kern switar vs Kern macro switar

[David Dominguez]

hello,

I have a 10, 16, and 25mm kern switar lenses on my Rex 5 and was wondering if upgrading to Macro switars are worth the extra costs? Is the price difference justified?

I've been shooting on my Bolex quite a lot lately and would love to get the best image possible.

Thanks in advance! 

[Simon Wyss]

There are no macro Switar 10 or 16. The macro Switar 26-1.1 is rightly different from the Switar 25, a new formula. The macro Switar 75 is quite different to the Yvar 75. Macro Yvar 100 and 150 are four glass. In the macro field symmetry and the basic lens design play the more prominent roles than the qualities searched for with longer conjugates. In other words, you don’t need a crazy lens but a lot of light. Impressive macro shots can be had with triplets.

[Dom Jaeger]

While Macro Switars are nice lenses, there is no way in hell they are worth over a thousand dollars each, which is the ridiculous state of affairs we have arrived at these days. When even the Macro Switars for 8mm, unusable on any camera other than a H8RX because of the flange depth difference, are being advertised for 4 or 5 hundred dollars each, you know there’s something really silly going on.

The name Macro Switar just makes eBay sellers drool with greed, and presumably the hoards of mirrorless camera fanatics who desperately want to show off their endless photos of floral close-ups on Instagram don’t realize that spending over a grand on a little C mount lens that wasn’t worth that much new in the 60s is plainly idiotic. Especially considering these lenses were designed to be used with the Bolex prism, so still photographers are paying extra just to add a bit of spherical aberration.

Unfortunately it’s not 16mm filmmakers who are driving up these prices, but that does mean that often a H16 camera fitted with 3 Macro Switars or Yvars will be for sale cheaper than you could buy the lenses alone. But I still don’t think the slight improvement over regular Switars is really worth spending so much money on, unless maybe you were specifically wanting to do a lot of macro work, where these lenses make that a bit easier.

[David Dominguez]

54 minutes ago, Dom Jaeger said:

While Macro Switars are nice lenses, there is no way in hell they are worth over a thousand dollars each, which is the ridiculous state of affairs we have arrived at these days. When even the Macro Switars for 8mm, unusable on any camera other than a H8RX because of the flange depth difference, are being advertised for 4 or 5 hundred dollars each, you know there’s something really silly going on.

The name Macro Switar just makes eBay sellers drool with greed, and presumably the hoards of mirrorless camera fanatics who desperately want to show off their endless photos of floral close-ups on Instagram don’t realize that spending over a grand on a little C mount lens that wasn’t worth that much new in the 60s is plainly idiotic. Especially considering these lenses were designed to be used with the Bolex prism, so still photographers are paying extra just to add a bit of spherical aberration.

Unfortunately it’s not 16mm filmmakers who are driving up these prices, but that does mean that often a H16 camera fitted with 3 Macro Switars or Yvars will be for sale cheaper than you could buy the lenses alone. But I still don’t think the slight improvement over regular Switars is really worth spending so much money on, unless maybe you were specifically wanting to do a lot of macro work, where these lenses make that a bit easier.

haha thanks for the info. Do you have any suggestions on any other lenses or should I just stick to what I have? 

https://imgur.com/a/WK5wxMD

[Dom Jaeger]

If those are RX Switars, and the glass looks clear and the focus is smooth, then I think you’re nearly as good as it gets with a Bolex. If you really want a jump in image quality you probably need to move up to more professional grade gear, like an Arriflex SR3 with PL lenses, but you’re looking at a serious investment there.

Great moving images are usually more about the lighting, the composition and the camera movement than the actual gear, unless you have really distracting issues like unsteadiness, washed out contrast or noticeable softness.