how to tell if an arri mount lens is for 16mm or 35mm film

Al gorman · July 23, 2015

Hi All.

Just wondered if anyone could help me identify which film format a few carl zeiss lenses suit.

Please see following links.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Arri-Arriflex-12Mm-Carl-Zeiss-Distagon-T-/321810889772?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_15&hash=item4aed6c7c2c

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Arri-Arriflex-16mm-Carl-Zeiss-Distagon-T-Lens-/321810886364?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_15&hash=item4aed6c6edc

I have tried my best to find the info online however there does seem to be some conflicting info out there.

Any assistance offered would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Al

Mark Dunn · July 23, 2015

Both of those would be very wide on 35mm. so I'm guessing not but there will be a better answer.

If there's a definitive way to tell just by looking I'd like to know it.

Edited July 23, 2015 by Mark Dunn

Al gorman · July 23, 2015

Hi mark

Thanks for your response. I am under the impression that the 12mm lens is defiantly for 16mm super as it wouldn't throw a large enough circle of light for 35mm film? However I have been told that the 16mm lens can be used in both 16mm and 35mm airriflex cameras. I am a bit concerned by this as I thought it may interfere with mirror mechanism on the 35mm models. Any thoughts?

Haris Mlivic · July 23, 2015

My guess is that both of them only cover 16mm, since there are no cinema-lenses at 12mm or 16mm at the T-stop of T1.3 that cover 35mm except the Master Primes (that I know of). There might be exceptions to this, but considering the price its unlikely that they would cover more than 16mm.

Dan Muchnik · July 23, 2015

100% 16mm coverage. I may be mistaken, but I believe the PL lens mount is exactly the same for 35 and 16. Someone please correct me if not. The problem would not be the mount, but rather the circle of coverage that the lenses provide. Even if the 16mm lens barealy covered 35 (and it's not uncommon for lenses designed for a smaller format to have significant extra coverage) it would still be pushing the limits and you would have very noticable vignetting. Essentially, the corners of the image would show significantly poor quality, and the image would not match with lenses designed for 35. That said, you could use that to your advantage! I would be very curious personally how these lesnses look on a larger format. Anybody know of a test?