Super 8 ultra-wide suggestion and ideas help

Kai scott · March 4

Hi all, I'll get right into it:
I'm new to the world of cine film and definitely new to the super 8 world (not new to the film photography world, or digital cine world), but I'm looking to get into it and pick a super 8 camera up. I'm a uni student studying fashion image making and my current module is about fashion film, and making our own short film.

For a while i've wanted to experiment with shooting a film similar to the Wong Kar Wai film "Fallen angels", specifically all the ULTRA wide shots used throughout, from my own research, was an 8.6mm lens, but on 35mm. My main question and issue while researching for this idea myself, is whats a good way to achieve this in super 8 format? from what i understand, most super 8 cameras have a fixed lens, so very little interchangeability, and the models that do have interchangeable lenses are pretty pricey (at least for a uni student 😅), I've also not come across any lenses or adapters that can get me down to the focal length I need. I have seen a few fisheye adapters about that would get me to a similar focal length, but I'd rather a lens/ adapter thats rectilinear, not a big fan of the fish eye effect, but if its all thats available, i can work with it.

Has anyone done any thing similar? if so what was your setup?
Any recommendations of cheaper super 8 cameras that either have an ultra wide lens, or that would take a lens/ adapter?

Thanks for your help, and apologies for how long this is.

Tyler Purcell · March 4

The problem with super 8, as we've talked about on the other forums, is that it has a 5x crop factor over FF.

So an 8mm lens for 35mm equivalent, would need to be a 4mm minimal to get that look. Well, nobody makes a 4mm lens. So that's the problem. The super 8 frame is so small, there wasn't any other imager tech like it outside of specialized stuff in the video world. So there just wasn't a market to make lenses. This is why the widest lenses you'll ever see are in the 5 - 6mm range. That's about what the decent zooms have for super 8 as well. The 6-70 being the "promo" zoom for the format, but not having that look at all.

Also remember, what makes that look so cool, is that with S35mm you still can have some depth of field. Never going to have that with a wide shot on S16 or Super 8. It'll look super flat with wide lenses. To get any decent depth of field, you need longer lenses, which of course is the anthesis to what you're after look wise.

There are some macro lenses however, where the subject can get super close to the lens. The lens I recommended the 6-70 does have a macro mode. However, in macro mode, you can't gauge focus. They kinda do some weird stuff and from my experiences using professional super 8 cameras, the results are generally poor. If you have someone moving around a lot and don't mind soft focus, then it's not too bad, but you will never NAIL the focus on macro mode. They also don't work well all the way open, so you need to stop them down, which can help a bit, but can be more tricky to tell detail in the viewfinder.

As a side note, I did use a 6mm super wide lens with front ultra wide magnifying lens, which made it more like 5mm. It worked pretty good, very distorted, but it was a $6k lens and only PL of course. I wish I remember if it was the Century optics one or not, but C mount lenses are NOTORIOUS for having horrible back focus issues because there is no hard mount. Every lens fits slightly differently into the camera and you need to collimate each one to the body and set the gap properly. It's not supposed to be that way, but it is sadly. A wide angle like a 6mm, will not be capable of being collimated. You need longer focal lengths to use a collimator. So a ZOOM can be collimated, but a single prime like a 6mm can't. So you simply don't know until you get your footage back. It's one of the odd issues with calibrating equipment sadly.

Edited March 4 by Tyler Purcell

Martin Baumgarten · March 4

Fallen Angels is newly presented in the 2.39:1 aspect ratio, a format that Wong had originally envisioned for the film. This is a WIDE Image Aspect Ratio, not just wide. The 8.6mm lens in 35mm motion picture format, would approximate roughly twice that focal length in 35mm still photography, thus 17.2mm. Keep in mind...Super 8mm is 1.33:1 aspect ratio with the original format. In later years, there has been a gate widening to get it closer to but under the 16:9 TV HD aspect ratio [now that's been super ceded crazily with 2k, 2.7k, 4k etc making TV sets wider and thus now movies being cropped again on top & bottom to show the full aspect ratio. Anyhow....are you looking for a WIDE ANGLE viewpoint on a Super 8mm camera? If that is all, there are many Wide Angle add on lenses of various wide focal length changes that will work [e.g. 0.75x, 0.054x, 0.50x, 0.45x etc]. Many of these will work fine on existing cameras, just using step-up filter thread adapter rings [all that stuff is so cheap these days from China via eBay etc.....and even the lenses being made there....and from my own experience are all decent performers]. So, ULTRA Wide Angle? Or WIDESCREEN [larger than 1.33:1 aspect ratio]? Or a WIDESCREEN ULTRA Wide Angle [doable in Super 8mm via using Anamorphic lens & a Ultra Wide Angle Adapter on that lens......it's a LOT of glass surfaces of course.....but with care in composition/light and using a good lenshade, can be sharp and vibrant despite all the glass] This will not be cheap though, since if you want zoom on your camera for various focal lengths.....you will have a hefty rig setup. Anamorphic lenses have risen in their prices on the 2nd hand market due to various interest in special effects, not necessarily WIDESCREEN. There are very small Anamorphic lenses made to fit Cellphones, and they might/would work with some fixed lens Super 8mm cameras that only have their prime lens, not a zoom. It's all bit complex of course...but anyhow....an Ultra Wide Angle Lens can be added over that to get an Anamorphic Wide Aspect Ratio in Wide Angle. The ones I've seen are 1.25x 1.55x, some less that those. The 1.55x is extremely close to the WIDESCREEN 1.5x lenses such as the Iscorama and others, which would get you to a 2:1 aspect ratio in Super 8mm.......not the same as "Fallen Angels", but widescreen and wide angle. Using anamorphic lenses requires some technique adjustment since a tall and skinny image is presented in the viewfinder on an SLR type camera [unless you get a tiny A-lens and turn it sideways in front of the viewfinder to see the full aspect ratio, which means more cost and playing around of course]. You'll also need Anamorphic Lens holders, adapters etc to fit what you buy to your camera. - - - - - - - - - - - Since all this could be quite expensive.......it's not in the realm of your budget expenses. So....Ultra Wide Angle alone would be since you can get a good lens and filter ring adapters all under $100 from eBay vendors. IF you get a very wide angle lens.....you could just mask the image and compose inside the masking. There will be some grain increase since you're cropping the Super 8mm frame to achieve a WIDESCREEN format aspect ratio...but it has been done many times by enthusiasts over the years. Usually they didn't crop more than for a 2:1 aspect ratio...but with the modern Color Negative Vision films from KODAK, the grain is fine, and of course.....you are working with a small gauge film here. Want to really save? Just use a cellphone, with a cellphone frame which allows ease of tripod, monopod, selfie stick etc support and get one of those multi-lens kits available from various eBay vendors from China. Yeah....it's NOT film.....but.....IF you project is all ending up on Digital anyway......and money is tight....heck, you can do all kinds of things...and then play in post production software to get what you want. Film WILL BE Expensive.....there's not a way around that, so think this all over carefully of course. Best of luck.

Albion Hockney · March 4

I’d just get a fisheye converter - they make them at .3x magnification or even wider. In post you can distort it back to rectilinear, though the grain might look a bit weird. or shoot on 16mm

Robin Phillips · March 4

Tyler covered the problems of going super wide fov with the s8 format. I would suggest, if you want to be on film, to actually just rent a 16mm or super 16mm camera, maybe a bolex. there are one or two 4-ish mm lens options out there, which would get you into the territory of an 8mm on 35mm film. The ones I remember off the top of my head are the Optex 4mm and the Century 6mm with the wide angle converter that makes it into a 4.5mm lens. I'd venture the century will be sharper than the optex, though my only experience with the optex line was their 8mm on super 16 (which was not a very sharp lens).

If you're outside a major production hub it may be difficult to find some of this stuff, but there are some vendors out there who lean into film equipment over digital. I think Duall camera in NJ has a fair amount of 16 and s16 options. on the west coast old fast glass has a nice selection of stuff.

but I would definitely rent if this is going to be a single project. if theres no money for production insurance, you may just want to deal with digital and super 8 film emulation.

Dom Jaeger · March 5

7 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

C mount lenses are NOTORIOUS for having horrible back focus issues because there is no hard mount. Every lens fits slightly differently into the camera and you need to collimate each one to the body and set the gap properly. It's not supposed to be that way, but it is sadly. A wide angle like a 6mm, will not be capable of being collimated. You need longer focal lengths to use a collimator. So a ZOOM can be collimated, but a single prime like a 6mm can't. So you simply don't know until you get your footage back. It's one of the odd issues with calibrating equipment sadly.

Yeah this is hogwash. C mount lenses can be very accurately set for back-focus, I do it all the time for Bolexes, Beaulieus, ACLs etc. They absolutely have a hard mount, that repeatably allows a lens to seat within 0.01mm variation. You don't need to collimate each lens to each body, you set everything to the C mount standard, cameras and lenses. It's 17.52mm, a standard that goes down to 1/00 of a mm for a reason. What lets C mounts down usually is wear to the focus helicoid, and obviously it's not a good mount for heavy zooms.

A 6mm lens can be calibrated on a good collimator. I've collimated plenty - Kinoptik 5.7mm or 6mm Ultra 16 or 6mm Optex for example. For fixed focus (meaning not able to focus) wide angles, like an Angenieux 5.9mm it's a little harder as the lens focus is set to around 8 ft, but some collimators have optics that allow you to check collimation at closer distances, or a tech can project the lens if their projector has a C mount, which my old Chrosziel projector has. A final option is to check it through a reflex viewfinder or gate focusing tool, which works but is not as accurate.

Edited March 5 by Dom Jaeger

Dom Jaeger · March 5

5 hours ago, Kai scott said:

Any recommendations of cheaper super 8 cameras that either have an ultra wide lens, or that would take a lens/ adapter?

There are no cheap super wide angle Super 8 cameras. Only a very few, like Beaulieus, have a C mount that allows you to interchange lenses, but super wide C mounts like the various Century ones tend to be rare and expensive. As someone recommended above, your best option is probably just a fisheye converter but it won't look that great.

You'd have more options in 16mm, where you can rent various 6mm lenses, but that still won't be as wide as those Fallen Angels shots, and if you have a limited budget that's probably not an option either.

Samuel Preston · March 5

The elmo album 3600 camera has a 4.3mm wide angle. The other option would be to use a Beaulieu with a fujinon 5.5. Or a Beaulieu with an adapter and use the 6mm ultra 16 or other ultra wide 16mm lenses with pl mount (optex etc.) or c mount to b4 and use the Zeiss digiprime lenses, theres a 3.9mm lens in that set. Wide angle adapters are the easiest and cheapest option, you can use those on the cameras that dont have interchangeable lenses. Nizo has a few good wide angle adapters for their cameras, canon does too for their 310xl and 514xl. Alternatively of course just some cheap wide angle adapters but they're usually not made for specific lenses and may have noticeable lack of sharpness, increased distortion and chromatic aberrations.

Robert Hart · March 6

An option out of left field might be to find an old groundglass-based 35mm film-image emulator like a Letus Extreme or a P+S Technik Mini35-400. They used to come with rails, tripod mount bases and bridge-plates. It would require much adaption and you likely would need to use a 75mm prime lens.

You could then use stills 35mm film lenses in Nikon, Canon or even PL-Mount in some instances. You would still need to crop top and bottom of frame or add an anamorphic adaptor for a cinemascope look. Your depth of field will be quite shallow. That was often a signature of users who went for razor thin depths of field not because they should but because they could.

A Mini35-400 resolves between the old standard definition TV and JVC's flavour of HDV. A Letus35 Extreme can be tricked up to resolve a little better and if significantly modified achieve near to 35mm full frame and 2K.

Your would lose about 1/3 to 2/3 f-stop of light and with tighter apertures than f5.6, some nasty artefacts begin to appear.

I tried it for kicks with a CP16 16mm camera with this rather unscientific test and a sort end of 16mm film,

The letters DTC mean direct to camera, that is without the groundglass adaptor in the optical path.

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Edited March 6 by Robert Hart
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Don H Marks · March 6

You could try a wide angle accessory lens.

Here I had SK Grimes make an adapter for a Kenko 0.5X Wide Angle attachment for my 5.5mm Switar. This makes it about a 2.5mm lens on regular 8 format.

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