I own a few of these lenses unhoused. It's crazy how good they are, especially considering the price. They're pretty unusable on set without being rehoused, especially the helios 40. It's hard to find spherical lenses that have noticeable character, but they really feel unique in a great way. Another set I really love and seem to be overlooked are Mamiya Sekor C's with a focal reducer.
The award winning Poor Things used the petzvals which are easily available. I always wondered why no one used them. Tunable character. I have the biotars - not the old carl ones but the newer Meyer Optik biotars and I love them
I like more the look of the first one. The Ultra Vista Panavision Anamorphic lenses are phenomenal, they should have not changed them. It's strange that two movies that should look the same are filmed on totally different lenses.
15 year ago when I started in filmmaking, I shoot weddings on these original photo lenses. Cause I had no money to buy “normal” lenses. They cost from $20 (helios) to $50 (tair) apiece. Now they suddenly became vintage and expensive. Which once again shows that there is no logic in the world of film technology. Only fashion. Every DOP wants to be different from others in their image and no one cares about the technical quality of the image.
Actually, they didn’t become that much more expensive. In 15 years Helios went up to around $50 and Tair to around $150, so they are still highly affordable. What you are paying here is the rehousing to bring a true cine lens functionality. Not everyone needs that, so this product is only for particular users & this price point is actually on the low side when compared to other rehousing services, so it offers a great value for money for these specific users.
The reason they used these are because not much glass will cover the Alexa 65 sensor other than old medium format lenses . The “ other “ lenses from arri mentioned in that article are “ dna “ which are rehoused hasselblad and Mamiya
Agreed!!! These are some fabulous lenses. Used the 44-2 to shoot a scene for a short and depending on the artist the possibilities are endless on what can be done. Hollywood or not we are in a time where all of us can achieve a great deal with our imagination and intuition. Thanks for this video guys🔥🔥🔥🔥
I got lucky and got two during the pandemic before the demand and price surge (44-2 & 44-4). However, these rehoused lenses have an 18month lead time from Iron Glass. That's way to long to even consider investing in, or trying to get the ones I already own rehoused.
I made a video about how to rehouse vintage lenses like the Helios at home with zero budget and #1 comment is "akshually these aren't color matched so it's bad" Man, if Helios is good enough for Villeneuve, it sure as hell is good enough for me 🤷🏻♂
I know it’ll probably never happen but I’d love to see CVP do a break down of this style of different popular vintage cinema optics Zeiss super speeds, Cooke panchros, angenieux zooms & maybe even some Lomo lenses now that Soviet optics are all the rage :)
I’ve got a set of originals but not rehoused, just modded for PL mounts - my 85mm Jupiter is a bit yellow, but it’s easily correctable. They are actually not at all bad to focus, through I did have to have one serviced and treated for fungus. I’m beginning to use them all the time, as they get away from that sharp, digital look and have a really nice fall-off from focused into unfocused areas. I also got a little set of 49mm diopters which work really well with these lenses, so get nice close-focus stuff.
Great video guys as always.. I have the 44-2 unhoused and yes it's a great lens. I'm trying to stay fully anamorphic at the moment through but maybe one day I'll get it rehoused for the hell of it. Thanks for posting.
I have the 58mm 44-2 but it mounts upside down for some reason. It doesn’t matter once I learned the feel of it, but I still don’t know why that is. It was like $40. Quirky, unique and very beautiful characteristics in the right conditions.
I have used old soviet lens , last year I purchased the Helios 55 from Ukraine. I also purchased in an auction a 135 mm Helios 1:2.8 to be honest the 135 mm cost me £16 and the converter to adapter costs 3x s that price . The Ukraine lens came refurbished and the glass is clean . How ever I was not impressed with the purchase and the war going on at the moment means I could not in all honesty ask for a return the Ukraine people have more serious issues to contend with. I am now seriously considering the move into film making. The z lenses I know are very good quality and have been designed for use with filming in mind. Anamorphic lenses appeal to my style of photography and therefore I am interested in your blogs. I most admit that Helios lens since at least 2010 have made a comeback and every now and again make a comeback on RUclips. I am interested in a film like dreamers view in my work . Could you let me have more details about your company? Thanks for reading this but my own honest thoughts are camera lenses used in big budget movies are purpose built for the job . My concern is that on my z 8 they may perform.
I was suprised how well the low light scenes barely had any noise. I figured they must have been shooting wide open but they only go down to T3.0-T3.6? Really
Cinema LOMO are quite rare and not easy to find in good shape ... Most versions used chemical coatings, often blue and pink purple hues, which are very fragile, easy to scratch or even wipe with solvents when cleaning... Making it even more troublesome to create decent cinema set... Noone will spend huge labor and time to create rehousing set which will be very rare, unless it is absolutely have to, and very well payed... Btw projector LOMO lenses are more available and even covering medium format, so can be go to for fuji GFX 100ii filming set...
I can't believe that Duna was filmed on 15$ lenses (that's the highest cost of Helios\Tair\Mir lenses in place, where am I from). One more proof that in right hands EVERY product, even cheapest, will produce a wonderful result.
What is funny is people who do this for a living regularly choose old vintage lenses that are imperfect, while modern lens manufacturers keep releasing clinical soulless lenses.
Well it's easier to add imperfections in post than remove them. Clinical lenses are great for a lot of situations, and so are characterful ones. Just because they're great for adding character on films doesn't make them great for sports photography for example. Edit: Also I own those lenses, just not cinema rehoused, and mine was impossible to use if I shot someone backlit by sun. There's basically no contrast once a light source comes within frame. The bokeh seemed busy in certain scenarios too. Sometimes having clinical lenses are a good thing. I still love using the lens for its character when the shot calls for it though.
its funny how a vocal minority of shit,im sorry, character lens users will go on and on trying to justify garbage optics for dumb prices, while 90 percent of all competent content that they themselves consume are made with "clinical soulless lenses", and no one ever thinks about that while consuming said content. not to mention the "cinema" industry where you can get away charging bs prices for bs products. I could rehouse any garbage leica lens clone from china, claiming its character lens, and you loosers would gobble that up while paying thousands to this reseller bozo.
Compositor and colourist, you will not be able to tell when a vintage set of glass vs when modern glass is used. The amount of data we can gather, apply and tweak in post is very comprehensive. Upcoming dp’s need to understand this nowadays.
I think nobody cares... but in russian Tair is pronounced as ""Ta eer", Helios almost the same but starts with G like in Ganja - Gelios, and Mir... well it means peace or world.
"influenced" is a polite way of saying they were made out of annexed german optical glass and Zeiss' design portfolio after the WWII 😊 deep respect to the "Iron Glass" team for being able to produce these lenses in the current war conditions...
Declaring war and causing the death of ~27 million people in the Soviet Union alone also wasn't polite. Losing rights to intellectual property pales in comparison.
@@tspoon765First, Germany did not declare the war on the Soviet Union. Second, the USSR and Germany together started World War II when they split Poland in 1939, so spare the sobbing about 27 million of dead Soviets. In any case, Soviet/Russian rulers never cared about human losses, look at Russia's losses in Ukraine. As for the glass, first it was made in Germany, then it was copied and updated to Soviet production processes.
@@TinLeadHammer They didn't declare war? How did they end up in Stalingrad then genius? The only people doing the sobbing is the guy crying about the loss of some optical designs after getting steamrolled by a superior military.
@@tspoon765 I stand corrected - indeed, Germany declared war on Soviet Union, albeit 1.5 hours later the war had started. The Soviet propaganda has long maintained the war was not officially declared. Per wikipedia, "The existence of the German declaration of war on the Soviet Union had long been concealed by Soviet authorities, because it mentions the secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which was revealed only in 1989."
Thanks bro everyone went above and beyond on this one! You and the IronGlass team have absolutely smashed it with these! Excited to see what comes next!! Jake
Fantastic video guys. Can you confirm if these mount onto the Ronin 4D via PL adaptor? The 85 and 135 will be over the payload capacity, but would be good to know if they still mount.
$20K? I bought the original IronGlass anamorfake amber flare 5 lens set directly from Vadim in Ukraine for $1000 six years ago. I still have them. Nice glass with Alexa LF coverage.
20k for the MKII rehoused version, not the early modded version, when Vadim first started, and even the optics themselves were much cheaper. Nowadays, this wouldn’t even cover the cost of donor glass, let alone the rehousing itself. As far as the price for rehousing 6 lenses, even without optics, this is still one of the cheapest options out there
You can literally see the old lens with f-stops markings, focus length and serial number in the housing, they reuse them of course, they absolutely do not have a possibility to produce any optics, only a handful of manufacturers around the world do that. Cheers.
I'm sure this is going to jack up the price of these lenses on eBay now but I'm also struggling to justify such a massive price increase of 40+ year old lenses despite how lovely the rehousing mechanisms are. Over $2K for a rehoused lens that can be bought for a couple hundred bucks... really? REALLY?? 🤔
Not really, the supply of them is pretty good for now! There are far rarer vintage stills lenses out there. Do you think sigma, Zeiss, canon are all scamming people for their cine rehoused stills optics? There are plenty of rehousing brands that charge way more than IronGlass do. Jake
@@CVPTV100% I think that Canon, Sigma et al are scamming with their overpriced cine lenses that use the same glass as their photo lenses. At the end of the day, I've always felt that the glass is the most important part of the lens, not the body. If the glass is not being improved upon, then I can't justify paying an extra $1K or more for a new housing.
That’s the thing, if you don’t need a rehousing, these lenses are super affordable. You are paying mostly for the rehousing itself here, which is not needed for everyone. This glass can be enjoyed by all
Comparing 20k to a Signature Prime Set or a Supreme Prime Set is somewhat afforadble isn't it? And besides that loads of rental own the Mark I in Europe and the US. And with a fair day rate for the whole 6-lens set.
Please CVP, please do a tutorial on what settings to use for lenses, like most of us don't really know how to use them under random given conditions. It took me a year to figure out why my Atlas Orions were purple fringing, then I discover T4 and then it looked like your videos.
What a fantastic and professional explanation. Thanks for this wonderful job . I do own some vintage lenses including the 44-2 . I dream to be able to rehouse it one day .
@@MarkHoltze You can't get back shallow dof if a lens is technically slow. That's what I mean. Sure, pump enough light into a scene and you can shoot @ f16.
@@adtfor 20MM T3.6 = very slow | 25mm T3.6 = very slow | 37mm T2.9 = slow | 58mm T2.1 = good enough speed | 85mm T1.6 = fast | 135mm T2.9 = good enough. The 3 longer focal lengths are fine but the three other ones are slow boys. Sigma makes a 20mm T1.5 for example which is 2 and a half stops faster.
Soviets made great things. Only country from the ex-USSR that still makes things at scale is Belarus (tractors, trucks, household appliances). Russia does mostly imports or assembly of almost all manufactured goods these days. Domestic designs and production are mostly long gone.
Great job, IRON GLASS! 🇺🇦 Made in Ukraine ✌️ Go, UKRAINE ❤️ There is a story in Ukrainian media about this company. Apparently the lenses for Dune-2 were made during the Russian invasion. Iron Glass’ director was drafted and fought at the frontline defending his country. Later he returned home and continues his business
This one looks like a very apologising ad for cheap lenses sold expensively with suspiciously positive reactions from reviewer. Am I alone left with such a shady feeling and should just take the pills?
@@hoozentroger nope, its the MMZ version :) Bought it from a local guy who sold his old lenses. He asked me why I was interested only in this lens. Clearly because of its famous look 😜
That’s exactly the beauty of this lens. Available to everyone at all levels. It’s still $50 on average. What you pay for here is the rehousing, optics are still cheap
Listen people, for those not very savvy, this is a sales advertisement video, not an informative video about the lens in any way. Totally biased. Don't be driven by these types of videos for purchasing on a Lens.
Using vintage lens for a specific look is an outdated concept when in DaVinci Resolve you can create any look or texture you need. It seems like old school DPs are not understanding what software can really accomplish in a look.
@@CVPTV maybe, but not "affordable" when you consider the ~10x markup they are making by rehousing glass that costs anywhere from $100-400 a piece in good condition. The 6 lenses included in the set are probably worth around £2500 total MAX if we're talking mint examples. On CVP the set is retailing for £18,720 including VAT - do we think that rehousing 6 lenses is worth around £16000? obviously I love these lenses for their unique character but the markup on this is completely unjustifiable particularly considering many people have rehoused these lenses for far, far cheaper. maybe this is the "context" that matters - slightly passive aggressive reply mate...
@michaelwarren6175 I think you've seen cinemodded lenses cheaper than this, but cinemoding a lens is different to a proper full rehousing. I really suggest checking out this awesome video from Media Vision. It shows just how much work goes into rehousing a lens and the pricing most other rehousing brands charge - ruclips.net/video/ybxJHUfzCM4/видео.htmlsi=Ky5yEne4LKdPEstJ
Soviet lenses! What a laugh! I used to sell those old lenses in a second hand camera shop in the late 80s for £15! They were cheap for a reason, they look terrible and they still do today. This is the definition of pretentious.
... and yet they used them to shoot Dune Part 2 and they look great... who's having the last laugh I wonder? Like many DPs Greig Fraser (Dune, The Mandalorian, Rouge One, The Batman) is looking to take the edge of the high resolution digital sensors and using older lenses is how a large number of DPs do that. The other lens set used were Moviecams and those are just rehoused Olympus OM Zuikos... again hardly expensive lenses, but with a gorgeous organic look. At least 50% of the lenses used to shoot movies are older optics rehoused... what do you think Arri DNA primes are, older rehoused Mamiya Sekor and Zeiss primes... Stranger Things - old Canon FDs and even a £100 Yashica 45mm. I've used IronGlass primes to shoot content for some huge brands... and you know what... they actually love the look, enough to comment on it... something they never usually do. So no - not at all pretentious. This is very typical of how cinematography has always worked... perhaps you should do a little research?
I agree . But thise big mivue needto change their look every 5 year for marketing. So actually nothing new in the market so they have to go retro. Next step is to go back to film and maybe 18 frame /sec i think till technologie was ready for 360 film and 3 D . Show must go on
Exactly, I had one as kit with my first Zenit camera, and was extremely disappoined of that crap blurry sht especially as already had some experience with dad's Industar lens. Manufacturer was very aware of it (not so good coating and lens edge painting as original Carl Zeiss to reduce price and availability) so it named "soft portrait lens". There was only other option was much pricy (~3x) Zenitar that i cannot afford. Kind of kids trauma that pull me off from photo. Hate it so much.
@@haflamorocco nothing to do with marketing. Greig Fraser is a DP who likes to use different lenses and lenses with different characteristics. If you think movies use their lens choices as part of their marketing... you have a very funny idea how marketing works.
It’s actually $100 for a hand selected Helios and $2800 for the rehousing on the IronGlass website. Considering the quality of the rehousing, that’s very reasonable. Jake
$2600 for a professional quality lens rehousing is cheap... many companies will charge up to $6000 per lens. I own rehoused lenses that cost in that region... the optics inside on ebay might cost £200... but for a professional those rehousings are worth every penny.
Rehousing is quite a bit of work, with custom made mechanics, exterior, often times substituted apertures, etc. Lots of man-hours go into it, so it's hard to imagine getting much cheaper than that. That being said, you can throw some gears on your Helios and just not get it rehoused, so I have no problem with the product. I'd recommend watching the Media Division video on lens rehousing.
@@thatcherfreemanDude, please don't send me to another paid video. I work with industrial engineers and I know that the price is exorbitant. Once you have the design of one, you have the design of all. What's more, you can do the job yourself with a 3D printer. The other reason they might charge a lot is the materials, but as far as Ironglass goes, it doesn't add gold or diamonds 😂. Please, we must stop being so naive, let's not fall into marketing. With what you pay for a 100 dollar lens, they buy all these channels.
@@gummomanIf you want something made of aluminum, now you need a CNC and can't just use a 3d printer. Plus it would also help to have the ability to QA your result and make sure your optics are properly centered and aligned and so on, and I didn't see how you'd approach swapping out the aperture with different blades. I would never personally pay for a lens rehousing myself, but I've done my fair share of machining and I honestly don't think it's as trivial as you say. It's gonna be a bunch of parts and hours of assembly, machining, QA, painting, and either you're doing it or you're paying someone else around $100/hr to do it. It's not really a mass-produced product, after all. If you can recommend any 3d printed cinema lens rehousings, or easy at-home lens rehousing builds, I'm all ears.
These products are Ukrainian, which happened to be USSR in the past against their will. Rehousing which you paying for, is made in Ukraine, and old glass can be from any lens even Japanese, it just happened that Helios and Mir are the most abandoned in post USSR counties... And all these lenses even not USSR designs, they were confiscated/stolen and copied from Zeiss factories in the East Germany... These are Biotar and Sonnar Zeiss lenses by design... Later USSR start tweaking designs in the later versions of Helios resulting in the crappy character and rendering, therefore original Zeiss Boitar design in the 44-2 version or earlier are most preferred even today... There are also very nice lenses designed in Ukrainian SSR and after gaining independence called Arsat from Kyiv Arsenal factory, coming even in Nikon F mount... So by buying it you supporting Ukraine, not USSR or ruzzia...
Yeah, ugly CA is not a "character" and theres nothing unique about it. You need soft look - you apply it in post, same goes for emulating bad optical performance, or, better yet, you pay production crew for good quality makeup and set designs instead. There is no reason to use obsolete glass on high level productions. In this instance, they probably just tried to get some brownie points for using lenses rehoused in Ukraine and that's it (if they used them at all, lol).
Some people may want to apply character in the post, but a lot of DP's want to get the look as close as possible in camera so they can try and hold on to as much creative control of the image as possible through the imaging pipeline. Jake
I’m not saying that your take is completely wrong, but I do have an honest question. If you truly believe that obsolete glass is worthless and is just pushed for profit purposes, how would you explain the rehoused Helios 44-2 lens that was used in the new Batman? Again, I’m not bashing you. I’m just curious to know where your take is going. I see so many reviewers praise the Helios for its character, and then recently we’ve seen them being used in high film productions.
@@xkben90 Haven't watched it, but judging from some info on the web, you're just being misled: according to IMDB, these Helios and Jupiter lenses were used for a crash camera... Like, you know, a disposable junk? They even mentioned it in the video... Meanwhile, I recently watched Dune II and I can safely say that if they actually used these IronGlass lenses, it was probably for the same purpose as with Batman, since the main chunk of the movie is sharp as hell, and there was no CA "character" in clear sight. Hence, I will assume that people just blow Fraser's words out of proportions - they probably used ARRI lenses for the most part. Regarding your question: it's just a bad value, soviet lenses just aren't good, optically. That's pretty much it. I can get behind Helioses swirly bokeh, but that's about it, everything else about this soviet glass is mediocre, or straight up bad. Selling mediocre optical designs for an overprice - well, you can call it a "push for a profit purposes", I guess. CVP for example is selling gear, and I've yet to see them posting a negative review about... pretty much anything, really. Because it's their job to push sales. The same applies to other reviewers as well, more or less. Not to say they lie about stuff, but you shouldn't take everything they tell you for granted. You can see in this video for youself how mediocre CA characteristics of these lenses are, and it's up to you to decide whether or not to accept their takes about "character", "dreamy look" and other stuff they constantly repeat from one review to another. Thing is, glass is glass. It's boring. There's not a lot you can say about it. It can be sharp, it can be soft. CA characteristic is directly tied to that. The question is, why would you use bad glass? You can always go backwards and soften the sharp image in post. If you don't like it, or you need the creative control on set - you can always use optical filters. But you will never be able to reverse bad design into a good one without opening the lens. Though, I guess, in scope of crash cam usage, these lenses might make sense, indeed.
@@eigenkuro7166 I think this goes back to the fact that cinematography is art, and art (fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you view it ) is all subjective. I have seen from other RUclipsrs saying that even the modern lenses used for Batman and Dune were detuned, meaning that, although the center sharpness is still there, it becomes soft around the edges (to mimic that of the older vintage lenses). Like you, I can’t justify $1000+ for vintage lenses , but if these professionals are using these lenses for multi million dollar projects, there’s obviously value in them. I disagree with you that you can get a modern lens and make it look just like a vintage lens though. I own a Helios 44M lens and it also own the canon RF f/2.8 zoom lenses (15-35, 24-70, 70-200). Maybe I can make the look similar with a lot of post processing, I don’t know. But it’s blatantly obvious that my Helios looks different from my modern lenses, even if you ignore things like the softness and CA. The bokeh is different, the flaring is different, it’s just so different that to me it would seem that these film makers decided that it’s cheaper to rehouse a vintage lens than to use a modern one and do tons of post processing to match the vintage look for each shot. But these are just my thoughts. I’m just a simple hobbyist .
Have you seen DUNE: Part 2? If so what did you think of the film?!
so good. I've already seen it twice
can you buy these separately from CVP?
Yes! Just get in contact with sales@cvp.com
I saw the movie in 70mm film and the picture looked gorgeous.🎥
@@CVPTV are they readily available though?,iron glass quote 16-18 months!
I own a few of these lenses unhoused. It's crazy how good they are, especially considering the price. They're pretty unusable on set without being rehoused, especially the helios 40. It's hard to find spherical lenses that have noticeable character, but they really feel unique in a great way. Another set I really love and seem to be overlooked are Mamiya Sekor C's with a focal reducer.
The Sekor C's are really nice too! The TLS focal reduced rehousings look awesome!!! Jake
The award winning Poor Things used the petzvals which are easily available. I always wondered why no one used them. Tunable character.
I have the biotars - not the old carl ones but the newer Meyer Optik biotars and I love them
I like more the look of the first one. The Ultra Vista Panavision Anamorphic lenses are phenomenal, they should have not changed them.
It's strange that two movies that should look the same are filmed on totally different lenses.
15 year ago when I started in filmmaking, I shoot weddings on these original photo lenses. Cause I had no money to buy “normal” lenses.
They cost from $20 (helios) to $50 (tair) apiece.
Now they suddenly became vintage and expensive. Which once again shows that there is no logic in the world of film technology. Only fashion. Every DOP wants to be different from others in their image and no one cares about the technical quality of the image.
Actually, they didn’t become that much more expensive. In 15 years Helios went up to around $50 and Tair to around $150, so they are still highly affordable. What you are paying here is the rehousing to bring a true cine lens functionality. Not everyone needs that, so this product is only for particular users & this price point is actually on the low side when compared to other rehousing services, so it offers a great value for money for these specific users.
more resolution does not equal better
Still killing it with the reviews thanks Jake and team. The housings look super nice.
The reason they used these are because not much glass will cover the Alexa 65 sensor other than old medium format lenses . The “ other “ lenses from arri mentioned in that article are “ dna “ which are rehoused hasselblad and Mamiya
Agreed!!! These are some fabulous lenses. Used the 44-2 to shoot a scene for a short and depending on the artist the possibilities are endless on what can be done. Hollywood or not we are in a time where all of us can achieve a great deal with our imagination and intuition. Thanks for this video guys🔥🔥🔥🔥
You're so right. I'm shooting with the flektagon
Oh damn here we go with another rush on used Helios 44-2s
😰
I got lucky and got two during the pandemic before the demand and price surge (44-2 & 44-4). However, these rehoused lenses have an 18month lead time from Iron Glass. That's way to long to even consider investing in, or trying to get the ones I already own rehoused.
Yep, now up on eBay from $50 all the way to $55 🥲
its a rush for any vintage lens really, its only going to be more expensive
I made a video about how to rehouse vintage lenses like the Helios at home with zero budget and #1 comment is "akshually these aren't color matched so it's bad"
Man, if Helios is good enough for Villeneuve, it sure as hell is good enough for me 🤷🏻♂
I found IronGlass two years ago, Got one of their Helios rehoused lenses, wish I could afford the whole set!
I know it’ll probably never happen but I’d love to see CVP do a break down of this style of different popular vintage cinema optics Zeiss super speeds, Cooke panchros, angenieux zooms & maybe even some Lomo lenses now that Soviet optics are all the rage :)
We rent the mark ones when we want a unique look from time to time. And boy are they good looking. Not just the 44-2. But the 37 is gorgeous as well.
I have a Pentacon 50mm f1.8 lens and man, I love it when adapting it to my Fujifilm camera.
One of my favourite sets of lenses. Great vid Jake!
This video now joins yours as two of my favourite, in-depth videos about MKII 😊
Thanks Alex, they really are gorgeous! Jake
I’ve got a set of originals but not rehoused, just modded for PL mounts - my 85mm Jupiter is a bit yellow, but it’s easily correctable. They are actually not at all bad to focus, through I did have to have one serviced and treated for fungus. I’m beginning to use them all the time, as they get away from that sharp, digital look and have a really nice fall-off from focused into unfocused areas. I also got a little set of 49mm diopters which work really well with these lenses, so get nice close-focus stuff.
I have the 58mm and its probably my favorite lens out of all that i have.
the images in dune 2 are so beautiful, thanks for the breakdown of these lenses!
I also love this lens too. In Bangkok we have one rental house that has the set.
My local rentalhouse has a set (among some other really special glass) and now I really gotta go and do some test shoot with them.
Great video guys as always.. I have the 44-2 unhoused and yes it's a great lens. I'm trying to stay fully anamorphic at the moment through but maybe one day I'll get it rehoused for the hell of it. Thanks for posting.
And Ukrainians did this during a full-scale Russian invasion. And just imagine what we are capable of in times of peace.
I have the 58mm 44-2 but it mounts upside down for some reason. It doesn’t matter once I learned the feel of it, but I still don’t know why that is. It was like $40. Quirky, unique and very beautiful characteristics in the right conditions.
soviet photographers - "I want a German lens, soviet lens is bad"
videographer 2025 - "I want want want want a soviet lens"
I have faith that Sigma will expand their classic line and give us more contemporary lenses and mechanics with a vintage look and feel
seen so many talk trash about these lenses 2005-2019 now there all cool
shoot with wow wee 😝😆😆😆
Vintage lenses have been popular in the filmmaking community way before 2019. Jake
I have used old soviet lens , last year I purchased the Helios 55 from Ukraine. I also purchased in an auction a 135 mm Helios 1:2.8 to be honest the 135 mm cost me £16 and the converter to adapter costs 3x s that price . The Ukraine lens came refurbished and the glass is clean . How ever I was not impressed with the purchase and the war going on at the moment means I could not in all honesty ask for a return the Ukraine people have more serious issues to contend with. I am now seriously considering the move into film making. The z lenses I know are very good quality and have been designed for use with filming in mind. Anamorphic lenses appeal to my style of photography and therefore I am interested in your blogs. I most admit that Helios lens since at least 2010 have made a comeback and every now and again make a comeback on RUclips. I am interested in a film like dreamers view in my work . Could you let me have more details about your company? Thanks for reading this but my own honest thoughts are camera lenses used in big budget movies are purpose built for the job . My concern is that on my z 8 they may perform.
I was suprised how well the low light scenes barely had any noise. I figured they must have been shooting wide open but they only go down to T3.0-T3.6? Really
LOMO OKS cine lenses (for S35) imo much worthy of rehousing, unless you are hell bent on VistaVision coverage
Cinema LOMO are quite rare and not easy to find in good shape ... Most versions used chemical coatings, often blue and pink purple hues, which are very fragile, easy to scratch or even wipe with solvents when cleaning... Making it even more troublesome to create decent cinema set... Noone will spend huge labor and time to create rehousing set which will be very rare, unless it is absolutely have to, and very well payed...
Btw projector LOMO lenses are more available and even covering medium format, so can be go to for fuji GFX 100ii filming set...
@@antontaranenko8824 LOMO OKS lenses are much less rare than Cooke Panchro S1, Kowa Prominars and especially single coated Baltar lenses though.
I can't believe that Duna was filmed on 15$ lenses (that's the highest cost of Helios\Tair\Mir lenses in place, where am I from). One more proof that in right hands EVERY product, even cheapest, will produce a wonderful result.
What is funny is people who do this for a living regularly choose old vintage lenses that are imperfect, while modern lens manufacturers keep releasing clinical soulless lenses.
Well it's easier to add imperfections in post than remove them. Clinical lenses are great for a lot of situations, and so are characterful ones. Just because they're great for adding character on films doesn't make them great for sports photography for example.
Edit: Also I own those lenses, just not cinema rehoused, and mine was impossible to use if I shot someone backlit by sun. There's basically no contrast once a light source comes within frame. The bokeh seemed busy in certain scenarios too. Sometimes having clinical lenses are a good thing. I still love using the lens for its character when the shot calls for it though.
its funny how a vocal minority of shit,im sorry, character lens users will go on and on trying to justify garbage optics for dumb prices, while 90 percent of all competent content that they themselves consume are made with "clinical soulless lenses", and no one ever thinks about that while consuming said content.
not to mention the "cinema" industry where you can get away charging bs prices for bs products. I could rehouse any garbage leica lens clone from china, claiming its character lens, and you loosers would gobble that up while paying thousands to this reseller bozo.
because USA decide to kill Zeiss, especislly consumer department, and only option to grab Zeiss optic is to refurbish leftover.
There's plenty of DPs that would choose modern clinical lenses though.
Compositor and colourist, you will not be able to tell when a vintage set of glass vs when modern glass is used. The amount of data we can gather, apply and tweak in post is very comprehensive. Upcoming dp’s need to understand this nowadays.
I think nobody cares... but in russian Tair is pronounced as ""Ta eer", Helios almost the same but starts with G like in Ganja - Gelios, and Mir... well it means peace or world.
Миру - Мир!
informative content thanks CVP.
"influenced" is a polite way of saying they were made out of annexed german optical glass and Zeiss' design portfolio after the WWII 😊
deep respect to the "Iron Glass" team for being able to produce these lenses in the current war conditions...
Declaring war and causing the death of ~27 million people in the Soviet Union alone also wasn't polite. Losing rights to intellectual property pales in comparison.
Oh no, poor Germans got their optical designs taken, what could they have done to deserve this??
@@tspoon765First, Germany did not declare the war on the Soviet Union. Second, the USSR and Germany together started World War II when they split Poland in 1939, so spare the sobbing about 27 million of dead Soviets. In any case, Soviet/Russian rulers never cared about human losses, look at Russia's losses in Ukraine. As for the glass, first it was made in Germany, then it was copied and updated to Soviet production processes.
@@TinLeadHammer They didn't declare war? How did they end up in Stalingrad then genius? The only people doing the sobbing is the guy crying about the loss of some optical designs after getting steamrolled by a superior military.
@@tspoon765 I stand corrected - indeed, Germany declared war on Soviet Union, albeit 1.5 hours later the war had started. The Soviet propaganda has long maintained the war was not officially declared. Per wikipedia, "The existence of the German declaration of war on the Soviet Union had long been concealed by Soviet authorities, because it mentions the secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which was revealed only in 1989."
Just spent 10 minutes looking for Part 1 of this video. Then the penny dropped… 😳
I have the 44-2, it's a nice lens
What's cool is with the hype going on since a year or two and now Dune, those initially cheap lenses will very soon become very expensive.
Some of them may rise in price, but right now, they are pretty reasonable. The hard bit is finding optically sound ones. Jake
@@CVPTV got my 44-2 in a flea market for 15euros few years ago in near mint condition, guess i was lucky
Incredible video Jake and the team!
Thanks bro everyone went above and beyond on this one! You and the IronGlass team have absolutely smashed it with these! Excited to see what comes next!! Jake
I wonder what the wait time will be for orders via CVP? They are over 12 months direct from IronGlass
Fantastic video guys. Can you confirm if these mount onto the Ronin 4D via PL adaptor? The 85 and 135 will be over the payload capacity, but would be good to know if they still mount.
$20K? I bought the original IronGlass anamorfake amber flare 5 lens set directly from Vadim in Ukraine for $1000 six years ago. I still have them. Nice glass with Alexa LF coverage.
20k for the MKII rehoused version, not the early modded version, when Vadim first started, and even the optics themselves were much cheaper. Nowadays, this wouldn’t even cover the cost of donor glass, let alone the rehousing itself. As far as the price for rehousing 6 lenses, even without optics, this is still one of the cheapest options out there
SILENCE!!!!
A new CVP video just dropped!
This is awsome!
That is super interesting ! At 00:45 : Which GF-PL-mount adapter is used there with the GFX 100 II ? ...
Ok I’m a bit confused do they recycle old vintage lenses or make new lenses that have the same optical quality to the old lenses
They rehouse old lenses in new housing designed for cinema workflows. Jake
You can literally see the old lens with f-stops markings, focus length and serial number in the housing, they reuse them of course, they absolutely do not have a possibility to produce any optics, only a handful of manufacturers around the world do that. Cheers.
They look really pretty
Helios-44m is my favourite helios 44
Can we rent from you or are they only for sale?
I'm sure this is going to jack up the price of these lenses on eBay now but I'm also struggling to justify such a massive price increase of 40+ year old lenses despite how lovely the rehousing mechanisms are. Over $2K for a rehoused lens that can be bought for a couple hundred bucks... really? REALLY?? 🤔
Not really, the supply of them is pretty good for now! There are far rarer vintage stills lenses out there. Do you think sigma, Zeiss, canon are all scamming people for their cine rehoused stills optics? There are plenty of rehousing brands that charge way more than IronGlass do. Jake
@@CVPTV100% I think that Canon, Sigma et al are scamming with their overpriced cine lenses that use the same glass as their photo lenses. At the end of the day, I've always felt that the glass is the most important part of the lens, not the body. If the glass is not being improved upon, then I can't justify paying an extra $1K or more for a new housing.
That’s the thing, if you don’t need a rehousing, these lenses are super affordable. You are paying mostly for the rehousing itself here, which is not needed for everyone. This glass can be enjoyed by all
We're this lens on the vfx shots
$20,000 USD is hardly "affordable."
Comparing 20k to a Signature Prime Set or a Supreme Prime Set is somewhat afforadble isn't it? And besides that loads of rental own the Mark I in Europe and the US. And with a fair day rate for the whole 6-lens set.
The people that pay 20000 for a set of 1000 are very stupid. They can't find a way to justify the extra price.
Please CVP, please do a tutorial on what settings to use for lenses, like most of us don't really know how to use them under random given conditions. It took me a year to figure out why my Atlas Orions were purple fringing, then I discover T4 and then it looked like your videos.
Is there any option to ship to the United States?
So, is this the Helios?
The link doesn't work.
Great video. Thanks. But there is no "i" in Fraser. Pronounce it to rhyme with "phaser." Cheers.
What a fantastic and professional explanation. Thanks for this wonderful job . I do own some vintage lenses including the 44-2 . I dream to be able to rehouse it one day .
Thanks for the kind words! Jake
If these old Russian lenses weren't so slow then they would be more appealing.
Modern sensors and dynamic range remove the lack “speed” from being an issue. Facts
@@MarkHoltze You can't get back shallow dof if a lens is technically slow. That's what I mean. Sure, pump enough light into a scene and you can shoot @ f16.
how are they slow please explain? is T/2.1 slow?
@@adtfor 20MM T3.6 = very slow | 25mm T3.6 = very slow | 37mm T2.9 = slow | 58mm T2.1 = good enough speed | 85mm T1.6 = fast | 135mm T2.9 = good enough. The 3 longer focal lengths are fine but the three other ones are slow boys. Sigma makes a 20mm T1.5 for example which is 2 and a half stops faster.
Russia makes great things! I have few soviet lenses not rehoused, they are really nice! Helios, Jupiter and Mir 👌🏻
Soviets made great things. Only country from the ex-USSR that still makes things at scale is Belarus (tractors, trucks, household appliances). Russia does mostly imports or assembly of almost all manufactured goods these days. Domestic designs and production are mostly long gone.
PLEASE DO OPPENHEIMER
20k for a bunch of rehoused cheap vintage glass? no thanks
Fraser. With an S.
I wonder if any of these have radioactive elements :D
no
polonium?
the ones made in the 60' most certainly do but they are safe as long as you don't sleep with them for 40years in a row youll be fine
🇺🇦ironglass is top!
🔥🔥🔥
Great job, IRON GLASS! 🇺🇦 Made in Ukraine ✌️ Go, UKRAINE ❤️ There is a story in Ukrainian media about this company. Apparently the lenses for Dune-2 were made during the Russian invasion. Iron Glass’ director was drafted and fought at the frontline defending his country. Later he returned home and continues his business
Russians. What about Ukrainian glass? I love vintage lenses. Old DDR and Soviet lenses rock.
AFAIK, "Tair" is pronounced [tə'ɪr].
This one looks like a very apologising ad for cheap lenses sold expensively with suspiciously positive reactions from reviewer. Am I alone left with such a shady feeling and should just take the pills?
no, something smell, but its not the first time that things like this appen in photography content creator circle
Lol i have a Helios 44-2 in my camera bag, which cost me like 30 bucks 😂
Then its probably the valdai version and not the KMZ or MMZ which are good quality!
@@hoozentroger nope, its the MMZ version :) Bought it from a local guy who sold his old lenses. He asked me why I was interested only in this lens. Clearly because of its famous look 😜
@@kophotograph1803 Oh wow!!Good job then!
That’s exactly the beauty of this lens. Available to everyone at all levels. It’s still $50 on average. What you pay for here is the rehousing, optics are still cheap
@@hoozentroger how do you tell them apart? i have one too
Now it makes sense why Dune 2 looked so soft and lack sharpness and detail.
Listen people, for those not very savvy, this is a sales advertisement video, not an informative video about the lens in any way.
Totally biased.
Don't be driven by these types of videos for purchasing on a Lens.
surprised about mir1 its a proper shit lens, one of the worst wide angles I ever used, I mean this can challenge sigma 28-200 lenses from the 90ies
Dune Part 2 may have been even uglier than the first. "Uninspired" may be the best description.
Using vintage lens for a specific look is an outdated concept when in DaVinci Resolve you can create any look or texture you need. It seems like old school DPs are not understanding what software can really accomplish in a look.
Zeiss is not Soviet.
Hahahaah he said affordable
Affordable compared to the highest end cine lenses, yes, context matters. Jake
@@CVPTV maybe, but not "affordable" when you consider the ~10x markup they are making by rehousing glass that costs anywhere from $100-400 a piece in good condition. The 6 lenses included in the set are probably worth around £2500 total MAX if we're talking mint examples. On CVP the set is retailing for £18,720 including VAT - do we think that rehousing 6 lenses is worth around £16000?
obviously I love these lenses for their unique character but the markup on this is completely unjustifiable particularly considering many people have rehoused these lenses for far, far cheaper.
maybe this is the "context" that matters - slightly passive aggressive reply mate...
@michaelwarren6175 I think you've seen cinemodded lenses cheaper than this, but cinemoding a lens is different to a proper full rehousing. I really suggest checking out this awesome video from Media Vision. It shows just how much work goes into rehousing a lens and the pricing most other rehousing brands charge - ruclips.net/video/ybxJHUfzCM4/видео.htmlsi=Ky5yEne4LKdPEstJ
fck these used to cost pennies and now... good luck...
Soviet lenses! What a laugh! I used to sell those old lenses in a second hand camera shop in the late 80s for £15! They were cheap for a reason, they look terrible and they still do today. This is the definition of pretentious.
... and yet they used them to shoot Dune Part 2 and they look great... who's having the last laugh I wonder?
Like many DPs Greig Fraser (Dune, The Mandalorian, Rouge One, The Batman) is looking to take the edge of the high resolution digital sensors and using older lenses is how a large number of DPs do that.
The other lens set used were Moviecams and those are just rehoused Olympus OM Zuikos... again hardly expensive lenses, but with a gorgeous organic look.
At least 50% of the lenses used to shoot movies are older optics rehoused... what do you think Arri DNA primes are, older rehoused Mamiya Sekor and Zeiss primes... Stranger Things - old Canon FDs and even a £100 Yashica 45mm.
I've used IronGlass primes to shoot content for some huge brands... and you know what... they actually love the look, enough to comment on it... something they never usually do.
So no - not at all pretentious. This is very typical of how cinematography has always worked... perhaps you should do a little research?
@@flyingfox2005 they’re distracting and take me out of the movie.
I agree . But thise big mivue needto change their look every 5 year for marketing. So actually nothing new in the market so they have to go retro. Next step is to go back to film and maybe 18 frame /sec i think till technologie was ready for 360 film and 3 D . Show must go on
Exactly, I had one as kit with my first Zenit camera, and was extremely disappoined of that crap blurry sht especially as already had some experience with dad's Industar lens. Manufacturer was very aware of it (not so good coating and lens edge painting as original Carl Zeiss to reduce price and availability) so it named "soft portrait lens". There was only other option was much pricy (~3x) Zenitar that i cannot afford. Kind of kids trauma that pull me off from photo. Hate it so much.
@@haflamorocco nothing to do with marketing. Greig Fraser is a DP who likes to use different lenses and lenses with different characteristics.
If you think movies use their lens choices as part of their marketing... you have a very funny idea how marketing works.
2600 dollars for a Helios 44-2 seems like an abuse to me. It is enough to pay for this ridiculous advertising.
It’s actually $100 for a hand selected Helios and $2800 for the rehousing on the IronGlass website. Considering the quality of the rehousing, that’s very reasonable. Jake
$2600 for a professional quality lens rehousing is cheap... many companies will charge up to $6000 per lens.
I own rehoused lenses that cost in that region... the optics inside on ebay might cost £200... but for a professional those rehousings are worth every penny.
Rehousing is quite a bit of work, with custom made mechanics, exterior, often times substituted apertures, etc. Lots of man-hours go into it, so it's hard to imagine getting much cheaper than that. That being said, you can throw some gears on your Helios and just not get it rehoused, so I have no problem with the product.
I'd recommend watching the Media Division video on lens rehousing.
@@thatcherfreemanDude, please don't send me to another paid video. I work with industrial engineers and I know that the price is exorbitant. Once you have the design of one, you have the design of all. What's more, you can do the job yourself with a 3D printer. The other reason they might charge a lot is the materials, but as far as Ironglass goes, it doesn't add gold or diamonds 😂. Please, we must stop being so naive, let's not fall into marketing. With what you pay for a 100 dollar lens, they buy all these channels.
@@gummomanIf you want something made of aluminum, now you need a CNC and can't just use a 3d printer. Plus it would also help to have the ability to QA your result and make sure your optics are properly centered and aligned and so on, and I didn't see how you'd approach swapping out the aperture with different blades. I would never personally pay for a lens rehousing myself, but I've done my fair share of machining and I honestly don't think it's as trivial as you say. It's gonna be a bunch of parts and hours of assembly, machining, QA, painting, and either you're doing it or you're paying someone else around $100/hr to do it. It's not really a mass-produced product, after all.
If you can recommend any 3d printed cinema lens rehousings, or easy at-home lens rehousing builds, I'm all ears.
so now we sanction Russian products but Soviet is OK 😂😂😂
They’re not Russian products, they’re Ukrainian, Which was Soviet. It’s different
@@remywebber5330They also aren’t giving any new money to the Russians anyways since the helios 40 isn’t even produced new
Are you dumb? Like fr its an insanely ignorant comment.
These products are Ukrainian, which happened to be USSR in the past against their will. Rehousing which you paying for, is made in Ukraine, and old glass can be from any lens even Japanese, it just happened that Helios and Mir are the most abandoned in post USSR counties...
And all these lenses even not USSR designs, they were confiscated/stolen and copied from Zeiss factories in the East Germany... These are Biotar and Sonnar Zeiss lenses by design... Later USSR start tweaking designs in the later versions of Helios resulting in the crappy character and rendering, therefore original Zeiss Boitar design in the 44-2 version or earlier are most preferred even today...
There are also very nice lenses designed in Ukrainian SSR and after gaining independence called Arsat from Kyiv Arsenal factory, coming even in Nikon F mount...
So by buying it you supporting Ukraine, not USSR or ruzzia...
@@remywebber5330Correction it is ruzzian, with two ZZ these days, and small letter on the beginning, as they don't deserve any respect😉👍🤣
Too bad they're made in Ukraine. I'll pass.
Damn, if only they weren't made in Ukraine, I'm sure you'd get them then ;)
Made in Russia but rehoused in Ukraine. Same same
@@psyswordOriginally made in the USSR.
@@bastelwigames Exactly, until the CIA seized control in about 2014 and started laundering money in it, using their sock puppet Zelenskyy.
Naaah, This video is just to support Ukraine. even Dune.
Yeah, ugly CA is not a "character" and theres nothing unique about it. You need soft look - you apply it in post, same goes for emulating bad optical performance, or, better yet, you pay production crew for good quality makeup and set designs instead. There is no reason to use obsolete glass on high level productions. In this instance, they probably just tried to get some brownie points for using lenses rehoused in Ukraine and that's it (if they used them at all, lol).
Some people may want to apply character in the post, but a lot of DP's want to get the look as close as possible in camera so they can try and hold on to as much creative control of the image as possible through the imaging pipeline. Jake
I’m not saying that your take is completely wrong, but I do have an honest question. If you truly believe that obsolete glass is worthless and is just pushed for profit purposes, how would you explain the rehoused Helios 44-2 lens that was used in the new Batman?
Again, I’m not bashing you. I’m just curious to know where your take is going. I see so many reviewers praise the Helios for its character, and then recently we’ve seen them being used in high film productions.
@@xkben90 Haven't watched it, but judging from some info on the web, you're just being misled: according to IMDB, these Helios and Jupiter lenses were used for a crash camera... Like, you know, a disposable junk? They even mentioned it in the video... Meanwhile, I recently watched Dune II and I can safely say that if they actually used these IronGlass lenses, it was probably for the same purpose as with Batman, since the main chunk of the movie is sharp as hell, and there was no CA "character" in clear sight. Hence, I will assume that people just blow Fraser's words out of proportions - they probably used ARRI lenses for the most part. Regarding your question: it's just a bad value, soviet lenses just aren't good, optically. That's pretty much it. I can get behind Helioses swirly bokeh, but that's about it, everything else about this soviet glass is mediocre, or straight up bad. Selling mediocre optical designs for an overprice - well, you can call it a "push for a profit purposes", I guess. CVP for example is selling gear, and I've yet to see them posting a negative review about... pretty much anything, really. Because it's their job to push sales. The same applies to other reviewers as well, more or less. Not to say they lie about stuff, but you shouldn't take everything they tell you for granted. You can see in this video for youself how mediocre CA characteristics of these lenses are, and it's up to you to decide whether or not to accept their takes about "character", "dreamy look" and other stuff they constantly repeat from one review to another. Thing is, glass is glass. It's boring. There's not a lot you can say about it. It can be sharp, it can be soft. CA characteristic is directly tied to that. The question is, why would you use bad glass? You can always go backwards and soften the sharp image in post. If you don't like it, or you need the creative control on set - you can always use optical filters. But you will never be able to reverse bad design into a good one without opening the lens. Though, I guess, in scope of crash cam usage, these lenses might make sense, indeed.
@@eigenkuro7166 I think this goes back to the fact that cinematography is art, and art (fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you view it ) is all subjective.
I have seen from other RUclipsrs saying that even the modern lenses used for Batman and Dune were detuned, meaning that, although the center sharpness is still there, it becomes soft around the edges (to mimic that of the older vintage lenses).
Like you, I can’t justify $1000+ for vintage lenses , but if these professionals are using these lenses for multi million dollar projects, there’s obviously value in them.
I disagree with you that you can get a modern lens and make it look just like a vintage lens though. I own a Helios 44M lens and it also own the canon RF f/2.8 zoom lenses (15-35, 24-70, 70-200). Maybe I can make the look similar with a lot of post processing, I don’t know. But it’s blatantly obvious that my Helios looks different from my modern lenses, even if you ignore things like the softness and CA.
The bokeh is different, the flaring is different, it’s just so different that to me it would seem that these film makers decided that it’s cheaper to rehouse a vintage lens than to use a modern one and do tons of post processing to match the vintage look for each shot.
But these are just my thoughts. I’m just a simple hobbyist .
Dune 2 - is a joke )
"Made in Ukraine" WTF propaganda
>internally focus but extend past the front of the lens... 🧐