Bolex H16 question?? (or any 16mm c-mount camera)

bizzel · January 4, 2004

Does anybody have any experience in using CCTV lenses with Bolex 16mm cameras? They are much cheaper than cinema lenses. And i heard of some people using C-mount Canon TV Zoom lenses on bolex reflex cameras. Basically i don't want to have to spend 2 grand on a Century 1.9mm Fisheye lens and i am thinking of buying a Computar M3818 lens. On the Century Optics website the specifications for the 1.9mm fisheye are C-mount, 2/3 Video. The Computar M3818 is a c-mount for 2/3 video lens and is less expensive by far.

Here is a link to the lens i am talking about in the previous post.

Does anyone think it would work on a Bolex H16 reflex camera?

http://www.subtechnique.com/computar/manual/H-M3818.htm

Mitch Gross · January 5, 2004

Often cheap lenses for video gear such as this one are not particularly high quality. They do not resolve a great deal, have poor contrast, distortion, chromatic abberation and are very susceptible to flare. In addition they may not have marked aperture settings or even focus marks. Lastly, a video lens is often designed for a 3-chip block which means that the focus depth for red, green and blue are each slightly different, which is not the case in a cine lens. In the end the lens may not perform very well for your intended application.

Mitch

bizzel · January 5, 2004

Thanks for your advice Mitch.

mbalbert · January 7, 2004

I have to STRONGY agree with Mitch. A bad lens is just a bad lens and a waste of money. I shot a television show a while ago and we used many single chip sonys (xc-999's) and they were transformed by using Switars on them. Get the best glass you can.

Marty Hamrick · January 8, 2004

I want to add my agreement with Mitch here.Video lenses are video lenses and film lenses are film lenses.Two different animals.You also have to remember with Bolexes (is this a reflex camera?), the Rex (reflex)models,aren't standard "C" mounts.They have "C" mounts but they are calibrated for the prism in Bolex Rex cameras.Any standard "C" mount, that is not a "Rex" mount will not give you a sharp picture.I think you can get away with standard "C" mounts if the lens is 50mm or longer.

Marty

Sam Wells · January 9, 2004

I would not assume that a lens that wide would work with a Reflex Bolex, rear focal distance is very critical and limited at 1.9mm !! I'm pretty sure the 1.9mm Super-Tegea would not.

Link didn't work, BTW.

-Sam 1.9

Evan Kubota · November 16, 2005

FWIW, I shot part of my 16mm short with a Sony 20-80mm f/2.5 TV zoom. The results were quite good, IMO, although I used B&W film. I guess theoretically different focal points for red, green, and blue should still affect B&W images, though (assuming the scene has colors).

The second shot here was from the Sony.

http://plaza.ufl.edu/ekubota/film.html

lluis · November 19, 2005

Does anybody have any experience in using CCTV lenses with Bolex 16mm cameras? They are much cheaper than cinema lenses. And i heard of some people using C-mount Canon TV Zoom lenses on bolex reflex cameras.

Believe me or not I have used some C mount primes TV lenses (1" coverage) with my bolexes s16 with great performance. The most of the C mount lenses weren't designed for 3ccd, so why to speak of chromatic aberrations? Canon TV-16 series (Rune Ericson used them with the first s16 world film) are also great. Time ago I adapted the Canon 15-150 to Aaton mount (covering fully the s16 format) with really good performance, much better than all the Angenieuxs that I have tested (no mention the inaccessible 11.5-138 or the 7-81...). In my opinion I'd try to test every one lens before (remember Century or Optex: they know the possibilities of the some video lenses in the movie field).

All the best,

Lluís

Boris Belay · November 19, 2005

Hi, I tink a big distinction must be made between the video-lenses made today for the contemporary market (ie, mostly surveillance camera bits of glass/plastic (and cheap) and a few higher-quality lenses for 3CCD or High-Precision B&W medical imagery cameras), and the 'TV Lenses' made in the 70's when video was only beginning to take a hold and which are much closer to cine lenses. For instance, I have a nice Canon 'TV-16' that was obviously made for the TV-news market but is still for 16mm. film.

So, I'd say : stay away from anything that was made for video since the 80's (either video-specific or awful) and proceed with caution with lenses from the 70's, which were progressively moving away from their film-origin. The best one of those include the Canon, the Cosmicar/Pentax, and perhaps the Sony (zooms made by Tamron, I believe), and they can be recognized by their construction (metal, traditional film-lens layout, no motors on zooms...). Given that some of these reputable-brand 70's lenses are very cheap, they may be worth a try... besides the price of wasted film !

Perhaps the one exception of current lens manufacturer to be trusted with new lenses is Schneider Kreuznach : their Cinegon line should still be fine, especially their primes, so long as they're specified for 2/3" or larger. I recently picked up an Angénieux 50/1;0,95 for next to nothing, but it's no use : purely CCTV-oriented.

With respect to super-wide angle lenses, you're pretty much out of luck since the technology was still so cutting-edge in the good-ol'-days of 16mm. film that film-specific lenses this wide are extremely rare and equally expensive... On the other hand, given how practical these fields of view are for CCTV, you're going to see a lot of cheap plastic that would put an Kern/Zeiss Aspheron 6mm. to shame on paper... but certainly not on film !

As for the Bolex Reflex issue, it's a different beast altogether. If you need more info on it, I recently posted a detailed answer on specific brands in this thread (and the theoretical part is well-documented all over this board) :

http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/in...showtopic=10117

-Boris