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:

• CinemaTechnic – Optics for Super-16
• Review of 14 lenses for Super-16 at showreel.com

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.