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Robert Elswit on Hasselblad lenses adapted for IMAX format


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So I was reading an old article from Kodak on Mission Impossible: Ghost protocol and they mentioned:

"The IMAX material was shot with the 15-perf IMAX camera, as well as the smaller, lighter 8-perf Iwerks camera for shots involving more camera movement or Steadicam. Hasselblad lenses were used. Elswit gravitated toward wider focal lengths—40mm, 50mm, 60mm and 80mm for IMAX—in order to fill the large-format frame with visual information. “If there is one weak element in IMAX, it’s these 30-year-old lenses,” Elswit notes. “They’re OK, just not great.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20120129035501/http://motion.kodak.com/motion/Publications/In_Camera/Focus_on_Film/missionImpossible.htm

 

I'm guessing he's referring to sharpness here but are old haselblad medium format lenses really not that good in sharpness ?? Or could be be referring to something else ??

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34 minutes ago, John Shell said:

So I was reading an old article from Kodak on Mission Impossible: Ghost protocol and they mentioned:

"The IMAX material was shot with the 15-perf IMAX camera, as well as the smaller, lighter 8-perf Iwerks camera for shots involving more camera movement or Steadicam. Hasselblad lenses were used. Elswit gravitated toward wider focal lengths—40mm, 50mm, 60mm and 80mm for IMAX—in order to fill the large-format frame with visual information. “If there is one weak element in IMAX, it’s these 30-year-old lenses,” Elswit notes. “They’re OK, just not great.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20120129035501/http://motion.kodak.com/motion/Publications/In_Camera/Focus_on_Film/missionImpossible.htm

 

I'm guessing he's referring to sharpness here but are old haselblad medium format lenses really not that good in sharpness ?? Or could be be referring to something else ??

Well, in the world of photography Hasselblad were are good as it got, but the key word is were. That's a 2011 piece so he's probably discussing lenses designed in the 60s and made in the 70s. There was another generation of Zeiss Hasselblad lenses in the 80s with newer coatings- T*- but that's probably as far as they went.

In medium format there never were third-party lenses- you got what the manufacturer provided, Zeiss were the best, but of course the enlargement required in stills photography was much less. So you probably never got to find out how sharp your lenses were- they were sharp enough. I remember once doing a selective enlargement the equivalent of about a 50" print that was still sharp. But today, you'd get better from any DLSR from 20MP up, and from a digital Hasselblad, well, no contest.

Edited by Mark Dunn
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I used the 15p MSM IMAX cameras to photograph INTERSTELLAR. Elswit is right. The Hasselblads for IMAX are rehoused for their bodies and are old optical technology but they got the job done. 
Interestingly enough , Otto Nemenz has teamed up once again with P&S Teknic and have redeveloped Hasselblad glass into what are called the Ottoblad lens series. What makes them different is that they have a rear optical module that allows the user to dial in focus fall off to the edges of frame in different degrees. I’m using them now on my current movie. Beautiful glass. 
G

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/5/2023 at 9:20 PM, Gregory Irwin said:

Otto Nemenz has teamed up once again with P&S Teknic and have redeveloped Hasselblad glass into what are called the Ottoblad lens series. What makes them different is that they have a rear optical module that allows the user to dial in focus fall off to the edges of frame in different degrees. I’m using them now on my current movie. Beautiful glass. 
G

Hi Gregory

Great to hear what you are up to!

Are seeing any focus shift when dialling in the effect? Could you ramp in shot..?

thanks Michael 

PS we played with the idea of rehousing the Nikon 100 and 135 that allow spherical aberration correction to be dialled in and out but the focus changed so we decided not to try.. This could probably be solved but it was complex.. 

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There was a bit of a scandal in the still photography world back in the 90's about the performance of the medium-format Zeiss lenses.

One of the medium-format camera companies (I think Bronica) was looking to sell more of their cameras, and their research showed that the biggest issue stopping advanced amateurs from moving up to medium format was the cost of a set of lenses.

At the time, Bronica, like Hasselblad and Rollei, all used the same exact lenses, all made by Zeiss but sold in different mounts by each manufacturer.

So Bronica contracted with a Japanese manufacturer (Tokina, I think) to build a line of "budget" lenses.

But the thing is that Zeiss had been cruising for years on legacy designs, some of which dated to the 50's. And while I love that beautiful Hassleblad glass, the decades without competition left Zeiss with a design refresh cycle that was...  well, let's just call it a less than enthusiastic

Tokina, on the other hand, started with a clean sheet of paper and the latest optical technology available in the 90s.

Buyers soon noticed that the "budget" lenses were noticeably sharper and contrastier than the (much) more expensive Zeiss-built "professional" lenses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Steve Switaj
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  • 3 weeks later...
On 3/20/2023 at 2:33 AM, Steve Switaj said:
Quote

Buyers soon noticed that the "budget" lenses were noticeably sharper and contrastier than the (much) more expensive Zeiss-built "professional" lenses.

I normally want Zeiss lenses to be  less zingy sharp and with less contrast.. so they sound good to me!

Edited by Michael Lindsay
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