Do Lenses Really Make A Difference?

[Osi Osgood]

If I am bringing up something ad nauseum, I apologise, but I am genuinely curious. The question is, do some lenses actually make your films look better than others? In other words, do some lenses make your films actually look sharper, or give you the most out of your prints, than other lenses and, if so ... which? Don't get me wrong, you can't get more sharpness out of any print, but do some lenses actually let us down? Which are best? Which are worst?

[Rob Young]

I remember as a very fortunate teenager moving from my trusty Chinon SP-350 with it's own brand 15mm lens to my Elmo ST100HD with a Schneider Xenovaron 11mm lens.

Obviously the dramatic improvement was the image size over the same throw, but what I always remember as being more impressive was the improvement in colours on the screen. Suddenly reds and oranges were really rich and blues were deep.

There was nothing disappointing about the Chinon lens as such, until you saw the same print using the Xenovaron. So the better glass in the Xenovaron definitely made a huge difference.

[Melvin England]

Absolutely YES. Different lenses CAN improve a print.

I have several Sankyo's (700's 702's 800's) and the equivalent Bell and Howell "D" range. I am sure many would agree that the Sankyo's are a very good reliable workhorse of a machine. The lenses they are fitted with, I feel, are just..... okay. They do the job and that is that.
Moving on to my GS1200 using their Elmo Zoom Lens Super F1:1, you can see just how only okay the Sankyo lens really is. The print simply dazzles, whatever it is. I have yet to experience a Sankyo using the hi spec. Hi Pro lens which, I expect, would be a perfect match for these mid range machines.

Another lens that impresses me if the Eumig Vario-Eupronet F1:3 which I used with a Eumig machine before it deteriorated. I remember watching a home movie of a big close up of someone cutting a tomato with all the juice running out. It simply made you slaver !

Another theory I have regarding the feel of the prints, is the focal distance at which you are projecting the film. Usually I am set up to project the largest picture in the shortest distance. I once put on a show to either Scunthorpe or Grimsby cine club and the set up they had gave me a very rare opportunity to throw the picture almost as far as possible, I was that far from the screen. Films I had seen time and time again just looked and felt..... different. I don't know whether the smaller refraction of the image through the lens does have an effect, but it was almost like watching them for the first time.

Maybe that one is for the scientifically minded to comment on.....

[Brian Fretwell]

I think it is more that some lenses make your films look worse. The old formula for working out the lines per mm still holds. If the lens has lower resolving power or is not completely clean the contrast will be lowered in fine detail to below that which the eye can detect the difference so the detail will be lost to the viewer. A complete blackout of the screening room helps too.

[Alexander Vandeputte]

Indeed, it is not only a question of resolving power: sharpness, but also of contrast, the absence of chromatic abberations, etc...
Differences between lenses can be day and night.
A good (and clean) lens is crucial and will bring the most out of your prints.

[Osi Osgood]

I hadn't actually thought about how lenses can affect the "reproduction" of color on the big screen. That is a fascinating element of this topic. Could someone elaborate?

[Janice Glesser]

Osi... I'm not an expert on lenses but just visually I find that a prime lens is sharper and clearer than a zoom lens. I find this to be true in my bolex lenses. I have a prime and a zoom lens. The zoom lens is excellent however the prime is noticeably better. This also seems to hold true on my 16mm lenses. That said I think the advantages of a zoom lens sometimes outweighs a slightly sharper image.

[Tom Dennis]

Whist this conversation is about projection, in the 70`s I went to the EUMIG factory as part of a dealer trip. One thing I do recall is that in the camera production section it was interesting to see the lens grinding/assembly quite automated. Whilst watching the processes the guide informed us that the blooming[coating] of the lenses varied as to where the cameras were bound.

They had three coatings, Europe, the Americas and Aisa.

The other thing I recall now is how expensive [to us Brits] Vienna was and getting our legs lifted [scammed] in standard tourist night out fashion!!!



Regards Tom

[Osi Osgood]

That's fascinating! Eumig ground they're own lenses! Did every company do so? ELMO? Chinon? Ect.

[Melvin England]

They had three coatings, Europe, the Americas and Aisa.

What was the difference ? Were they selling an inferior product in one region and not another ?

[Tom Dennis]

Hello OSI Not sure about other manufacturers but I remember that what it said on the front of a lens [re name] meant quite often nothing. We would often be shown a product which we knew as something else. It was very funny sometimes when a customer told us that product ABC was better than product XYZ when they were identical products. We just did not let on.

Hello Melvyn, Absolutely not. According to what we were told different areas perceived the colour hue differently. So one was slightly warmer and one was slightly colder relative to the neutral one.
The difference was of course minute and I do not know what film stock this was based on.

[Paul Adsett]

Great super 8 Film projection quality is all in the glass Osi! I totally agree with Janice, that for top quality projection a prime (non-zoom) lens will give the very best results (same for the camera too!). Zoom lenses are very convenient, but they increase light scatter, which lowers contrast and screen brightness, plus they are not as sharp as a prime lens. I can really tell the difference between film shot on my Bolex with a prime lens, and with a zoom lens. I use the Kodak Ektar 22mm f1.0 prime lens on all my Eumig projectors, it is so much better than any of the Eumig zoom lenses that I have. On the Elmo's I use the Elmo f1.0 zoom lens exclusively, (only because the Ektar won't work with Elmo's), it is an all glass lens, very sharp for a zoom lens. Glass lenses are much superior to plastic lenses. And prime lenses really bring out the stunning colors that you can get with super 8 film.
To sum up the quality of the camera or projection lens is everything in super 8. It can literally be like night and day.

[John Burgess]

Osi, I agree with Janice a quality prime lens will always give a brighter and sharper screen images than a zoom, the more glass the light has to pass through tends to dull the image, of course a decent print helps.
John

[Shane C. Collins]

I agree with Janice those Bolex prime lenses are stunning! I have one fitted to an Elmo FP8-C and the results are excellent! Recently I purchased a Eumig Mark S Super 8 projector from 1965. I restored the projector to like new condition. What I wasn't expecting was how good the Eumig 1.4 zoom lens looked on screen. It seemed to make my home movies look sharper and the colors also looked nicer. And these are movies I shot in the last few years on Ektachrome 100D color reversal. It's probably the nicest zoom lens I've used to date. My impression is Eumig used good quality glass in an all metal casing.

[Osi Osgood]

OK, a clarification. When we are speaking of"zoom" lenses, are those lenses that you can change the size of the projected image, without moving the projector? I am assuming so, but I want to know for sure. If this is so, then it would seem that these high end ELMO's and Eumigs that I have, (GS1200 and Eumig 926) actually have an inferior lense to cheaper model projectors that have the "prime" lenses?