Arri Std Mnt Anamorphics

[Bruce Toscano]

If anyone has any leads on anamorphic lenses in Arri Standard Mounts I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

[Dom Jaeger]

Zeiss made Standard mount anamorphics for the Arri 2C back in the 50s under the name Ultrascope. We have a set at the rental house I work for - they're quite nice really. Sadly they never get used.

 

I believe both Joe Dunton Cameras and Technovision made anamorphics utilising Cookes, some of which might be in Std mount. The Dunton ones were called Crystal Express.

[John Sprung]

Arri also had a front of the lens anamorphic adapter that worked with the regular set of primes back in those days. Not a whole bunch of fun, it was heavy, and you had to keep moving it back and forth.

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Edward Goldner]

Hey Dom,

 

How do the Ultrascopes compare to the Lomos in terms of sharpness?

 

Cheers,

Ed

[Dom Jaeger]

Hi Ed,

 

in their current state the Ultrascope set we have aren't as sharp as properly calibrated Lomos. I think they need some tweaking to get the anamorphic elements exactly aligned, but I've never had the time to do it. Currently they're fine stopped down about 3 stops. But from projecting them they look like with a bit of work they would come up as well if not better than Lomos. They seem to have better contrast wide open, and no edge drop off.

 

They are a bit smaller and lighter than Lomos, and about as fast (f2 on the 40 and 50mm, f2.8 on the 85, f4 on the 135). Because they are square front (front focusing anamorphic) they get the mumps, like square front Lomos (ie the squeeze factor alters slightly depending on the focus distance). That also means they would get strong anamorphic flaring.

 

I'm actually quite curious as to how good they could be. They have the Zeiss build quality, which is superior to Lomo of course.