brianmcall

I have been experimenting for years with aspheric lens and other wide-angle attachments to get a wider FOV for my anamorphic lens and never had very good results. I'm happy to announce that if you are a proud owner of a Bolex 8/19/1.5x, this might be a solution you will like. I shot these yesterday. By my estimate it's a 15mm on MFT or 30mm FOV full frame. The pros are no diopters are needed and you can focus as close as 10 inches. The downside is duel focus which is very easy with this set up for me. I did have chromatic aberrations but that could have been polarizer. I need to check. It's a great solution for wide establishing shots, car shots or getting wide close ups. Only works with Bolex 8/19 an MFT users. 📷🙂
 
 other

This was yesterday evening in our recreational area 'Het Twiske'. Colour of the sun was extremely due to sand out of the sahara. My favourite setup Fuji X-T3 + Voigtlander Ultron 40/2 + Bolex Moller 16/32/1.5x + Rectilux HCDNA. Variable ND filter Mentter HD. F-Log, Eterna in post. 
 

Hey friends, I’m on the hunt for either one of the Bolex and have the cash available to pay the market price for a great copy. Please contact me if you would like to sell.  Thanks!

8mm anamorphic run and gun with Baby Hypergonar 1.75x , Bolex 8/19 1.5x , Kowa 8 2x + ProtoDNA 


 

 

Here's my old rig featuring a Kowa Prominar C35 1.5X housed in a Rapido metal jacket. I just sold the setup and am currently looking for an Iscorama if anyone's looking to sell.

Super nice! Great to see shooting in some interesting conditions

Here's my old rig featuring a Kowa Prominar C35 1.5X housed in a Rapido metal jacket. I just sold the setup and am currently looking for an Iscorama if anyone's looking to sell.

Here's my old rig featuring a Kowa Prominar C35 1.5X housed in a Rapido metal jacket. I just sold the setup and am currently looking for an Iscorama if anyone's looking to sell.

I have this lens & will soon receive a HCDNA to use with it for single focus.

I modded a set of Conax Zeiss lenses myself. Wasn't without its challenges as this was my first time tackling something like this, but 100% worth it. The set includes 28/2, 35/1.4, 50/1.4, 85/1.4, 135/2. Mods include:
1. seamless focus gears from Helicopter Sean
2. bolt on Canon mounts from Leitax
3. knurled step-up rings to 82mm from Breakthrough
4. 82mm push-on lens caps from Kaiser, Canon brand rear caps
5. and most importantly, I custom-made 2x fixed aperture cut from a .4mm thin sheet of stainless steel

After sourcing all the lenses from ebay (all are mint or near-mint condition AEG or AEJ), I opened up each one and took measurements for the aperture discs. designed them in adobe illustrator (making alternates that were smaller, and smaller still). When I received the aperture discs I auditioned the different sizes, selected the one i was happiest with, and finally mounted them inside with a semi-permanent adhesive so i can remove them later if i want to re-sell the lenses.
Haven't been able to shoot with them too much yet (busy at work). But I did take the 50mm pictured above for a spin. See below.

Surprisingly, I've taken some flack when i mentioned this project in various facebook groups because these lenses are highly regarded (and pricey). I don't know, maybe they see me as either incredibly stupid, or reckless... maybe I'm both. But I can definitely say I'm also completely happy with the results. 

No dumb questions. You can attach via a custom coupler made from a lens hood if you have a front threaded adapter filter ring from Redstan or Rapidio. Otherwise you will need to get the HCDNA machined to slip the Kowa C35 in the back. Not machined, a 35mm was the widest I could go. Machined, a 28mm is the widest I could go.  

Here are a few iscorama pre-36 shots thrown together for those interested - I took my camera and Rama to a local car meetup with this thread in mind. My injured back prevented me getting the low angle dynamic shots and closeups I wanted, but you get the idea. A sunny day with lots of chrome is always a good test to see if a lens has any CA or highlight/contrast edge bloom issues. There is some fine alias/ line buzzing artefacts due to warp stabiliser being used on almost all shots (no tripod and was high on painkillers).
I'm sure the Bolex can match the iscorama (perhaps beat it) on sharpness, but as I've always noticed with the Rama - it tends to simply be as sharp/clean as the taking lens that you use with it. My other kowa lenses with Core DNA attached could have achieved similar results, but not at such wide aperture on 58mm on FF - and definitely not in such a compact and light form factor as the Iscorama. 
 
 

The reason for using S-LOG is for maximum dynamic range, if you chose not to use it you lose about 2 stops without it. So you can effectively go from 12 to 10 stops by not shooting in S-LOG mode or even worst. Some people have ranned test and said they only lost about 1 stop, but from my experience with the camera you would always want to use it at it's best setting.
S-LOG mode protects your highlights which is crucial during bright scenes, if you're shooting a night time scene maybe not so important, but you can clip your sensor easily so you still need to be careful. From my experience I would use S-LOG mode 99% of the time.