Jump to content

Chronoscope

Members
  • Posts

    14
  • Joined

  • Last visited

About Chronoscope

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Washington DC
  • Interests
    Filmmaking, super-rare lenses, American culture, cars
  • My cameras and kit
    GH5, Z6, BMMSC4K; Cooke 10.4-52mm, Canon S16 10.6-180mm, and a rare Chinese zoom lens you've never seen before

Contact Methods

  • Facebook
    https://www.facebook.com/ChronoScopeFilm/

Recent Profile Visitors

The recent visitors block is disabled and is not being shown to other users.

Chronoscope's Achievements

Member

Member (2/5)

7

Reputation

  1. Think i saw one for sale a few weeks ago, maybe was this one...i stayed away from it, as the rear end looked odd; longer...different from the 2 examples I have. Not sure on the mount/clamp though.
  2. I know it's probably a long shot, but...does ANYBODY here know ANYTHING about this thing? I have scoured the internet, including Chinese sites, as best I can...there is next to nothing. As I understand it, the modern Chinese government would prefer people not know such things even exist....they want people thinking that China was not capable of highly advanced industrial achievments until AFTER the so-called "economic reforms" of the ~80's+. Obviously...they were indeed capable. Everything I can find dates this lens to somewhere in 1979 to 1983. They studied English, French and German cinema lenses and glass in their efforts. Obviously by that serial number...not very many of these were made. I cannot find another example literally ANYWHERE. No rental houses...western hemisphere OR in the east. Truly...a Unicorn. It is on the way back to me from being refreshed and modernized with PL and gears, and will be available for rental to appropriate customers/projects VERY soon...along with a matching prime lens (50mm T2, exact same coating), for low light or handheld/stabilizer use. I wonder which films this was used on? I suspect every major Mainland-Chinese production made since the late 70s likely used this zoom, until trade began to open up and use of western cine equipment became more prevalent in China. Think "Raise the Red Lantern", "Farewell My Concubine", etc...not to mention the many martial arts films of earlier years. Anyway...I hope someone can tell me more about this wonderful piece of history, and I hope to see it put back to use very soon on some cool projects!! ....Would love to see this put to use on a period martial-arts feature for example...
  3. It stuns me that such things exist with essentially zero information online in this modern day... You folks with such knowledge really are a treasure/blessing, as is the information you're able to put out there for future filmmakers and lens nerds. Okay now here's one there's gotta be no way you've ever seen 😁 on its way back to me after some modernizing. Not anamorphic but... 🙂
  4. Okay, @BrooklynDan! I have some further info from the seller that might help figure some of this out. He said: "Hi there, Have shipped your lens this morning well packed for its journey! The lens came from an Eyemo-71Q Spyder turret 35mm cine camera and the lens fitted (from memory) directly into one of the turret mounts... It was a pretty top end outfit - the other lens fitted was a Nipponscope anamorphic with 50mm & 85mm Canon f1.8 back lenses and 400ft film magazines - it had seen some serious action! I received an email from a combat film camera collector when I was selling the camera and with the serial numbers on the camera he dated the camera around 1942. The Kowa would have been added much later but who knows what sights it has recorded! . The whole kit came from a deceased estate, a camera shop in Hokkaido, Japan and still had a few hundred feet of film in it... Hope this helps..." Now, his memory that it was mounted directly to an eyemo turret clearly cant be right. So, my next thought was....nipponscope? He mentioned nipponscope rear-spherical-parts, both 50 and 85. When looking at some nipponscope rear portions, one finds this little part, which seems to correspond to a part on the Kowa 35-J...sort of. the kowa doesnt seem to have the bayonet-locking portion. Any thoughts?
  5. My second one is off having a bit of internal dirtyness cleaned up at Rapido (looks to be in fantastic shape and should clean up to extremely good shape). I am curious to see how second example will perform in comparison. I will also have to get out my baby hypergonar and give it another go. Need some taking lenses that match baby anamorphics better...best I have are FD 50mm 1.8, and olympus 45mm 1.8 (M4/3). Any other recommendations with properly small-sized and forward-located front element?
  6. hehehehe. Interesting, dont recall any problem with it but let me actually give infinity a bit more of a proper test. WE'LL DO A SHOOTOUT!! scifi-Old-west style, pewpewpew (anamorphic laser-beams)
  7. Wow, exactly the kind of interesting info I was hoping someone would have. Fascinating! So it is indeed not an on-camera adapter as I thought...awesome. I know the totalscope/totalvision/franscope adapter of similar design was often used with the early angenieux zoom, the 35-140mm (i think), using either a solid piece linking between the two focus rings so they focus together, or a "cam" or gear setup that focused both lenses together. Any idea what the typical setup with this thing would've been in terms of taking lens and focus? Thanks for your insight!
  8. Yes, they truly are amazing little jewels... It's quite incredible how wide these tiny things are actually able to go...although at wider end edge distortion gets really unusable. I'd say on the nFD 50mm here, the distortion is JUST at the very edge of what I'd deem usable without being insanely disruptive. But it can go wider. Ive used it on Olympus 30mm Macro lens (native MFT lens) and it does not vignette. I actually quite like the funky distortion and surreal bending...and this lens is actually able to maintain incredible detail, which makes for an interesting combo. And most of all....this thing introduces so little in the way of CA, it's amazing. No real fringing to speak of, especially compared to other smaller adapters.
  9. Here is some simple test footage of the baby kowa, as promised! Taking lens is a Canon nFD 50mm f1.8, mounted on a 0.71x Zhongyi speedbooster. Aperture varied between around 5.6 to 8 (on the lens, pre-speedboost). GH5 Camera settings: Natural profile, ISO 200, 4:3 "4k Anamorphic" mode (3328x2496). Desqueezed in Resolve, cropped sides to 2.35, rendered in DCI 4k 'scope (4096x1716). Slight contrast and exposure adjustments, slight sharpening added. Otherwise straight out of camera.
  10. Designed for super8 cameras....the smallest 2x scope out there. And believe it or not? This thing is superior to the much-drooled-over baby hypergonar. Significantly so. I own two baby kowa 2x's, and one baby hypergonar....all of them are in near-new condition. The hypergonar was practically "New Old Stock" shape. Anyway, here's a couple pics of it mounted tucked inside a Rapido FVD8a, along with a screengrab of fellas on the porch talking. Also some pics from around the net of what the baby kowa looks like by itself (since mine are mounted in rapido FMJ, dont feel like removing right now) Shot not lit or anything...just stuck a camera there and recorded a bit; GH5 was on Natural profile, in 4:3 "4k anamorphic" mode (3328x2496), ISO 800. Taking lens is a Canon nFD 50mm f1.8, mounted on a 0.71x Zhongyi speedbooster. Aperture was set at 2.8 (on the lens). Yup...the baby Kowa is able to cover 50mm at around APS-C/S35, with no real vignetting/portholing on corners/sides. The sides have been cropped to achieve 2.35, but the cropped portions were fully visible. Of course...such coverage requires careful choice of taking lens, with a small front element that is very far forward so kowa rear lens can be very close. The flares are soft, understated, and beautiful...pinkish purple. I'll upload a test clip showing that off as soon as I get a moment today.
  11. hahaha yikes...NOBODY?? What did I find here...the world's rarest Kowa anamorphic adapter or something? 😂😅🤣
  12. Here are the Bausch and Lomb, and Totalvision anamorphics I mentioned for comparison
  13. This looks to be a *camera* attachment rather than projector, but not sure... It reminds me of the Totalvision/Franscope anamorphics and the early Bausch & Lomb Cinemascope adapters. Anyway, I just bought it. Eager to check it out when it arrives...it looks to be a VERY early one with serial number 25. Hoping someone can tell me about it.
×
×
  • Create New...