Fastest lens in the West

denishr

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A piece of tech trivia:
I just saw a documentary on Stanley Kubrick on TV, and there was one (technically) interesting detail about lenses: Kubrick used some Zeiss lens, specially designed by Zeiss for NASA: it was f0.7!
Apparently, Kubrick had a special camera customized for the sole purpose of mounting that lens in order to shoot candle-lit scenes of "Barry Lyndon".

I mean, an f 0.7 lens!!!!

And the shots ans scenes filmed with that lens were really amazing (several were shown).
Well, being originally a photographer, Kubrick sure knew what he wanted - and he knew his lens quite well....

More about the lens and the background story:
http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/sk/ac/len/page1.htm

And, BTW, Kubrick was really quite a director...

Denis
 
There are some amazing super-speed optics out there designed for X-Ray machines and old Television cameras. Look at "TV-Heligon" and "XR-Heligon" lenses for example. They have a very short back-focus, but can be adapted to image sensors quite well. They are quite cheap on Ebay.
 
Barry Lyndon was one of those films you really needed to see on a big screen to appreciate.

I do remember the low light scenes, often candlelight.

And who could forget how Kubrick used the Schubert Trio in E flat as a soundtrack?

No one put pictures and music together better than Kubrick.
 
Most reviewers were not kind to "Barry Lyndon" and few people have seen the movie. But it is one of my all-time favorites. Kubrick was a genius.
 
Kubrick was definitely a genius - no doubt about it. Intrigued by yesterday's documentary on him, I did some Web research, and found an extensive FAQ on him... Some extraordinary stuff there.

I also heard of the rumours that Forman asked him about his (apparently patented) Mitchell BNC camera & Zeiss Planar 50/0.7 combo, which he intended to use in shooting "Amadeus", but apparently nothing came of it...

Denis
 
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