t enough, I also started playing with the rear optical elements, changing their position and order over and over again – in a crazy search for “the ideal bokeh”. Essentially, this Kinon appears to be a Petzval, a very old optical formula with plenty of charm. In its normal version, so to speak, it’s sharp in the center, while the field curvature creates a magnificent swirl. In the modified version, sharpness drops a bit and a slight glow appears, but bokeh becomes simply painterly. It’s a bit of a toy, but if you accept its limitations (for example vignetting at medium and long distances is pretty annoying), the images can be absolutely wonderful.
The Old Painter – Meyer Kinon Superior 115mm 2.5
The Cinephile has a bigger brother – The Painter. Another cine projector lens from the Meyer Kinon Superior family, with a focal length of 11.5cm (115mm) and a fixed aperture around F2.5. I found it with a reseller, and seeing the name I bought it on impulse. Only afterwards did I learn that it’s a rarity – and research turned out to be difficult. It appears to have been produced in inter-war Germany, featuring a Petzval design. It strangely doesn’t produce any swirl, but covers a full-frame sensor. Fortunately, adapting wasn’t a problem because I found someone with a 3D printer and ordered a housing that lets me use the lens normally or reversed. You’re probably wondering what’s so special about this lens – and what does painting have to do with it. Well, I couldn’t resist tinkering with it. Its rendering was already quite nice in its original state, but I already have normal telephoto lenses. After several attempts and tests, I settled on a configuration that surprised me with the painterly look of the images. I don’t know exactly what I did (optics isn’t my strongest point), but now it seems to “draw” more than it photographs.
Vintage from Bucharest – Supercin 50mm 1.4
Obscure, yet fascinating. Ironically, I discovered the Romanian projector lens Supercin 50mm F1.4 thanks to a photographer from abroad; I had no idea such a thing had ever been manufactured in my country. The internet seems to know very little about this elusive old lens. It was produced in the 1960s by IOR Bucharest (a state-owned company for military optics), possibly under a Zeiss or Pentacon license, for smaller cinema projectors. Fortunately, I didn’t have to settle for theory: I managed to find one, and adapting it turned out to be surprisingly easy. I just used the lens, a few strips of rubber cut from a bicycle inner tube, a 17-31mm M42-to-M42 helicoid and a simple cheap adapter for mirrorless cameras. I wrapped the rubber around the Supercin like a gasket and pushed it firmly into the helicoid (as far as it would go), then screwed the helicoid onto the adapter and the adapter on the camera. And that was it! The result is a special lens, perfectly secure to use and capable of focusing from infinity down to about 16cm. It’s fairly sharp in the center, painterly, doesn’t mind low light, produces a gentler swirl than Kinon Superior 5cm (seems to be a Double Gauss design) and has unusually little vignetting on full frame.
The Monster – Carl Zeiss Jena Kipronar 140mm 1.9
I know, that title sounds a bit like a horror movie, but for a good reason. The Monster is Carl Zeiss Jena Kipronar 140mm f1.9, a Petzval-design lens produced in the 1950s for large cinema projectors. I discovered it a few years back and immediately fell in love with its strange rendering (which at the time I had only admired online), but I was discouraged by its steep price, combined with its weight of one kilo (adapted). Funny…in the end I received one as a gift. The experience wasn’t without adventures: on one hand, I was lucky that it fit into the adapter of another lens; on the other hand, I had to treat it for fungus and – more stressful – had to cut off a piece of its rear with an grinder (otherwise it wouldn’t focus beyond two meters). Finally I took it out for a test and…ran into new challenges. In short, I’d say it’s the kind of toy that gives you gray hair. It’s physically difficult to focus, with sharpness limited to the center of the image and varying from shot to shot because of the extremely strong field curvature. And sunlight immediately scares away the contrast. But if you accept all that and make friends with it, the Monster will reward you with images that look straight out of a fairy tale. I think its main purpose would be portraiture – headshots, but also full-body portraits (where the subject emerges beautifully from a strange, unreal, swirling background). In conclusion, Kipronar 140mm is for fans. It’s wonderful, but at the same time it’s pretty much the limit (for me, anyway) when it comes to projector lenses.
Cinestar – Benoist Berthiot Cinestar 110mm 2.0
The professional adapter I needed for the Kipronar came from another cinema projector lens called Benoist Berthiot Cinestar (110mm F2). When I got it, I couldn’t help wondering what movies this tube of metal and glass might have “seen” in a Paris cinema back in the 1960s. It’s quite sharp, has Petzval field curvature (the swirl that so many of us love) and relatively soft bokeh (well suited for portraits). It’s also very sensitive to any sun rays it encounters – it can loose an astonishing amount of contrast. I couldn’t find much information about it online, except that the French company that created it began its activity as far back as the first half of the 19th century.
Cinderella – Pentacon AV 80mm 2.8
What can you do with a makeshift lens that has stained internal elements and cannot be disassembled? Create unique images. Exactly what happened with my only slide projector lens. Pentacon AV 80mm F2.8 was produced in the 1980s and named by some “the poor man’s Trioplan” (because of its Cooke Triplet bokeh). My copy had been already adapted with a focusing mechanism and mount, but its internal elements were impossible to clean, so I was thinking of giving up on it. Naturally, not before playing around with it. The tests changed my mind: damaged as it is (or perhaps precisely because of that), it’s the only vintage lens that has given me (so far) a rendering identical to that of a film camera (see the portrait). Moreover, on a mirrorless camera it still delivers reasonable sharpness, produces bubble bokeh and the images often have a painterly quality (perfect for flowers). It’s also one of the few projector lenses that can still be found for sale already adapted, at a reasonable price.
The Russian – Lomo KO-90 90mm 1.9
If I am to brag about having bought my first RF-mount lens (for Canon mirrorless), you might expect razor-sharpness, a super-fast aperture, or perhaps a kidney sold to pay for it. Honestly? None of the above.
Lomo KO-90 90mm F1.9 is a Soviet cinema projector lens, featuring an Aplanat design (dating back to the interwar period) and a strong, unusual character, somewhat reminiscent of Zeiss Kipronar. I came across one that was pretty “beat up” — but very cheap — and decided to “adopt” it. Quite a difficult process! In order to reach infinity focus, it “insists” on sitting extremely close to the sensor (probably some kind of abandonment complex) — and I didn’t even have any room left to cut down the barrel (I know, the angle-grinder idea is brrr, but it works). The solution came, as it often does, from the “Chinese flea market,” where I found an RF-mount ring for the 3D-printed adapter.
What can I say? The KO-90 with an RF mount is a sarcastic vintage riposte to Canon’s latest-generation RF lenses. The contrast leaves something to be desired (I think that’s the fault of the idiot who cleaned it with some abrasive stuff) — I can give it a little help in post. It’s reasonably sharp in the center, with field curvature that gives the images a strange, almost unreal character (personally, I absolutely love that). The rendering is lively and organic, with pastel colors. Flare can be very aesthetic if you learn how to keep it under control. The focal length is just right for portraits. Close-up performance isn’t anything extraordinary, but at medium distances, the “toy” proves worthy of comparison with the Kipronar…
Note on the parts used for adapting
Except for Cinderella, which came to me already adapted, I had to improvise and research, not only to make a safe mount (I chose the universal M42), but also to obtain (some) infinity. For the Kipronar I bought a professional adapter – M65 clamp, M65 to M65 focusing helicoid and M65 to M42 ring. For the 11.5cm Kinon and the Cinestar I ordered 3D printed helical focusing adapters. For the 5cm Kinon and the Supercin I used M42 to M42 focusing helicoids and M42 extension tubes (secured together, where necessary, with electrical tape).
Further Reading
- Review: CZJ Visionar 1.6/109
- Review: CZJ Visionar 1.9/168
- Review: CZJ Visionar 1.9/183
- Projector Lenses Part 1: Reviving the Joy of Old Petzval Lenses (Guest Article)
- Projector Lenses Part 2: Adapting Old Petzval and Projection Lenses to Modern Cameras (Guest Article)
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