A TRUE UNICORN! Quite possibly the RAREST, coolest vintage Cinema Zoom you've NEVER seen: Communist Chinese S35 18-180mm/3.2

[James Coleman Rogers]

I know it's probably a long shot, but...does ANYBODY here know ANYTHING about this thing?

I have scoured the internet, including Chinese sites, as best I can...there is next to nothing.

As I understand it, the modern Chinese government would prefer people not know such things even exist....they want people thinking that China was not capable of highly advanced industrial achievments until AFTER the so-called "economic reforms" of the ~80's+.

Obviously...they were indeed capable. Everything I can find dates this lens to somewhere in 1979 to 1983.  They studied English, French and German cinema lenses and glass in their efforts.

Obviously by that serial number...not very many of these were made. I cannot find another example literally ANYWHERE.

No rental houses...western hemisphere OR in the east. Truly...a Unicorn.

It is on the way back to me from being refreshed and modernized with PL and gears, and will be available for rental to appropriate customers/projects VERY soon...along with a matching prime lens (50mm T2, exact same coating), for low light or handheld/stabilizer use.

I wonder which films this was used on? I suspect every major Mainland-Chinese production made since the late 70s likely used this zoom, until trade began to open up and use of western cine equipment became more prevalent in China.

Think "Raise the Red Lantern", "Farewell My Concubine", etc...not to mention the many martial arts films of earlier years.

Anyway...I hope someone can tell me more about this wonderful piece of history, and I hope to see it put back to use very soon on some cool projects!! ....Would love to see this put to use on a period martial-arts feature for example...

 

Edited August 28, 2020 by James Coleman Rogers
spelling correction

[Jack Jin]

Actually Mainland China back then also had quite a lot of western gear in their arsenal, arriflexes and western lenses. I'm sure that this lens was used on something, but from what I heard from the older peeps, even before the reform they were mostly using either western or a bit of russian cameras or lenses. I mean the Chinese government would rather show off the ingenuity and the manufacturing prowess of the chinese people even on limited resources, like their hongchi brand of cars and their nuclear program that were made way back in the 50-60s era. So the whole thing about purposefully hiding doesn't make sense. But this is a cool looking lens nonetheless. 

[James Coleman Rogers]

Thank you, cool insight. That claim (about modern gov wanting this pushed away in favor of modern stuff post-reform) was "lore" of sorts passed around in the very few discussions i could find mentioning lenses from same era.

11 minutes ago, Jack Jin said:

Actually Mainland China back then also had quite a lot of western gear in their arsenal, arriflexes and western lenses. I'm sure that this lens was used on something, but from what I heard from the older peeps, even before the reform they were mostly using either western or a bit of russian cameras or lenses. I mean the Chinese government would rather show off the ingenuity and the manufacturing prowess of the chinese people even on limited resources, like their hongchi brand of cars and their nuclear program that were made way back in the 50-60s era. So the whole thing about purposefully hiding doesn't make sense. But this is a cool looking lens nonetheless. 

 

Edited August 28, 2020 by James Coleman Rogers

[Dom Jaeger]

Interesting lens.. I found a collector’s page that has a list of cine lenses made by Beijing No 608 optical factory which includes this lens:

http://www.novacon.com.br/odditycameras/chinese 009.htm
 

Nothing about the timeline though. I’m a little sceptical this was made back in the late 70s/early 80s, simply because no other lens manufacturer in the world was able to make a 35mm cine zoom with this range and speed at that time. There were 10x zooms, but 25mm was the widest end. Angenieux had released their first 25-250 back in the early 60s (not a particularly great lens), their improved HR version came out in 1985 but was slower and ramped from f/3.2 to f/4. Cooke only introduced their first 25-250 in the late 70s, with an improved, slower version in the 80s. Wider zooms, like Cooke’s 20-100 or Lomo’s 20-120 had to substantially reduce the range to go wider. The Cooke 18-100 extended the previous 20-100 by only a few mm in 1988.

The most likely provenance for Chinese branded cine lenses would be Soviet, who inherited much of their optical expertise from Zeiss after WW2. But as far as I know, the widest zoom Lomo made was the 20-120, from the early 70s through a few iterations to the 80s.

So the idea that China, with virtually no history of a photographic industry, could produce a parfocal 18-180 f/3.2 with no ramping in the late 70s seems amazing to me. I imagine the quality will be pretty ordinary.

[James Coleman Rogers]

25 minutes ago, Dom Jaeger said:

Interesting lens.. I found a collector’s page that has a list of cine lenses made by Beijing No 608 optical factory which includes this lens:

http://www.novacon.com.br/odditycameras/chinese 009.htm
 

Nothing about the timeline though. I’m a little sceptical this was made back in the late 70s/early 80s, simply because no other lens manufacturer in the world was able to make a 35mm cine zoom with this range and speed at that time. There were 10x zooms, but 25mm was the widest end. Angenieux had released their first 25-250 back in the early 60s (not a particularly great lens), their improved HR version came out in 1985 but was slower and ramped from f/3.2 to f/4. Cooke only introduced their first 25-250 in the late 70s, with an improved, slower version in the 80s. Wider zooms, like Cooke’s 20-100 or Lomo’s 20-120 had to substantially reduce the range to go wider. The Cooke 18-100 extended the previous 20-100 by only a few mm in 1988.

The most likely provenance for Chinese branded cine lenses would be Soviet, who inherited much of their optical expertise from Zeiss after WW2. But as far as I know, the widest zoom Lomo made was the 20-120, from the early 70s through a few iterations to the 80s.

So the idea that China, with virtually no history of a photographic industry, could produce a parfocal 18-180 f/3.2 with no ramping in the late 70s seems amazing to me. I imagine the quality will be pretty ordinary.

They were lent engineers and machinery etc. from Zeiss Jena according to some other bits of lore I could find.

Interesting and fair point on the dating. I was basing that date range on the fact that the vast majority of factory 608's other lenses are from that period...but those are primes.

It seems that this factory actually continued on into the early 2000's (no longer around), so your thought that this could perhaps be a decade or so newer than my original guess has merit.

Regarding performance...I'm excited to see.

Anecdotal evidence from collectors seems to actually place performance on par with period products from the west...remember this was a "halo" top-tier item. it was about a technological achievment/feat, not about sales or bottom dollar etc.  I imagine if the Soviets did it (their 20-120mm is looked upon as a rather decent vintage performer based upon an improved Cooke 20-100 design, IIRC), Lomos being as loved as they are, then the Chinese certainly have a decent chance here, having likely ripped many important design elements from experience manufacturers.

Word is they also purchased the actual glass elements used in their high end cine lenses, from Western mfr's.

We'll know next week or so...I'll be posting results of tests as soon as the lens arrives back from Optitek.

Edited August 29, 2020 by James Coleman Rogers

[Dom Jaeger]

Sure, let us know the results of your tests.

It’s worth remembering that even now there are no cine zooms with such a range and speed. Anything that goes as wide as 18mm and covers S35 tends to be a short range zoom, so this Chinese zoom will have some fairly noticeable compromises.

I very much doubt it was used on Chinese features like Raise the Red Lantern. It wouldn’t have been too hard to get hold of Western equipment, and if you look at pictures from the Shanghai Film Museum, there are a range of 35mm cameras like Arriflex 2Cs, 35BLs and 535s on display, as well as earlier cameras like a Newall (UK) with Cooke Speed Panchros. 

 

[James Coleman Rogers]

Any idea what these here might be? I have zero experience with film machinery like this, before my time...

Only photo I could find from set of Farewell My Concubine showing cameras upon a quick search.

The presence of all those western faces would certainly fit with what youre saying.

Edited August 29, 2020 by James Coleman Rogers

[Satsuki Murashige]

Those appear to be Panavision Panaflex cameras. So that means Panavision lenses as well.

[Jon O'Brien]

I'm not a pro cinematographer, but those fluid heads look like pretty recent ones. In earlier times they'd often have been geared heads possibly? So maybe a fairly recent photo? Yes looks like a 'standard' Panavision 35mm anamorphic set up.

[Dom Jaeger]

3 hours ago, James Coleman Rogers said:

Any idea what these here might be? I have zero experience with film machinery like this, before my time...

Only photo I could find from set of Farewell My Concubine showing cameras upon a quick search.

The presence of all those western faces would certainly fit with what youre saying.

Jon is correct. I really doubt that photo is actually from the set of Farewell My Concubine. As well as the modern O'Connor heads, Panavision rental in China wasn't available until well into the 2000s, and it's unlikely all the operators were Western. That looks like a far bigger production.

A quick look at a couple of behind the scenes videos on YouTube shows the cameras looking more like Arriflex 535s:

Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet from around the same time did use Panavision, but that was a Taiwanese production that shot in America.

 

 

[Marcel Zyskind]

6 hours ago, James Coleman Rogers said:

Any idea what these here might be? I have zero experience with film machinery like this, before my time...

Only photo I could find from set of Farewell My Concubine showing cameras upon a quick search.

The presence of all those western faces would certainly fit with what youre saying.

For some reason I believe this photo is from Broken Arrow. I seem to recall it from an AC magazine, but I could be wrong.

Edited August 29, 2020 by Marcel Zyskind

[James Coleman Rogers]

50 minutes ago, Marcel Zyskind said:

For some reason I believe this photo is from Broken Arrow. I seem to recall it from an AC magazine, but I could be wrong.

You're likely right and the labeling on the site i found it are wrong. heres where it came from:

https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/concubine-kaige.html

[James Coleman Rogers]

First pic of the beauty, fully restored and modernized!

Work done by Jacek @ Optitek. Should be back in my hands soon, test will follow the day it arrives!

[Jannik Tesch]

Any updates on this lens?
Do you have test footage that you can share with us?
Any experiences with it in a production environment?

Thanks in advance!

Jannik