todd-ao Looking for information on: Todd-AO 35mm T1.5 and 125mm T1.7 "spherical" Ultra Fast BNCR prime lenses

[Daniel J. Fox]

These two lenses were first shared on this forum a few years ago by the previous owner, but since they have been recently serviced by TLS, ready for use, I thought I would reshare them in case anyone has insight into their history and usage?

Unlike the majority of Todd-AO 35mm lenses, these are spherical prime lenses on Mitchell BNCR mount, with greater than FF/135 coverage.

Both are marked with serial no: 2001 and the branding "Ultra-Fast". They have integrated gears, 90mm frontages, they do extend during focusing and they have dual Tstop and Fstop scales.

The 35mm T1.5 is a rehousing of the first generation Nikkor-N 35mm f1.4. This was easy to confirm as the characteristic 9 bladed aperture was retained and optics had yellowed considerably due to thorium decay. The glass was treated with UV by TLS as part of the servicing and the colour balance is now correct.

The 125mm T1.7 is a bit of a mystery. Having spoken to Zero Optik, their suggestion was the lens uses rehoused projector optics, which would make sense as Dr. Richard Vetter did provide projector optics to Ed DiGiulio of Cinema Products, to create additional focal length for Kubrick based on the Zeiss Planar 50mm 0.7.

There is virtually zero information on these lenses or the range anywhere online and I am curious if anyone has any insight into their history. Were there more focal lengths in the range? What movies were they used on?

Given that the Nikkor-N 35mm f1.4 with thorium coatings was first released in 1970 and only made for about a year, that helps to place when the lenses were made, but very little else.

I've seen some suggestion these lenses were later Todd-AO 65mm lenses, but both are marked "Todd-AO 35" and to my knowledge Mitchell BNCR was never used on any 65mm camera system.

[M Joel W]

The 125mm could be the Neokino 125mm f1.6?

 

 

[Daniel J. Fox]

2 hours ago, M Joel W said:

The 125mm could be the Neokino 125mm f1.6?

 

 

A good suggestion.

I'd need to compare the sizes of the front and rear optics - all of the samples I've seen shot with the Neokino 125mm f1.6 have a very dreamy / surreal look - whereas this seems (at least with the few shots I've taken), to render as you'd expect from a fast cinema prime.