Lens look for Red Scarlet

[Mario Bosanac]

I am using a Red Scarlet and am looking for a Lens set that has a gritty look (maybe uncoated) but also not so sharp and crisp. I prefer a lens a little on the warmer side. Suggestions?

Able to have lenses for a PL or EF mount.

[David Mullen ASC]

Cooke Pancros maybe.

[Satsuki Murashige]

What do you mean by gritty? Uncoated or vintage coated lenses would have more distortion around the edges, funky bokeh, uneven field illumination, aberrations, lower contrast, and more veiling glare. These lenses shot wide open will be often be quite soft and misty, almost like a modern lens with a Promist filter.

 

Older cinema lenses, sometimes rehoused to PL:

 

Schneider Cine-Xenons (not the new ones)

Bausch & Lomb Super Baltars

Cooke Speed Panchros

Kowa Sphericals

Canon K35s

Lomo Sphericals (Soviet era)

Zeiss Standard Speeds

Zeiss Super Speeds

 

And then there is the whole world of stills lenses. Too many to list. Some popular vintage glass adaptable to EF: Leica R, Pentax Super Takumar, Zeiss Contax, Minolta Rokkor, Helios 44.

[David Mullen ASC]

"Gritty" is an odd word to describe a lens characteristic -- I tend to think of a gritty image as sharp, harsh/contrasty, and grainy.

[Satsuki Murashige]

"Gritty" is an odd word to describe a lens characteristic -- I tend to think of a gritty image as sharp, harsh/contrasty, and grainy.

I agree. To me, it suggests coarse texture, micro-contrast, loud, unpretty, or monochromatic colors, a sense of imperfect realism. Like underexposed and push processed film, bleach bypass process, hot overexposed light sources, deep shadows, unconventional camera angles and movement. It makes me think of harsh locations, under-lighting, deliberate mis-exposure, and an informal camera style, rather than optics.