Laowa Proteus: De-tuning lens to add character?

[omar robles]

Hello group:

So I own the Laowa Proteus 2x anamorphic which I really like.  The only issue I have is that wish it had a touch of vintage character, it's a bit too clean for my personal taste.   Someone suggested and recommended me a company out of state that does de tuning (amongst other things) to add character to lenses. They quoted me a ball park figure of about 1500-2000k to detune a lens.  I am a bit hesitant because I haven't found a lot of information on this topic.  Also they dont have a lot of examples of their work, although they have designed a lens set that has been well received and rents at OLD FILM GLASS. Any help on this subject would be appreciated .  And yes I have considered filters but I dont feel they get the job done.

O.R

 

 

[Dom Jaeger]

$2000 USD to detune a lens? Is that for each lens? I would hope that means they are very responsive to what you want, showing you examples and being willing to tweak it if you're not happy. 

The thing with detuning is that there are limitless things you can do to introduce aberrations or subtle optical artifacts, so unless you have a fairly specific idea of what you want it could be a bit of a gamble. Since you feel that filters don't give you what you want, I presume you have an idea in mind?

Simply asking for "a vintage look" could mean anything from an extreme Petzval with swirly bokeh and edges falling off completely, to a subtle softening of fine detail or a little more bloom to highlights. Do you want your blacks to stay rich or want more of a low con look?  Do you want flare characteristics to change, or want to change the look of the out of focus bokeh? Some of these effects are very simple to achieve, try flipping the rear element upside down for instance, and see what happens. It'll be vintage, as in 1860s vintage.. 😉 The best approach is probably to have a particular lens look in mind, like if you really wanted to try and emulate the look of Kowa anamorphics or Panavision C series for instance.  

It's worth mentioning that every lens will respond differently to what you do to it. If you add a spacer to element 3 on a 50mm Cooke anamorphic it won't do the same thing as adding the same spacer to element 3 of a Laowa 50mm anamorphic. And different focal lengths of the same series will react differently as well. So essentially each lens needs to be individually customised, depending on the optical design and what result you're looking for.

When Panavision does lens modification, they have a very controlled set of recipes available in different combinations and strengths, and the DoP is extensively consulted to make sure they are happy with the result. They have a long history of doing it, and know exactly how to make a particular lens look similar to another lens, for instance, or how to introduce very specific effects without changing other qualities. Lots of people have tried to copy Panavision's lead, which is why detuning is now something of a trend, but I'd make sure the company in question knows what they're doing. 

[Steve Switaj]

OK, not exactly answering the question, but as long as we're talking about detuned lenses, I've got to mention a project I did recently where we were looking for an “olde school” look and I ended up making a cine lens out of a LensBaby.

For those not familiar, LensBaby is a manufacturer that specializes in effects type lenses for the still photography market.

They have a product called the Composer, which is a ball pivot swing/shift body that accepts different plug-in lens modules.

One of the modules is the “Sweet 35”, a 35mm lens with a simple 4-element design, not that different that what you might have run into in the 1900's, albeit with better quality glass but (purposely) less correction.

The composer housing itself is floppy, kind of toylike and completely unsuited for film production, but the Sweet 35 module is a cool lens.

So I took one of these lenses, a helical focus tube designed for still macro photography, and some bits of lens mount I had laying around, locked myself in a machine shop, and Frankensteined an actual working cine lens out of it.

It turned out pretty cool!

It looked genuinely old, but organically “vintage” old, not “we laid on some digital effects” old.

It was sharp enough in the center, but had some natural barrel and lost sharpness and picked up coma and lots of highlight bokeh as you got into the corners.

The sweet 35 is an 8-perf lens, so if you're only using the center it looks pretty natural. Like I said, vintage.

I regret that I don't have any pictures to post, because it was a cool project, but it's not yet released.

Edited April 27 by Steve Switaj

[Dom Jaeger]

There is a new product on the market designed by legendary lens designer Iain Neil called “Module-8“ which is a sort of tuning adapter, allowing you to dial in certain effects. There are a few different modules for different looks. Seems like an interesting concept, but I haven’t played with one myself yet. Currently only available in PL or EF to mirrorless mounts, but I hear there is a PL to PL version in the works. 
https://www.module-8.com

[Adrian Sierkowski]

That tuner is certainly something I would want to rent and play around with. I'm looking forward to it getting more out into the market. As for the original question; my biggest concern would be re-tuning the lens if needed! Honestly, for the price to de-tune you might as well rent something else and if the lenses aren't rocking with what you like, maybe a better idea to sell and buy up some that are. Lenses are nice in that they really don't seem to loose to much value despite how old they are (and in fact the older ones seem to be worth more).