Lens Projectors ??????????

Tim Carroll · July 14, 2008

I am on a search for the elusive "lens projector". I know what they are supposed to do, and I see them referenced quite a bit, but I have never actually seen one and don't know anyone who actually has one.

Who makes them, or used to make them? When I search online, I come up empty, with only rare references to them in books like the Camera Assistant Handbook, etc.

I have two sets of older lenses and I would like to use a lens projector to find the sweet spot (aperture wise) of each lens. But I am having very little luck.

What rental shops (in Chicago hopefully) have one? Is anyone still making them?

I would love to find one, so any and all information about them will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

-Tim

John Brawley · July 14, 2008

What rental shops (in Chicago hopefully) have one? Is anyone still making them?

I would love to find one, so any and all information about them will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

-Tim

Tim, any half decent cine camera rental company should have one lurking somewhere. I can't remember who made the lens projector I used to use....

Im sure a rental company would let you use one. You may find however, that it might only be set up for PL mount or whatever the *house* mount of the rental company is.

jb

Sam Wells · July 14, 2008

The ones I've seen were made by Angenieux IIRC

-Sam

Bruce Taylor · July 15, 2008

Duclos Lenses has one. They put my huge 25-500 Ekran up on it, they even had the Russian mount!

www.ducloslenses.com

I really don't think you can do better than these guys. They're in Canoga Park near LA. People send their lenses in from all over. Reasonable, I think they are at $95/hr last time I checked.

Bruce

Mitch Gross · July 15, 2008

In Chicago, you could certainly try Schumacher Camera or Fletcher. They certainly have them but don't know if they'd let you use them. Perhaps for a small service fee.

Tim Carroll · July 15, 2008

In Chicago, you could certainly try Schumacher Camera or Fletcher. They certainly have them but don't know if they'd let you use them. Perhaps for a small service fee.

Thanks Mitch, already have an appointment with James Pope at Schumacher when I get to town in a couple of weeks. I'll see what they have.

Bruce, Paul has done a number of my lenses in the past and he does excellent work. Never had him try to find the sweet spot on a lens, but I may talk with him if Schumacher doesn't work out.

Sam, you don't know where one could find a used Angenieux IIRC lens projector for purchase do you?

John, I have PL mount adapters for all the lenses I am checking, so that should work out well.

Thanks all,

-Tim

Sam Wells · July 15, 2008

Sorry Tim I have no idea.

IIRC = "If I ReCall" - disclaimer I use more often these days as I cannot ReCell my memory at current state of technology :(

I'm pretty sure DuArt's was an Angenieux.....

-Sam

Tim Carroll · July 15, 2008

Well I found one. Schneider Optics/Century Precision Optics makes one.

Now I just need to come up with $8200 lying around that I can buy one with. Maybe when I win the Lotto.

Best,

-Tim

Paul Bruening · July 15, 2008

This could be a dumb idea but I'll let it fly: Could you get an old style slide projector like this: (I have this one for my scan rig)

http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Skan-SP-300-W-...1QQcmdZViewItem

and replace the existing lens mount with a lens board in your favorite lens mount? It can hold a reference slide of what ever you want. It wouldn't be too complicated to make the FFD adjustable.

Is this any use?

Tim Carroll · July 15, 2008

Paul,

I read a post about someone doing that and I thought about it quite a bit yesterday. It is certainly possible, but I am not so sure it would be worth the trouble and would be accurate enough to trust once you got through with it.

Being that I have adapters to adapt ARRI standard mount lenses and ARRI bayonet mount lenses to ARRI PL mount, I would want to make the projector accept ARRI PL mount lenses. So I would need to very accurately place the flange of the ARRI PL mount at exactly 52mm from the film plane of the slide projector. That would be pretty tough in and of itself. If you could successfully do this and assure that the film plane was perfectly parallel with the ARRI PL mount, you would then need to create a slide of the test pattern you wanted to use. If you then place this photographic slide into the slide projector and turn on the light source, the heat from the lamp would bow the photographic film which would throw off your FFD and your parallel. So that would give you inaccurate readings.

You would need to create a glass slide with perfectly optically flat glass that had the pattern you wanted to project. And set the projector up so that slide was perfectly parallel and exactly 52mm from the flange of the ARRI PL mount. Think it would be pretty tough to do. But possible I guess.

Best,

-Tim

Paul Bruening · July 15, 2008

Yea, it would take some ingenuity. I wouldn't use the 300 watt bulb. It's way too hot. It will warp the film plane, as you said. But a glass slide will help that, as you also said. My concern would then be the change in shape of the lens from heat expansion. A Christmas tree bulb and a dark room would probably do the job.

I've taken that particular projector apart. You could use four long bolts and double the nuts to create the focal plane and the lens board mount. That's pretty simple, living-room-floor engineering.

With all this said, I'm thinking the info you're looking for already exists. Max could probably tell you all that. As far as I can tell, most lenses are best at f5.6. I've heard a lot of warnings here about shooting at f2 or below and f16 and above even on the best cine lenses.