Category Archives: Reviews

INDUSTAR 50-2 50mm F3.5 Pancake Lens Review

Industar 50mm F3.5 Review

Industar 50-2 is the lens that I meant to buy a long time ago. A lot of photographers and cinematographers around already have one of these and that got me wondering what all the fuss is about. The first thing that you notice about this lens is its tiny size and yet it will work… Continue Reading

Kinoptik Tegea 5.7mm F1.8 / T2 Review | Ultra-Wide Super16 Lens

Kinoptik Tegea 5.7mm F1.8 Review

Kinoptik Tegea 5.7mm F1.8 / T2 is a very unique lens. It’s the widest non-fisheye lens that covers Super16 and while not many people use Super16 film cameras nowadays, this lens is still very usable on a number of modern cameras including BMPCC & Digital Bolex as well as a growing number of cameras with… Continue Reading

PROSKAR-16 Anamorphic Lens Review

PROSKAR-16 Anamorphic Lens Review

Over the last few years I’ve been slowly learning about and collecting various anamorphic lenses. Now that I’ve tried quite a few and understand them quite well, I’m ready to present you my first (of many) anamorphic lens review. I don’t claim to be an anamorphic lens expert and as always, my review is based… Continue Reading

Tarmon Adaptall-2 28mm F2.5 REVIEW

Tarmon Adaptall-2 28mm F2.5

28mm lenses are some of the most affordable vintage lenses that one can buy.  Almost every manufacturer made them, sometimes in multiple versions. Today I will be talking about the 28mm lens that I’ve been using the most myself, not that I think it’s the best out there, but you will soon understand why it… Continue Reading

ILLUMINA (LOMO) Super35 High Speed Cine Lenses

ILLUMINA (LOMO) Super35 High Speed Cine Lenses

A fellow filmmaker & my go to guy when it comes to info on Russian lenses, Tomasz Wolski aka Film Cyfeowy has recently written a wonderful article for the Polish Filammking Magazine “FilmPro” (check out their Website & Facebook). The article is about Illumina MK-II Cine lenses from LOMO, a legendary producer of film cameras… Continue Reading

Carl Zeiss Superspeed (S16) MKI 16mm F1.2 / T1.3

Carl Zeiss Superspeed (S16) MKI 16mm

My closer look at the Carl Zeiss Superspeed Super16 Cine Lenses continues with the Distagon 16mm T1.3 (F1.2) MKI. You might have seen my previous post about the 9.5mm and 12mm. If so a lot of what I’ll say later in this post might be familiar to you. Compatibility: Like a said already, this is… Continue Reading

Canon FD 50mm F1.4 In-Depth Review

Canon FD 50mm F1.4 In-Depth Review

In this review I’ll be taking a closer look at my current 50mm lens of choice, the Canon FD 50 1.4. I’ve been using this lens for most of my shoots for over 6 months now and I decided that it’s finally time to share my thoughts about it. Due to their incapability with Canon… Continue Reading

Angenieux 17-68mm F2.2 for BMPCC & D16 | REVIEW

Angenieux 17-68mm F2.2 for BMPCC & D16 | REVIEW

Ever since I bought the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera I’ve been very keen to try out some vintage lenses from old s16/16mm video cameras. My opportunity came when I bought a 16mm camera which came with the Angenieux 17-68mm lens. Many of you will know that Angenieux is a legendary brand. They’ve been making cine… Continue Reading

Carl Zeiss Superspeed (S16) MKI 9.5mm & 12mm T1.3

Zeiss MKI 9.5mm & 12mm T1.3

After spending quite a bit of money collecting and servicing a set of Carl Zeiss Superspeed MKI Super16 primes, I’m very pleased to share my thoughts and some footage I shot with them on my recent short film. In this blog post we’ll take a closer look at the 9.5mm and 12mm as these wider… Continue Reading

Samyang 85mm F1.4 REVIEW

Samyang 85mm F1.4 REVIEW

  While the Samyang 85mm is not a vintage lens, it definitely deserves a place on this website as somewhat of a bridge lens between the solid, manual vintage lenses & modern optics. It has almost all the features I like in vintage lenses and also has the sophisticated optics found in high-end modern lenses.… Continue Reading