Peter Martin

As far as I know we are the only company offering very wide lenses for 16mm anamorphic origination. Hawk V-Lite16, either 2x or 1.3x squeeze: 14, 18, 24, 28, 35mm all T1.5. One can combine them with the longer Hawk V-Lites (45 to 110mm). Peter Martin Lens Design - Hawk Anamorphic

When calculating anamorphic lenses we work with such numbers. For marketing reasons we would not use them. Just name them 2x or 1.3x. Peter Martin

We launched recently Hawk V-Lite Anamorphics. They are prepared to work as regular (0.5x) or 0.77x anamorphics. The lenses can be ordered with two different cylindrical groups which have the same mechanical dimensions. The rental house can swap them in order to deliver anamorphics as requested by the customer. The groups are positioned in front of the spherical lens as in all other Hawks. One can compare that to a camera where the 4-perf movement is replaced by a 3-perf movement. We call the new 0.77x lenses 3PD (3-perf & Digital). They can be used on 3-perf film cameras, S16mm or 16:9 sensors. Peter Martin

David I do not know any other rule than same DOF with same scale. Shorter lenses even cropped will give more DOF. Peter Martin

David, what you did is to enlarge the 24mm-shot only. This proofs that a 24mm lens has more depth compared to a longer lens. You have to come with the 24mm closer to the glass in order to make the qouted rule working. Try another test photographing the glass in the same scale (48 and 24mm) in relation to the sensor size . The effect should be: identical depth of field but more background visible due to the differnt angle of view of both lenses. Peter Martin Vantage Film - Hawk Lens Design www.vantagefilm.com

DoP Hagen Bogdanski has indeed shot sequences of "The Lives of Others" at stops around T2.5. The achieved shallow depth of field is a typical characteristic for anamorphic capturing. It would be fallen short to calculate the relation between focal length and t-stop down to spherical 35mm. The difference in the aesthetic impression results in the longer focal length and differently designed lenses used to shoot anamorphic. Of course Hawk Lenses can be used wide open. The commonly held opinion "one have to stop down to T4 or 5.6" can actually refer only to lenses of an older design or to anamorphic lenses which are slightly misaligned due to a permanent use for rentals and which are not maintained perfectly. Modern anamorphic lenses from various manufacturers offer very good shooting quality also wide open. Peter Martin Vantage Film - Hawk Anamorphic Lens Design www.vantagefilm.com

We have slightly modified the optical design of the new Hawk V-Plus 40mm/T2.2 lens compared to the V-Series 40mm in order to get the weight down. The weight has been reduced by nearly 1 kg to 5.5 kg. The image quality has been further optimized. Details of the new Hawks will be available on our website by the end of this month. Peter Martin Lens Design - Hawk Anamorphic Vantage Film www.vantagefilm.com

From time to time we subrent a Cooke 14-70mm zoom for our customers. It comes with a set 9 x 9" filters to cover the lens. It is a Cooke in-house modification of the 20-100mm lens, therefore it has a large front element. Peter Martin - Hawk Lens Design Vantage Film www.vantagefilm.com

Yes, it had beed used already on a commercial shot on S4s and the Hawk 10-24mm zoom.

Vantage is introducing a new attachment to create controlled blue horizontal flares - very comparable to the streaks produced by Panavision Primo Anamorphics. It is a sophisticated glass attachment carefully build in Germany and named PV-Effect®. There is a patent pending. It will be available for shooting along with Hawk Anamorphics. More information in September at www.vantagefilm.com/news Peter Martin Lens Design - Hawk Anamorphic

Check www.vantagefilm.com Equipment - Downloads - Vantage 6mm Fisheye Peter

Vantage has designed a set of close focus lenses using leica glass (15, 19, 24, 27, 35, 60, 90, 135, 180mm) They would cover your needs. There are several follow focus systems available that can be mounted on one of the 15mm rods only. Century Precision is making PL-to-PL Extensions. Vantage's rental department has them available. www.vantagefilm.com Peter Martin Vantage Film - Hawk Lens Design

Try the PSU-1. It can simulate playback up to 425 fps and it has a smart user interface - www.vantagefilm.com

Jayson, We are ready when you are! Vantage would be happy to ship the Hawk V-Series 46-230mm/T4 zoom lens or the V-Series 300-900mm/T4 to your favorite rental house for your evaluation. It is wintertime here - so you can expect low rates for a possible rental deal (we do not charge tests anyway). Some of our V-Series Primes are focusing down to 2 feet. The V-Series 120mm/3.5 Super Close Focus prime lens gets its own front element in focus - if you want. All the Hawks are working very well with diopters. We are producing SLIDE DIOPTERS that are covering the wide primes as well. They are fitting in the Arri LMB-4 Matte Box. You can call me at any time for further questions. ;) Please find more information and contact details on our website: www.vantagefilm.com Peter Martin Vantage Film - Hawk Lens Design

Dear Jarin Blaschke, Our rental department would be happy to help you. They are shipping to Romania and they have some old Ultra Scopes as well. The anamorphic version of the Canon K35 Zoom 25-125mm/T2.8 is a lens you should think about. Finally if you want to shoot with Hawks - here you can get the full range! Contact Andreas or Marion - www.vantagefilm.com Peter Martin Hawk Lens Design Vantage Film

The Arriflex 235 magazines are similar to the Arriflex 35-2C 60m mags. Easy to load. Peter Martin www.vantagefilm.com

35mm motion picture is a small business. Cine lenses are produced in small numbers compared to still lenses. Companies like Zeiss are in competition with small specialized optical companies which strive for building the perfect lens set. In the still photo market Zeiss is in competition with bigger manufacturers like Canon and Nikon. These companies produce lenses in much bigger numbers and at lower sales prices. Therefore they have to accept compromises in optical and in mechanical quality in order to allow an economical production. This makes it difficult to compare them to Zeiss lenses where a higher sales price is accepted. And even Zeiss still lenses are often surpassed by Leica glass, which is a much smaller company and the lenses are even more expensive. The relation between image quality and sales price is obvious. Modern cine lenses are built to very high standards and a low sales price is not the main point. Cooke in England for example has a small team of engineers and lens designers. This compact group of highly skilled designers and their close contact to the cinematographers helps them to create the tools which the DoPs would like to have. The concept of the new Cooke products compared to the Zeiss Philosophy is a more pure philosophy. They intentionally renounce the use of different modern technologies like floating elements which have been developed for the correction of certain image defects. The strength of Cooke's decision lies in leaving it out. They are receiving a pure lens with a cutting-edge compromise which leads them to an extremely successful product. They combined the achievement with a very good mechanical design which is extremely important in the motion picture business. The philosophy of Zeiss can be understood as a more scientific and more mathematical one. Their unlimited manufacturing possibility enables them to produce even more complex optics. They use aspheric elements or floating groups straight away with the aim to get a fully corrected lens. Zeiss is doing much harder accepting compromises which are on the one side (in a more mathematical point of view) causing some aberrations but on the other side improving the performance in a field which is possibly more important for motion picture, for example contrast instead of definition (this issue needs another five pages to be discussed). Both ways, the Zeiss and the Cooke way, create very nice products. The cinematographers have to decide which one the use for what. Flairs and softer images are defects often seen in older lenses caused by (at that time) limited technology. But as in this forum already discussed these additional characteristics are very popular. But for any manufacturer today it is nearly impossible to design lens systems which such individualities. You can compare it to cars: it is very nice and inspiring to drive an old high class automobile especially because of the lack of modern technologies, but no manufacturer would produce an old car again. Therefore, seen like that, the new Cooke lenses are more close to Zeiss than the previous sets of the 60's and 70's. Anamorphic lens systems are very popular because they are adding unique characteristics to the shots because of their unique construction. I often read that the anamorphic picture is popular because of its big negative size or the longer focal lengths used which gives a shallow depth of field or the elliptical blurs which arises in the out of focus parts. Or the barrel distortion of the wider anamorphics (a lot of DPs like anamorphic because of that). It is often forgotten that the basic difference between symmetrically (spherical) designed and asymmetrically (anamorphic) designed systems is that the scope lenses capturing images using two focal lengths in one system. A longer focal length for the vertical part of the image and the wider one for the horizontal part (0.5x at 2.40 systems). This leads to pictures with more depth which have more three dimensional character. Unlike the higher definition this character preserves over all generations. It is irrelevant if a film is seen in a theatre on a big screen or on a VHS tape. The closest process in still photography is the use of cameras with lenses rotating around their nodal point while capturing. These still cameras producing photos with a constant vertical focal length and a de facto wider horizontal focal length compared to the more flat results using standard cameras. Today there are no significant differences in performance between anamorphic lenses and spherical ones. Especially because the true anamorphic format is supported by a much larger negative area and therefore a lower magnification factor. The limits in anamorphic production are more the availability of lenses or anamorphic camera accessories, heavier lenses, more cases, ? Peter Martin Lens Design Hawk Anamorphic Vantage Film www.vantagefilm.com

Yes the V40 and V50 have less distortion compared to the C40 and C50. There are no wider Cs than 40mm.

Dear Mitch, We are improving the V-Series 35 and 40mm at the moment. There will be a V-Series 85mm/T2.2 with cfd 2' as well as a V-Series 65mm/T3 Super Close Focus, cfd 1' in September. Some more Vs are in the design process right now. The Cs (our first range) are being build until the end of this year only - after ten years of production and forty sets sold! New small Hawks will follow. There will be a new spherical Hawk Zoom lens as well. I cannot tell you the range right now - but it will be an impressive lens. Thank you for your interest. Peter

Please visit the Vantage Website: www.vantagefilm.com - In the download area you can find depth of field tables for the Hawks. Anamorphics tend to have more depth of field compared to spherical lenses with the same focal length. The quoted focal length of an anamorphic lens stands for the effective vertical focal length only. The horizontal focal length for 2.40 lenses is always 1/2 of the vertical one and it is influencing the depth of field as well. Peter Martin Lens Design Hawk Anamorphic Vantage Film