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Identifying 16mm Film Lenses


Gerrit Fahr

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Hi All,

I'm going through the lens inventory at my university and I'm struggling to come up with information on these two 16mm film lenses. 

https://imgur.com/a/g4sceWU

What I know is they are Zeiss lenses with a Distagon design and both cover S16. They appear to have originally had B-mounts and were retrofitted to PL. The lens listed "1" seems like a newer cine-designed lens while the other lens "2," appears to have had a cine-mod done. I believe that the first might just be a newer version of the other.

I'm not sure if the Super Speed nomenclature carries over to the S16 film lenses from Zeiss as well, but I have a hunch it might. Does anyone know of a specific name these lenses might have, or of any internal differences between the two?

Thanks!

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Yes these are 16mm format Zeiss Super Speeds, just different generations. Zeiss called them High Speed Primes for 16mm, but most people call them Super Speeds or B Speeds (if they had a Bayonet mount).  The optics are basically the same across generations, but the first versions have a 6 blade iris while later versions have a triangular (Reaulieux) shaped aperture. See:

http://cinematechnic.com/resources/zeiss_super_speed_f1-2_lenses/

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On 1/21/2021 at 5:38 PM, Dom Jaeger said:

Yes these are 16mm format Zeiss Super Speeds, just different generations. Zeiss called them High Speed Primes for 16mm, but most people call them Super Speeds or B Speeds (if they had a Bayonet mount).  The optics are basically the same across generations, but the first versions have a 6 blade iris while later versions have a triangular (Reaulieux) shaped aperture. See:

http://cinematechnic.com/resources/zeiss_super_speed_f1-2_lenses/

Thank you Dom, this was incredibly helpful. I had been using this article from Duclos lenses for our 35mm format super speeds, but I was struggling to find the comparable work written on the 16mm format lenses. 

https://thecinelens.com/2016/08/24/whats-in-a-name-a-guide-to-zeiss-super-speeds/

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