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Super 16 Compatible Lenses
When a regular 16mm camera is converted to Super-16 the frame size of course becomes wider. Unfortunately not all regular 16mm lenses are capable of covering the entire frame. All lenses have reduced sharpness towards the corners, however Super-16 lenses are designed to produce the sharpest possible corner. Any R-16 lens will technically “work” and produce an image; however, based on the focal length and aperture settings it may cause vignetting and/or soft focus along the edges of the image. The difference between a lens that will “cover” Super-16 and one “designed” for Super-16 is a matter of degree of corner sharpness.
LINKS TO SUPER-16 COMPATIBILITY TESTS:
HOW TO TEST:
Bernie O’Doherty provided the following “poor man’s” tip to check if a lens will cover the Super 16mm frame. Remove the magazine from your camera and attach the lens to be tested. Place a piece of opaque scotch tape over your gate exactly on the film path. Frame up a shot with a good light source so that you can see all the edges of the frame. The piece of tape will function as a little viewing screen and you can see exactly what part of the film is being exposed. Try the lens at all aperature and zoom settings to see if there are any limits. This is obviously not scientifically accurate, however it’s a simple and effective way to see whether vignetting is likely to occur. This is not a replacement for shooting some test footage!
VIEWFINDER VS. APERTURE:
Shooting test footage and/or viewing through the actual aperture at the film plane through a piece of ground glass are the only ways to tell how a lens will perform with Super-16. You cannot accurately judge whether a lens covers Super-16 by what you see through the finder. Slight vignetting through the viewfinder does not necessarily indicate the lens is worthless for Super-16. The aperture receives more image coverage than the viewfinder indicates because the reflex mirror is set back behind the aperture. The viewfinder sees a smaller circle-of-image than at the focal plane of the aperture itself. You should always run a test to see what will actually go onto the film. When shooting your tests, you should be sure to film something where you can accurately analyze the sharpness of the frame edges. (In other words, don’t shoot a head-shot with the background out of focus.)
Because you are pushing R-16 lenses to their limit with Super-16, there’s little room for error during the S-16 conversion of your camera. The viewfinder needs to be moved upwards 1.1mm to center the S-16 image. Your tech should handle this as part of the conversion. Ideally the ground glass should be re-scribed for Super-16 as well. Again, consult your tech. The Regular-16 lenses mentioned below should just manage to cover Super-16 if the lens flange is 100% CENTERED + or – 0.0000 (this exceeds even the tolerance of Super-16, and no Flange Design or camera tech can be faulted if your flange is not this optimum) Use of R-16 lenses is not a part of the S-16 specs.
COMPATIBLE LENSES:
From practical experience it has been found that Zeiss Super-16 B-mount primes work and can be obtained at a reasonable price on ebay. Kern Switar C-mount 16mm lenses also work well (Note that RX type Switar lenses are designed to only work on Bolex Reflex cameras and do not work with Eclair cameras!). Switar prime lenses are fantastically sharp and compare favorably with Zeiss.
Modern 1″ C-mount megapixel CCTV prime lenses (used on lab research, industrial machine vision, factory automation and security) are also a fantastic source of fast, sharp and affordable glass for S-16 use. Some of these lenses are f/0.95 (aperture) fast!!! Such lenses can be found at http://www.jknelectronics.com/lenses.htm
Some people use adapters to shoot with 35mm lenses used on Nikon and Canon cameras. 35mm lenses will cover Super-16, however you should also refer to the page on using 35mm lenses.
PRIME LENSES:
As a general rule, most Regular-16 lenses 25mm and over should cover with no problem at a wide F-stop. HOWEVER, (as with the wider lenses listed below), it is possible that as the aperture of a R-16 lens is stopped down, the image may become ever so slightly darker towards the sides. Run a test at the anticipated shooting F-stop and type of lighting first to make certain that results will be acceptable.
Shorter primes that seem to cover S-16 include:
- Switar 10mm [and higher] (C-mount)
- Zeiss 16mm [and higher] (Arri Mount)
ZOOM LENSES
Most Eclair cameras come with a standard Angenieux 12-120 zoom. In general R-16 zooms are not recommended for Super-16. However, some filmmakers have reported success at longer focal lengths and wider apertures. You should run tests and determine the boundaries of your particular lens before using them on a Super-16 shoot.
Zooms can also be converted by a tech from R-16 to S-16. For example, a Zeiss Regular-16 10-100 can be converted to a Super-16 12-120, with a slight loss in speed. This process can be costly and as such it is not practical for low-end lenses. Check with either Zeiss, or with Century Precision Optics in Burbank, CA. Approximate cost is $2500-$3000. (Les Boscher does this too and costs less). Links to techs are listed on the resources page.
Common zooms that seem to cover S-16 include:
- Angenieux 15-150 T2.1
- Angenieux 17 – 68 zoom (C-mount; Arri-S Mount)
Note that your results vary. Zooms originally made for R-16 may cause vignetting and soft focus at wider aperature settings and focal lengths. You should always run tests at various settings to determine what will work.
If you have any experience shooting Super-16 with other lenses, please leave a comment below and the information will be added to this page.
9 responses to “Super 16 Compatible Lenses”
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A C-mount (C stands for Cine) is a lens mount type commonly found on 16mm cameras, old TV (Video) and CCTV cameras.
C-mount lenses provide a male thread which mates with a female thread on the camera. The thread is nominally 1″ (25 mm) in diameter, with 32 threads per inch. The flange focal distance is 17.526mm (0.6900″) for a C-mount.
1″ C-mount lenses cover the Super16 format.
2/3″ C-mount lenses cover the Regular 16 format, and 1/2″ C-mount lenses cover the Super8/Single-8 format.
They should have Manual focus and iris (preset)! Mostly, the Zooms have gear rings which could be useful for follow-focus systems.
Except Schneider most Japanese lenses (Fujinon, Cosmicar/Pentax, Computar, Kowa, Avenir) and American lenses (Senko, Navitar) are reasonable priced.
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I would like to use my Leice M lenses, like 28, 50 &nd 90mm on my 16mm movie camera B&H, using a C mount adapter. I have 2 questions:
1- Is it worth it?
2- What is the focal value for each lens, i.e.:is the 28 becoming a 14mm?
Tks for your reply and best regards. Pierre-
As far as I know if you get the correct adapter the lenses should work fine. The 28 will still be a 28, the adapter doesn’t change that. The only consideration is that the length of the adapter needs to be correct otherwise you can’t focus to infinity. I would assume that a factory made adapter should be the correct length, but if you try to string together multiple adapters, you would have problems focusing.
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James July 12th, 2010 at 20:07
I have been acquiring a number of C-Mount video lenses for 1″ format to use with my ACL.
All but one of the lenses fit, so far. The one that doesn’t fit has a protruding rear element, like the 25mm f1.4 Switar, that will fit only my non-reflex Bolex.
There is currently available on ebay a Navitar 17mm f/0.95 1″ format lens, but the photos on the auction site seems to show a moderately protruding rear element.
Has anyone tried to use that lens on an ACL, or even on a Beaulieu R16, and found that it will screw down to the camera-flange without having the rear element bottoming-out on the camera’s mirror-baffle at-or-before infinity focus?
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@James I know there are standard C-Mount lenses and then there is another “RX” C-Mount which is made specifically for Bolex RX cameras. The RX lenses do not work on Eclair cameras – they hit the mirror or can’t get infinity focus as you have discovered.
Unfortunately many eBay sellers do not understand this and so it can be difficult to know if the lens is standard or RX unless the seller knows what camera it came from.
I wish I knew which lenses worked as well! Hopefully with this info you can try to ask the seller, though.
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James July 23rd, 2010 at 17:17
Thanks, Jason for your reply.
My Switars are the non-RX type, and all of them, except the 25mm f/1.4, fit the mounts of other 16mm cameras, like the ACL and Beaulieu R16, and clear the mirrors of those cameras.
The depth-clearance of the ACL and R16 from camera-flange to mirror-baffle is approximately 3.6mm, maybe a fraction deeper, while the 25mm Switar requires approx. 4.6mm clearance. My non-RX Bolex easily accomodates that depth from camera-flange to shutter.
(Somehow, the RX Bolex must also accommodate the beam-splitter prism in front of the shutter, and still clear the depth of the RX version of the 25mm Switar — I assume that lens is the same depth as the non-RX lens.)
Anyway, maybe someone among the pro-16mm cinematographers knows how much clearance the 17mm f/.095 Navitar requires. The lens’s combination of speed, ideal focal length and one-inch-format coverage would make it worth having for an ACL converted to Super 16, or Ultra-16. The ebay seller has the lenses on consignment. They are not on his premises, and he cannot measure the depth of their mounts.
Best wishes,
James
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Hi Guys,
I just picked up a Super 16 “Bernie O” ACL on Ebay. I’m looking forward to using it on my horror feature I’m working on.
Question:
1. Is loading the camera really difficult? I’ve got 2, 200 Mags and realize now that I’ll have to use 100 ft in them.
2. Do you have to load in complete darkness? How can you see what your doing?
3. Best film to use for indoor?
4. How is the best way to sync up the sound?
I’m a little nervous about making the switch to Super 16 as this is my first outing into this new world.
Any suggestions, insights, advice are truly appreciated! Thank you!
Rocco
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hey rocco, that’s a lot of good questions. About loading film, check out the “how-to videos” page on this site. There is a video showing how to load film with tricks for the ACL.
As for the best fim for indoor, that is a subjective question because films all have their own technical as well as aesthetic qualities. If you have no idea what to choose, I would suggest Kodak Vision 3 500T for indoors and the Vision 3 250D for outdoors simply because those are going to be forgiving and easy to get a decent exposure.
As for sync sound – just clap a slate like you see in the movies! Then when editing use the sharp clack sound to line up the sound with the video.
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Hi there,
I’m thinking of shooting anamorphic with my ACL2.
Which is the best root to go for it?
Projector lenses? OST/OCT19 adaptor? Lens clamp? Bolex anamorphic?At the moment I don’t have a c-mount to PL-mount adaptor.
Also, what would happen if one day I convert the Eclair to Super16 and I still want to be able shoot anamorphic?
Thanks for your time! Appreciated
(can also email me at info@lucarocchini.com)
Leave a reply
erkan June 9th, 2009 at 15:00