Panavision Primo Lens comp??

[Max Field]

Hey all,

In the last couple years I've been seeing the Panavision Primo Prime lenses come up for the technical credits of a lot of movies I watched back in the day. Was trying to get more info on them since they look incredible from the tests I've seen.

There are many pieces of gear which get "Panavised" (Panavision Genesis is Sony F35 for example) and I was wondering if these lenses had a counterpart I was not familiar with which can be found on the used cinema lens market? Or if anyone knew of a prime set with very similar look and philosophy to the Panavision Primos?

Would @Dom Jaegerbe the expert on this one?

Thanks to anyone who can share their thoughts on this as always.

[David Mullen ASC]

I would guess that since Primos use Leitz glass that the closest comparable lenses would be Leica Summilux-C lenses though the Summilux-C's are faster, lighter, and more modern design, maybe a bit cleaner-looking. Otherwise I'd probably use Cooke S4's or Zeiss Ultra Primes in terms of a similar T2 prime lens - the Primos came out in the late 80's so those two alternatives are the next generation of prime lenses that hit the market a decade later.  I'm not familiar with other options that came from the still camera world that might be a good match to Primos, like Voitlanders, Leica-R's, etc.

Put it another way, if I were an an ARRI show and rental house, I'd probably rent Zeiss Ultra Primes if I wanted to work in a similar manner as a Panavision show using Primos.

Dom Jaeger could answer this better than myself...

[Dom Jaeger]

19 hours ago, David Mullen ASC said:

Dom Jaeger could answer this better than myself...

I really doubt that David, particularly since I recall you’ve shot at least a few seasons of tv drama using Primos, so you know the look very well. I try to look at client camera tests as much as I can, but I mainly just look at lens projections, looking for aberrations and faults or checking focus marks, which doesn’t necessarily tell you how a lens looks on a camera. I can certainly tell you what they look like in pieces!

But to answer the question, given the Leitz connection, I would maybe look at Leica Rs if I wanted a cheaper stills lens series that was close to the Primo look. Primos were not “Panavised” Leicas, however.  They were a completely new, independently designed lens series that used Leitz Canada for the glass. Having pulled both Leica Rs and Primos apart, I can say the Primos are considerably more complex and precise designs, with many more elements. 

[Michael Lindsay]

to try to slightly augment what Dom and David have said... 

Ian Neil was the lead optical designer of both the Leitz SUMMILUX-C cine primes series and the PV Primo project... and one of the stated (if I remember correctly) design objectives of the SUMMILUX-C's was to inherit the best of the Primo look. (it may have been more of a marketing claim) 

Perhaps digging out some old Ian Neil interviews would help you understand the philosophy?

However you may want to furnish this list with what you like about what you see in the primo films you like ... so to get the most accurate 'other lens' recommends. I would assume that you like the modern, ca clean, easy going, smoothish look... but that is perhaps just my specific subjective prejudice. Even naming a few of the films might help.

I am sure you have thought about this but lots of people use diffusion with clean glass... Especially 'back in the day' with Primos... 

PS I am a bit of a boreing lens geek so a director friend of mine a while back was so excited to tell me he had finally worked out what lenses he really liked the look of. It was SUMMILUX-C and his evidence was that he has just watched Stranger things and Mindhunter. He then listed a few post faux optical effects that had nothing to do with the intrinsic look of the lenses... not his fault of course.. 

[Jarin Blaschke]

My tests say Summilux is the closest, although the Primos have more pleasing bokeh in my opinion (Sasaki blames Summilux’s aspheric elements for this). At least on celluloid, performance is very similar : primo is more even performance, while summilux has extra performance in the very center.

 

Cooke S4s have chromatic aberration, splitting green/magenta at high contrast edges. Master Primes have flat highlights and less “dimensionality” on film, but could be an asset for digital formats - I haven’t done a digital comparison. I like Leitz Rs a lot, but they are visibly softer in contrast than Primos and I consider them a different look.

 

J 

[M Joel W]

Do the Primos have no aspherical elements? The Cooke S8s might be the closest match.

The S4 split green/magenta CA doesn't bother me that much (it seems to be a big issue with K35s too) but the S8s seem like the first lenses since the Primos that have the apochromatic color of say Cooke S2s or whatnot but without the nisen bokeh harshness or onion bokeh of aspherical designs.

The Cooke 20-60mm zoom is also quite beautiful.

Edited March 29, 2022 by M Joel W

[Michael Lindsay]

4 hours ago, M Joel W said:

Quote

Do the Primos have no aspherical elements? The Cooke S8s might be the closest match.

I thought the Primo's had the odd aspheric element.. but I def could be wrong as I have never even shot with them. Maybe not having them is why they where so big?

The Cooke S8 are also an Ian Neil design but from my understanding a very different design brief.  For example even performance of axis was def not in design brief.. 

Quote

or whatnot but without the nisen bokeh harshness or onion bokeh of aspherical designs.

Nisen bokeh..? do you mean the bokah that has a hard bright edge to the outside of a defocused point source? If yes I think this is from the over correction of spherical aberration and def not intrinsic to aspherical elements... 

The onion bokah is of course from ground aspherical elements but nowadays there are other ways to make aspheric elements (Signature primes for example) which don't have this artefact.. 

I really am not a fan of the onion bokah but I also accept normally people (the people that mater) never really notice it.. ? Also a never ever mentioned fact is the grinding of the aspherical elements (like Anamorphic cylinders) is the cause of the rainbow flares I do happen to like... so hey there is no perfect lens.. 

Michael 

Edited March 29, 2022 by Michael Lindsay

[M Joel W]

7 hours ago, Michael Lindsay said:

I thought the Primo's had the odd aspheric element.. but I def could be wrong as I have never even shot with them. Maybe not having them is why they where so big?

The Cooke S8 are also an Ian Neil design but from my understanding a very different design brief.  For example even performance of axis was def not in design brief.. 

Nisen bokeh..? do you mean the bokah that has a hard bright edge to the outside of a defocused point source? If yes I think this is from the over correction of spherical aberration and def not intrinsic to aspherical elements... 

The onion bokah is of course from ground aspherical elements but nowadays there are other ways to make aspheric elements (Signature primes for example) which don't have this artefact.. 

I really am not a fan of the onion bokah but I also accept normally people (the people that mater) never really notice it.. ? Also a never ever mentioned fact is the grinding of the aspherical elements (like Anamorphic cylinders) is the cause of the rainbow flares I do happen to like... so hey there is no perfect lens.. 

Michael 

Oh, interesting. This is way over my head. What I meant is this kind of look from an image Dom posted, from the Cooke S2s:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IqwJOAAj7J8/UmDizrc4LXI/AAAAAAAAAn4/3AHWpx9-nYo/s1600/Pan+D+LO.jpg

Where the color of the bokeh is really clean, but the outlines are overcorrected for spherical aberration.

Compared with the K35s, which do have onion bokeh but also have a "smoother" bokeh but with magenta/green fringing?

What is that called? Is it axial or lateral CA? Anyway I notice the K35s I think have green/magenta fringing whereas Super Baltars I think are more blue/yellow? At the very least I was comparing an old 35mm f1.4 Minolta design with the 35mm f1.4 Nikkor AIS and the Minolta had green/purple color fringing and the Nikon was blue/yellow. I assume an Otus or something would be clean.

What lenses has Ian Neil designed? A bit embarrassed this is the first I've heard of him. 

[Michael Lindsay]

Quote

 

Oh, interesting. This is way over my head. What I meant is this kind of look from an image Dom posted, from the Cooke S2s:

 

yes I think that is nisen and I believe, like you,  it it the product of 'over' correction of spherical aberration.. 

Yes with the K35s colour fringing you are describing one of the consequences of Axial (or Longitudinal) aberration..  the reason different lenses have different fringing colours is not hard to understand but will take me a while to write so let me try find a link to someone smarter at describing these things. (but super simplistically if you have a quick look at a representation the visible spectrum in frequency and imagine you bring Red to focus in-between blue and green what colour would the before and after focus points be ...?)

I have asked a few smart optical guys (inc Ian Neil, a lead optical guy at Arri, and a head guy at Leitz) what does it take to make fast lenses without Axial CA and basically it seems (if I understood the answers correctly;-) ...that if you want very high resolution fast lenses it seems it take a very expensive glass/approach or very particular lens designs that are not always appropriate for all cinema uses.. from what I have seen Otus lenses def are pretty clean but not as clean as Summilux-C, Signature and def not the new Leitz prime... 

As mentioned Ian Neil designed Cooke's new S8... he consults with Cooke in a pretty major way he was heavily involved with their S7s and so I believe their Full frame Anamporhics.. He has loads and loads of Anamorphic patents and many technical Oscars so has been around for a while... 

Cinema is such a niche market that there is really not that many full time designers in this space... 

I am a hobbist at best... and have built up lots of half baked knowledge but I suspect this book is a really good source of cine info 

https://www.cinelensmanual.com 

I have this book https://www.amazon.co.uk/Applied-Photographic-Optics-Optical-Photography/dp/0240515404

which can be useful..  but not a lot of fun.. 

PS what is intrinsic and what is common is very difficult to tease out of an emprical/ anecdotal evidence based approach to lenses.. which is at best all I have... for example it seems that since lenses have got sharper they often demonstrate more axial CA but it may just be that the halation from early designs reduced contrast so much that they de-satured the colours in problem areas (and maybe even mixed the colours back to white a little in the halation)  ? I have no really idea....  But the new S8s are NOT designed to be high resolution and they seem to have less CA than S4s or S7s?

Edited March 30, 2022 by Michael Lindsay

[Michael Lindsay]

Please excuse the badly written post above with all its typos and errors... I have lost the ability to edit it? Is that a thing??

[M Joel W]

Thanks, Michael. No worries. I think the window for editing a post is short, but that all makes sense. 

It's interesting to me that I prefer the green/magenta axial CA I associate with K35s to the blue/yellow axial CA I associate with Super Baltars. I love the texture of Cookes and Kinoptik and Schneider lenses too, which seem to have more "nisen bokeh" but a lot less axial CA. Even Zeiss standard speeds have less CA from what I have seen, if perhaps more than Cooke (with the Super Speeds there seems to be even more).

I've read that Nikon's ED glass reduces axial CA so maybe that is the "expensive glass" they are referring to. 

I like what I have seen from the Signature primes a lot. The Otus line looks amazing with clean color but the bokeh a bit less "smooth?" Oddly, my lens preferences vary between digital capture and film.

Edited March 30, 2022 by M Joel W