Frame & Reference Podcast - Lens Month: Zero Optik's Founder Alex Nelson

Episode Date: July 8, 2021

Welcome to our second episode of Lens Month! This week, Kenny talks with Alex Nelson of Zero Optik. Zero Optik is a Los Angeles based firm that specializes in modifying and customizing lenses for cinematography. Recently, Zero Optik rehoused the Canon Rangefinder lenses for Zack Snyder’s zombie thriller “Army of the Dead” which helped to give the film its distinct vintage look. In this podcast, Kenny and Alex dive into some nerdy lens talk and also touch on some insider info on the lens industry. We think you're going to like this one so sit back and enjoy! Check out Zero Optik’s website here Follow them on Instagram at @zerooptik Frame & Reference is supported by Filmtools and ProVideo Coalition. Filmtools is the West Coasts leading supplier of film equipment. From cameras and lights to grip and expendables, Filmtools has you covered for all your film gear needs. Check out Filmtools.com for more. ProVideo Coalition is a top news and reviews site focusing on all things production and post. Check out ProVideoCoalition.com for the latest news coming out of the industry. Check out ProVideoCoalition.com for more!

Hello, and welcome to this, another episode of Frame and Reference. I'm your host, Kenny McMillan, and today, for episode two of Lens Week, we've got Alex Nelson of ZeroOptic. You may know Alex from having made the lenses for Zach Snyder's new film Army of the Dead, those rehoused Canon FDs, the Dream Lens, the 0.9550, as well as a 35, you know, those Canon rangefinder lenses. He's also made industrial strength PL pinhole lenses. He's also rehoused my favorite sort of vintage lens. is the Nikor Primes. I own a set. Not of his, of the originals. Alex is awesome. This podcast, you're going to love it. We talk about photography, real specific

nerdy lens things. He kind of shares some industry secrets, so to speak. I've noticed all the lens guys are real tight-lipped, so I don't mean to say he actually does. But really interesting stuff that I don't think the average person or even the average DP would know. You know, we talk about the psychology of photography. This is another, you know, sort of acquaintance friend of mine, so we kind of hit it off easily. You know, it's nice when the person you're talking to, you already have sort of a relationship or rapport. It's easier to chat. We'll definitely have Alex back on outside of Lens week, or Lens Month.

Did I say Lens Week at the beginning? Whatever, it's Lens Month. But, yeah, so you're going to love this one. So without further ado, here's my conversation with Alex Nelson. zero optic. So for to start for people who don't know, you're not a lens, are you a, would you consider yourself a lens manufacturer or are you like a housing manufacturer? Uh, we are definitely just a housing manufacturer. Uh, we, we don't make glass from

scratch. Um, I mean, the, the zero optic is a, is a very, literal sort of thing. So, yeah, it's all mechanical design and certainly every part of the mechanical housing is manufactured either from scratch or to our sort of specification. So we lean into manufacturing that, but less so the optics themselves. And what got you started in, because it's a pretty specific niche to get into, I'll be at one that's awesome. Like, that's why I'm doing Lens Month because I just want to learn more about it.

Yeah. I mean, I don't have a very, like, clean story. Like, I went to film school. Who does? You're right? Nobody ends up where they plan to. But, yeah, I went to film school expecting to pursue cinematography. And was, like, very much headed on that path.

I interned at Pennivision, New York when I was in college. In New York, you can join the union if you take a test. You don't have to do the whole roster thing. And so studied for that, like a madman, took the AC exam for local 600, worked at rental houses, sort of like very hardcore down, like, I'm going to just work my way up through the camera department. And I was working at TCS in New York as a prep tech. And it was about the same time that, like, people were trying to talk about, like, cooks beat pancreas.

We had a set there. It hadn't even been rehoused. It was still just, like, oh, you could put, like, a PL adapter onto an Airy Standard mount. And, like, you can shoot with these weird old little, sort of gems. and super baltars weren't even a thing but like I remember like TLS started doing the re-housing for the cooks PNS Technic was doing stuff like that I remember PNS Technic especially during the 35 millimeter adapter days yes exactly yeah I think that more than anything like that was sort of the that was almost hotter than vintage lenses at that point

it was like you get your DVX 100 and you get like the mini E35 or whatever, get your Nikon lenses, and yeah. You know what's stupid, not to interrupt your story, but just because you lit up when I said this, I had an XL2, which had that EF adapter that they made, and it was just a little credit card looking thing, and I did not buy it because I was like, I got these cool real movie lenses. Why would I want to put EF glass on this? Right, exactly. I remember that adapter.

Like, the, goddamn, the XL2 was such a cool. cool camera. I still have it. Do you? Yeah. The tape deck doesn't work, I don't think. But I was using that hard drive adapter that was like, let's talk about non-locking connectors. It was a USB to firewire, like USBA Mini to Firewire. Was it the one that looks like a fat iPod? Like it had like the Firestore FS5 or something like that. Yeah. 500 gig or so. the hot thing after the fire store was like the nano flash it's like now you've got this little like baby thing oh my god dude the the things we went through to fucking make to be like quote-unquote

real filmmakers it was nuts like especially yeah like everything was so you know now you have like a giant touchscreen panel that'll show you waveforms and all that these things that they half of them didn't even have screens or if they did it you've got like three lines of text and it's just like is it recording what is it recording and like what's the runtime like none of this like oh like let's pick focus over here it's like it's so crazy i remember the xl2 had uh zebras and that was incredible i was cheat code mode right there i had the um xLR input and everything yep that was yeah but that wheel selector that all the i should honestly i should it's at my mom's house in nevada but uh you should have her send her out she's going to make me go get it for sure but i'm gonna um but i should go get that thing and just like you know what that would be cool we put we put we put we make an adapter for it and see what could you put on that because i know you can't like a it was a xl mount 1 3rd inch uh 1 3rd inch so you'd almost want to get like

super 16 lenses or something for that yeah and that I bet the handle would go past the uh yeah exactly you have this little like Schneider prime from the 70s yeah that'd be dope that'd be really cool that would be cool all right I'm gonna make that a project then we can go havesies on that one that'd be so cool because I know that I've been like I've been thinking like oh it would be cool to put the Excel lenses on something but there's you can't adapt that to anything No, and it's, I mean, all of that stuff was like fly by wire. So trying to, you're trying to like rebuild it into something mechanical.

It would be an absolute nightmare. Uh, you're half true. The 20X was wire. The 16 was manual, which is why I bought it. Yeah. Because you could, you could snap zoom a lot harder. And the foot is just like the focus you could ride a little better because I had the little knob sticking out, you know.

Um, anyway, complete detour. So you're working at TLS. working at TCS or TCS sorry TLS isn't the UK but working at TCS as a prep tech in New York and they bought a CNC mill because I've been sort of like harping on like you know it'd be really cool if like TCS could become like the Claremont camera of the East Coast

like making custom racketry in boxes and stuff and so they finally relented They bought this pretty beefy CNC milling machine with all the bells and whistles. And I basically spent three months just like learning how to machine stuff from YouTube videos, which is crazy dangerous because like if you don't know what you're doing, those things are, you know, the tool is spinning at like 12,000 RPM and you have to program exactly where it needs to go in 3D space. Everyone thinks CNC mills, you just, you know, it's like a magic box that just like delivers your finished parts to you.

It's the most dangerous thing you could possibly play with if you don't know what you're doing. And there were a few times where, you know, you plug in the coordinates wrong and it just drives an end mill straight into like the vice and then snaps, you know, a quarter inch piece of steel in half and sent it flying across the room. But eventually got a handle on that. And, you know, it's a little. So I wanted to see what I could do with it. Like I was a prep tech. I couldn't afford to get, you know, TLS to rehouse lenses for me. I couldn't afford to get, you know, anybody to do that kind of thing.

So I wanted to see if I could sort of manage it. And so they also had this old, old manual laid from like World War II in the same, like, room that the CNC mill was in. So I started like going in on weekends, turning down massive chunks of metal. manually on this lathe and then doing like all the little sort of like milling operations on the on the CNC mill um never really i don't think i finished anything on that but it was it was really really good sort of background um for designing stuff because when you're designing anything that needs to be made out of metal you have to know sort of what your constraints are you have to know

for example that like, you know, if you have like a corner, the inside of the corner can't be a hard 90 degree angle. Like there's going to be a radius because it's being cut with something it's spinning. And so just being able to sort of go into a design with that kind of background and having to plan through every step, like how is someone going to cut this out of a piece of metal was huge because it would be so easy to just like, oh, you know, these are the shapes it has to be, this is where everything needs to sit, and then you go to a machinist, and I tell you, this is impossible to make. So, but it started playing with lenses, sort of developing, I really wanted to shoot with a pinhole

lens at the time, and the epic had just come out, which is like the first Sini camera that could do like really crazy ISO. Yeah. And so wanted to see basically, could you shoot pinhole footage at like 24 frames? Because normally that's like time exposure kind of stuff. You know, you've just, you've got to go for a few seconds. In some cases, like a year. Have you ever, I'm sure you've seen those.

I've seen them. Yeah. Yeah. You see like all the paths of the sun going across the frame. Yeah. And it seemed like that'd be a really cool sort of project that's maybe a little more accessible. and building an all-out, like, lens housing. And so I just sort of started playing with lenses and then at some point decided it was time to move to L.A. And I was kind of over set work.

I mean, I worked as an AC on, like, day played on movies and commercials and TV shows and stuff. And it was just grueling. I mean, I did, like, some of the pre-taped stuff, for example, for Saturday Night Live. and you know call time is like five o'clock in the morning somewhere you shoot all day long no meal breaks and then um if you get like maybe an hour or two break in the evening and then you shoot until like three o'clock the next morning um i was like i can't i don't have to stand enough for this well i'm sure s and l is like kind of a unique case no i mean they're all i mean i know all jobs are kind of similar but that's got to be pertinent they are notorious

for being an aggressive schedule. Yeah, and certainly, I mean, you get paid well. Like, even as like a loader or a second on that, you know, it would just be like, cool, I did like a day and a half of work and $800 just showed up in my bank account. Like that's okay. But moved out to L.A., and I didn't have sort of the freelance network out here. So I hit up a bunch of different rental houses.

And just sort of on a whim, I was like, you know, I'll drop off like a cover letter at DuClo's lenses. I don't think they had anything advertised, but went to Chatsworth. It was like left something at the front desk and you got a call from Paul DuCloose like a week later or something asking if I wanted to be like their sort of engineer designing mount conversions and whatever, adapters. And the competing offer was from Keslo to be a prep tech for like another four years or something. It's just like that's not a hard choice. Yeah. So yeah, so I spent four years at DuCloose designing a lot of mount conversions, step-up rings, nothing that was quite like a full-on rehousing, but a lot of stuff that was sort of in that vein. And,

getting to take apart lenses from every manufacturer, which was invaluable. Because, you know, like when I was working on the first rehousing project for Zero Optic, which was Baltars, I was still working at DuClos. And I would run into like a little design challenge and I could go, you know, I could look at the safe at DuCloose and see, you know, how did Zeiss and ingenue and Canon and, you know, whoever else work out that same challenge? Like, what was their solution and just sort of cherry pick what the best options were. So that, yeah, when it was time to sort of go full time with zero optic, there was a pretty diverse arsenal to draw on in terms of design approaches or little sort of like mechanical engineering solutions.

So it's a very weird and indirect path. Yeah, I mean, that's like I said, everyone's got their own. I certainly didn't take a see I think a lot of people can get distracted whereas at least you stayed in the sort of lane I ended up yeah I ended up as a photographer for Red Bull for a handful of years and I was like I'm gonna work for this company forever because it was like you know it's a cool company to work for and then they were like actually we're done with freelancers and I was like oh no like it was like me and the entire like warehouse team in Arizona all just got

canned at the same time and we were just like oh well looks like I got to go back to my original plan because I was in film school and like that was a time you know I look back on it it was probably it was an excellent experience for me but it definitely took the past five years today to even get back to a position where like anyone would take me serious I didn't have a reel at a bunch of photos of like skydivers and motocross people and shit yeah it's funny though because I was just talking to someone yesterday about like from my experience it takes about five years to kind of to like get to something like if you like zero set your mind into it but like yeah like you know if you move to a new city or you sort of take a new like career path it's like five years till you you start to like see the results or start to be like okay i've hit that and like now i can start to build on this yeah it is it you know you kind of think it's funny because it sounds like a lot of time but you do kind of think of life in four year chunks you know your middle school your high school your college, post-college, whatever.

It's all four to five-year chunks. So maybe that's just a natural progression of things. Yeah, which is kind of exciting, right? Because, like, if you find you're in something that's, like, just not clicking, right, you know, worst-case scenario, it'll be, you know, if you start down another path, it'll be five years before, like, you know, you're sort of better established there and can see how that one fits. Yeah.

Yeah, because especially. too, you don't have to think of it as like, oh, I wasted a year. It's like, no, you only wasted a year. Like, luckily you got out quick or else you would have been five years down and blew it. It really sucked. So the pinhole lens was the first zero optic? Exactly, which, you know, that was the most literal sort of thing. It was something when I was still sort of hoping to make a career in cinematography, you know, as a cinematographer, rather.

I really loved the idea of having a lens that could sort of reduce a scene down to just light and form and motion and not be so concerned with the details and how many Ks were captured in a frame. And I really wanted to shoot sort of an architectural piece just because there are so many parallels between architecture and film and cinematography. in terms of light and space and form and, you know, how they're both very public kind of expressions. And so I started sort of just like, I think doing what a lot of people do, which is, you know, you get like some aluminum foil and you like poke a little hole in it and just kind of like tape that to a front cap or a port cap or something. But I couldn't leave that alone and had to see, you know, like, if I can really just go like balls out on this. If I, if I see, like, how insane you can make a pinhole, what would that look

like? You know, would it be, you know, if it's PL mounted and it's got like a mat box sort of front diameter, a standard front diameter, you know, what could you do with that? I even made one that technically had, like, a variable sort of pinhole. So it was an iris that could close completely down to zero. And so you could just sort of, you could make it as large or as small you wanted to. And just sort of, you know, played with that. And off and on, I think I made, I sold one while I was still in New York. And then after I'd been working at Duke Close for a couple of years, I had more people kind of like getting in touch every now and again because they'd find like an old Instagram post or a blog post I'd done. Just like, hey, are you, you're still

selling those? And so I went to Paul DuCloose and I said, you know, I'd design this thing when I was still working in New York, and I'm getting more and more requests for it. Do you mind if I sort of do this on the side? And he had no problem with it. In fact, Duke Close ended up buying half of the first batch for resale. That's cool. So it was, yeah, it was, you know, it was really just a sort of an experiment to see if anyone would buy just an insanely, like, over-engineered pinhole lens, how much they'd pay for it

and sort of like what the you know that was the first thing that I sort of ended up having machine on my own because I've done a lot of stuff with DuClose but hadn't

hadn't done my own kind of manufacturing project so yeah that was the I think it was just one Instagram post it kind of launched that it is wild how like

I don't know I don't know if it happens so much anymore But I do know at first, like, I definitely got a bunch of jobs off Instagram. Oh, yeah. Now, I don't know. Now, I think it kind of went, it's too popular now or whatever. Like, it's too much of a thing that you advertise on. Right.

Versus, like, a place to share stuff. Did you see, did you see the lens deployed on anything particularly cool? Or was it just a lot of people, like, doing, like, tech demos and stuff? It's interesting because there, it feels like, to the extent that anyone actually paid attention, to it, it feels like a very sort of polarizing thing because there were, there were people who looked at it and said, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Like, the price was $1,500 and there were people who very rightly were just like, I can buy actual glass lenses for like half of that.

So why would I buy this? But then there were also a lot of people who like saw that and were just like, I have so many ideas for this. This, like, you could shoot this, you could bring it on that. I haven't seen, or rather, I should say, not many people who have them have shared what they've shot with me anyway, but it seems like the people who have bought them are incredibly enthusiastic. They just, like, grab onto it. And more recently, I know the second season of Euphoria, took one and almost immediately after that we had Panavision like get in touch and ask if we had any more for sale so it's slowly kind of like people are starting to see maybe the value

or the purpose of it because it does it generates an image that like you just can't get any other way it's more impressionistic it's more sort of unusual than something you could do in post so that you could do in camera any other way. Yeah, I remember when we had first met at, because I remember we actually had met on Instagram, I think it was during the year of black and white for me.

Yeah. Which I'm about to go back to. Like when I, because man, I am excited to get back out in the world and take pictures again. Right. That was making me so happy and now like, how many times can you take a picture of the light coming through the window, you know? Like, here's my dusty shelf. Yeah, the dumpster

outside. Yeah. But I remember at Sinegear coming up and I'm like, I want to write an article about these things. And I still do. So we'll have to, because I think it would be interesting to do like, because a lot of my earlier work was with music videos and fashion stuff. I think it could be a real interesting, like impressionistic fashion. You know, you wouldn't necessarily see the clothes in any virtual detail, but it would be maybe like a like by the beach, you know. Yeah.

Well, one thing I have yet to see, which I was so excited to see. if anyone would do this. Isn't like a proper like studio shoot, like controlled lighting, you would need some bright, bright lights. We can try it, stray. But get like, you know, get a couple 20Ks, just roast the shit

out of an actor, let's see what you can get with that, because it gets this great sort of like blooming effect. It almost looks like old like 16 stop before they really dialed in like the anti-Helation backing. Yeah. And it's, it is a lot sharper than I think,

anyone would guess like it isn't just like a blurry mess you could you know if you're shooting like out on the street you can read street signs you can read you know marquees or something it's it's got an interesting vibe to it and it's uh basically everything's in focus everything's in focus and we have legitimately had people ask how you focus it or they think something's wrong which is you know then then you got to you got to chat through it you're going to treat it like a cell phone Sure you like a cell phone. But it does have interchangeable pinholes.

So you basically have to decide, like, do I want to prioritize exposure or do I want to prioritize essentially resolution? Because you could use a really, really tiny pinhole. The smallest one is F-350. Casual. You know, super casual. Even on a super sensitive camera, you really got to jack the ISO up and be okay with some noise. But, you know, that you'll be able to like recognize people's faces with that. It's pretty damn sharp.

Or you can go to the other end. The widest aperture is 87.5, which is still no joke, but buys you a couple stops. Yeah. And so from there you, I think, I don't know if this is correct, but then did you jump straight into like, why did Nikon become your pet project, it seems? Because I don't know anyone else who rehouses Nikon lenses. So that was actually the second rehousing project we did. The first one was original Washington Lone Baltars. Oh, right, right, right.

And then I was still working at Duke Close when I was making and selling those. And Mark LaFleur at Old Fast Glass got in touch. I think I'd maybe commented on a post of his on Instagram. Instagram was a massive sort of thread running through all of this. and so we ended up we got drinks and he was just like someone's got to do Nikon AIS lenses like they're gorgeous you know that was the like every photojournalist in the 70s and 80s had Nikon on them that's where I got my set my uncle my uncle was a photojournalist and so I've got his F2 in the set yeah you don't know how many people we've had or just like you know these are my dads these are my granddad you know this is There are heirlooms in a way that nothing else we rehouse ever could be. And I'd grown up with Nikon.

My dad shot Nikon as an architect. He would document his projects with an F2 and a 24-mill 2.8. And so I was just like, yeah, that sounds great. It's an actual gap in the market. I didn't want to do, like the goal was never for Zero Optic to just be TLS or PNS technique. in Los Angeles. It was, you know,

I wanted to do projects that maybe no one else was doing or no one else has thought of. And so Nikon felt like a really good follow-up to the original Baltars and left a lot of room to sort of play with the aesthetic of the housing, too. Yeah,

because that is another thing that I really like about Yuri housings is they're very pretty. The attention to detail there is not unnoticed. Which, to be honest, that's almost, the point of it for me. Like, I essentially just taught myself optomechanical engineering simply

so I can play with industrial design. Because, I mean, that's the fun part. That's the part everybody sees. No one sees all the tricky, intricate bits inside. They just know that, you know, the anodizing looks just right. The paint fills, you know, just like has this perfect sort of like concave situation going on. That's, you know, that's where you really get to sort of like invest a lot of pride. Yeah. You know, it's, I think there's a tendency for sort of like formerly trained engineers to check off all the boxes mechanically and then like, okay, it does the thing

it's supposed to, we don't need to make it look like anything, it just, it needs to sort of like keep water and dust and whatever else out. But that's, that's where, you know, that's where you get to sort of, you know, that's where you get to sort of form the identity of the project and also of the company like that's that's where you get to like really put your stamp on it so it feels like a missed opportunity if you just sort of ignore it yeah yeah that was actually something matthew was saying he was like you know the engineers they don't necessarily know how to make a not a pretty lens i'm now i'm putting words in his mouth but like they they know how to they know how to make the perfect lens and then that's that's

the end goal because we were talking about like oh if someone wanted to if canon wanted to to go back and make the K-35s. Like, no one who works at Canon knows how that was made or anything, so that's not happening. Right. And they're not going to redo the FDs because they don't make those anymore either. Yeah, and in many cases, they probably couldn't. Materials have changed.

Technology has changed. And yeah, I mean, it's also just a fact that engineers, like, there's no room sort of like psychologically for flaws, especially deliberate flaws. You know, you're trying to sort of like hit the peak of every graph in the software you're using. It's like, you know, how good can MTF be and how, you know, how much can we reduce coma and spherical aberration and chromatic aberration? And so, which I can sort of appreciate because, you know, it's a lot easier to aim for like being the best. If you aim for what is essentially mediocrity, like what is the baseline there? Like what is just what looks like shit and what is pretty?

And that's not something that they teach engineers. So they either have to have faith in their clients, which they usually don't. Or they just have to come up with some arbitrary kind of, you know, I don't know, like we sort of like turned the perfection down. Is this what you guys wanted? Like it blooms kind of when you focus. Well, that was that was something I was saying was like I just got that that cconic color meter, the C-800, right? So I've just been going around metering the hell out of everything. I've got a profile for every light, every version of sun, every patch of shade.

And, you know, it's got the SSI that the Academy made, the spectral similarity index. Yeah. Where instead of comparing TCL or CRI, which is comparing to a target, SSI just compares one light against a known spectrum, a known light source. So like if you want, if you have a tungsten LED, whatever, tungsten colored LED and you want to compare it to a real LED, you can see how close it is, and then you can make your judgment from there. I'm like, my idea was they make one of those for lenses because, again, Matthew was saying like, oh, there's no, there's no, you can have a perfect lens on it with the charts, but then they all look different. There's no, you can't match them like that. I was like, there's got to be a way for like, and I think this is the thing that the internet would love is if you could go. So, like, oh, if you buy, of course, you know, this is the made-up dream that everyone has, right?

Like, if you go on eBay and get this very specific, uh, uh, whatever lens from the 60s, it looks exactly like a cook S4. Yep. Which, you know, I think the, it really jumped the shark when it came to K-35s because K-35s are incredibly scarce. And so everyone was looking for like, what's a thing that looks like the K-35, it doesn't cost a quarter of a million dollars. And you can actually like.

purchase someplace. Yeah, at this point, I don't know how many, I mean, certainly the FDs are like the most direct kind of substitute, but how many, you know, detuned Tokina's, rocanons, whatever else, even Ken and C&Es are being billed, and in some cases, like, very explicitly as these are basically K-35, so we've done enough to this that, you know, it's supposed to be k35 like um which you know and it's worse it's just sort of disingenuous and at its best is maybe uh i don't know sort of naive well because the other thing too is like what does that mean what part of the k35 are you selling people exactly which and if you look at k35 they're not strictly consistent so it's just it's like it's all just a myth um yeah i mean it's it's it's a myth it's a myth

that everybody buys into and so that in a sense sort of makes it real yeah would you how would you describe if you could now like this is goes against exactly what we were just saying but like using nichors as the example like how would you how would you sort of describe that the characteristics of a nicar versus a k35 or maybe like a modern sigma which i know is very neutral yeah well i mean so i think you could make sort of broad statements um Because at the very least, you can boil, like, each company down, or each product line, at least, down to essentially the priorities that they had for that. Because, I mean, like, every different lens manufacturer, you know, they can all be sort of like striving for the perfect lens. But the individual sort of characteristics or parameters that they prioritize will ultimately generate fundamentally different products.

And so you can see what Canon was doing in the 70s and 80s versus what Nikon was doing in the 70s and 80s. And even though within like the FD set, there might not be consistency from one focal length the next. Broadly you can say, all right, they tended to have fairly warm flares. Canon at the time was kind of a second tier manufacturer. They were hoping to be runner up to Nikon. And so they were throwing a lot of stuff at the wall to see what would stick.

They were doing a lot of really weird stuff with Aspheres that was, I'd say, like, largely successful, but introduced some weird kind of funkiness into some of their lenses. You said asphherical elements? Yeah. For example, like the 24.1.4, something we see a lot. is that there's this really crucial asherical doublet in the rear group, and they clearly had a tough time cementing that perfectly. So if you project one of those lenses, it'll be flat and symmetrical, but you'll see it looks sort of de-centered. Like if you throw focus out a little bit,

you'll see it'll like smear to one side or like a little bit down. And that was a result of them just sort of struggling to implement A-Sphere's in a reliable way for what was ultimately a consumer-grade product. Nikon was top of the heap. They didn't really need to try anything. They didn't have to be as scrappy. And so they ended up putting out a lot of lenses that were just like just very good. You know, they didn't have a crazy fast 24. It was a lot of like F-2s. You know, they kind of had the you know the basic fast like 35 fast 50 fast 85 but everything else was just meant to be very high performing and so you tend to see especially relative to like fds or k35s icons tend to be like pretty clean pretty neutral but with essentially charactered that you know the manufacturing

processes of the time kind of gave them you know whatever the the coding technology was at the time, the polishing technology, and again, just the parameters of building consumer-grade lenses that have to hit a certain price point. You see that bring a little more gentleness to the image than ultra-modern stuff than, say, sigma's. But I'd say it's, you know, if you were going to shoot a spot and you're a little bit worried what, like, the agency is going to think about it, like those are a safe bet. They're not going to look super sterile, but they're not going to throw any weird curveballs at you either. It's not going to like catch a light in a weird way and suddenly everything just like milks over and you get

crazy like bubbles layers across the frame. So I think that's probably, those are the broad statements that you could apply to each of those sets. And certainly focal length by focal length, you could probably make more specific kind of judgments. One thing that I've noticed, you know, obviously as in the earlier days of DV and whatnot sharpness and clarity were important because resolving power is pretty low and now we've got you know and I've said this before if if anyone's curious about what camera they should buy just whichever one you think looks the coolest doesn't matter it like they're all amazing you know if you if you think Fuji's cool because it's Fuji buy that because I have an XT3 it's amazing you know exactly but now everyone

is going the other way and they're pushing against resolution they're pushing against perfection because the sensor is so quote unquote perfect um you know the classic like every dp under the sun if given the option just goes Alexa mini cook s4 just sends sends that bit in um do you do you do you think what is it what is a good question i don't know if you have a ton of experience with them but what do you think it is about the cooks? Is it just salesmanship about the cook look, so to speak? Yeah, I mean, at the very least, there's a lot to be said for what people think maybe versus reality. It was really interesting, actually. I don't know if you heard about this

lens test that essentially the French version of the ASC put together, the AFC, but they did like a blind lens taste test and I know it's screened at like camera mage they had a screening last winter right before COVID and they what they've done this they've taken like pretty much every lens they could get their hands on every you know it's vintage Panavision stuff it's anamorphic spherical super clean and modern super funky from the 50s and they They shoot the same like three scenarios with all of them and it's very clever. And then you've got a sheet and everything is just like labeled like one, two, three, four, five.

You watch it like three times and they mix up the order. So you can't even be like, oh, like I remember I liked number one. It's like no, now that's number 16. And so if you still like it, you have to kind of like independently come up with that. And it was so interesting to see what people actually liked. Because, you know, I think there are so many DPs who, if given half a chance, they're like, yes, I want the 1950s Panavision anamorphics. Like, I would shoot anything with those.

I'd shoot a movie, a music video, a short film. Nobody liked that in the blind taste test. Nobody wanted that because they would do, I remember there was one scene. They were like panning across a window. There was someone walking, you know, in front of a window, pan across it. And just everything went white. to the point that like the entire screening room started laughing it's like half the ASC board members were in there everyone just started laughing at this and it's like those are the auto panitars that are like so coveted and you know you couldn't rent them if you go for love or money um and what did everybody love master primes and s4s yeah clean reliable you know nothing weird nothing unexpected it's not going to it's not going to haze over if you have an unexpected lighting scenario it's just you can bank on them well and that it is funny because like in i kind of think about this a lot

where we work in an industry that sell you know what what's that quote like the only thing that you sell people is a memory you know right we bank on nostalgia not with the internet anymore but back in the day at least uh but we bank on nostalgia but we work on specificity and i think as artists there's like kind of a weird middle ground like people want the old Panavision anamorphics because we remember Star Wars or remember escape from New York or whatever and we remember that the movie not necessarily the actual resolving power or look of it necessarily right I think there I remember reading in an Malcolm Gladwell book that if if presented with the question like what kind of coffee you know

would you like? What's the flavor that you'd like? What's the, what's the texture? A lot of people take really hearty, like dark roast, something with a lot of, like, character. But if you actually look at sales data, everybody wants the milkyest, sugaryest, like Dunkin' Donuts coffee. Nobody buys the dark roast. And it's, we see that all the time with stuff that gets sent in for rehousing. You know, someone will say, I want, I want, like, late 70s FDs. I don't even want the later stuff. I want, like, the real weird stuff from the 70s, amber flares and kind of glowing. And, you know, so we'll rehouse them.

We, you know, we recenter stuff. We recalibrate the optics. And then they'll project it at their favorite, you know, neighborhood rental house. I'll say, it doesn't resolve that well in the corners. like when it's broken like that is what you that's what you wanted that's that's what you ordered 70s yeah like it's weird that's you know that's why you shoot with it it's not because the corners are tack sharp and it's it's super even it's it's got a little funkiness to it um so it's a very interesting sort of tightrope to walk in that regard uh you know trying to manage expectations

and also make sure that people are are sort of order ordering what they genuinely want and not, you know, not getting something that's going to disappoint them. Yeah. So as much as you can, walk me through, like, what, what you do for a rehousing? Because, you know, like, do you, are you able to find the, the specifications for each lens or do you have to, like, take it apart and memorize, like, distances and stuff? Like, what is that whole process like? Um, whenever we can, I, I, I tried to source like original documentation, because obviously that saves the most time. Most manufacturers are not that helpful.

Sure. The Lika and Zice are probably the best because their whole sort of reputation is built on their incredible engineering. And so Zice, for everything they've ever made, they have really specific data sheets. like this is this is the size of the entrance pupil this is where it sits like relative to this part of the lens this is the exit pupil like stuff nobody needs to know you know the back focal length of the you know from the rear optical surface to the film plane you know three people in the world need that information but we're one of them yeah the companies don't provide that though or they'll say you know the really helpful stuff is is knowing

going into a lens, is it a floating element design? Or is it single cell? If it is a floating element design, what's moving? Because that changes. Some stuff, you just have like one little element that moves separate from everything else. And some stuff, you have like three different optical groups, all moving at different rates as you focus.

So at least knowing what you're in for is really helpful. But more often than not, it just comes down to very, very careful disassembly and notes and measuring. And so I can build an optical model of what we're going to rehouse and then put everything around it. It would be agony if we didn't have 3D modeling software, because that makes it 100 times easier than if it was two-dimensional of that would be like drawn out we wouldn't be able to do half the stuff we do oh yeah i can imagine

do you do you go through i know you um you'll swap out the uh apertures give them rounded apertures uh is there anything else that you tend to modify in any these lenses or is that kind of by a by request only type thing or uh we do that in everything so we we put circular apertures and everything um because it's it's incredibly rare that anyone wants the original iris and for us it's often just simpler to put a new iris in it's gotten to the point that we don't even we use as little of the original housing as possible essentially all we're taking is the glass and maybe a couple key sort of like metal components you know whatever it's like you know if there's like a cell that holds several elements in one place in the correct relationship if we can use it we will but it's honestly just easier to start from scratch every time because then we can control it. We can remachine something if we need to

or make something thinner or bigger or whatever and push and pull is needed where the more original parts you have to deal with, the worse it is. We've had people sort of under the impression, prospective clients who will say, I don't want a whole rehousing. I just, you know, can't you just put a PL mount on this?

And a mount conversion is a million times harder and much more work and much more sort of like creative energy to pull off properly than just saying, nope, we'll just take the glass out, we'll put it in a new thing, and now it works better. I did so many mount conversions that do close. I'm trying to figure out how to get iris linkages around stuff that the original manufacturer built. It takes, it's a lot of mental gymnastics.

that, you know, you can't do every day if you're trying to put out a set of, you know, eight, ten, twelve focal links. Yeah, I mean, you still shoot photos. Is there a, what's your go-to lens? Because I learned this a couple days ago, no such thing is a favorite. Right. But there is a most used. There is a most used.

And there's definitely, I feel like it's the most used is never probably what you would describe as your favorite. No, it's the most utilitarian. Yeah, exactly. For me, it's the 27 pancake on the, on the Nikon, because I can just throw that in my pocket. It's not some big asshole lens, you know, and 27's a pretty good field of view for walking around town. Yeah, exactly. I mean, for my stuff, like, personally, I only shoot film and not out of any sense of, like, hipster nostalgia.

Like, I love scanning myself so it looks as clean as possible. for like fun happy accidents I mostly just want to capture as much like exposure information as possible and film still cannot be beat in that regard it's also more fun it is more yeah you have to like you have to stay engaged right like it's so easy to just like hold down the shutter button and just spray and pray but if you have like 36 exposures to really consider and then you know you've got to wait a couple weeks before you get to see what actually came out you're going to put a little more time and effort into it yeah there's there's something to be said for like well first you most use lens then i'll get into that thought

most use lens uh probably so i have three three cameras that i like just have in like constant rotation one is my lyca m3 one is my nicon f2 and one is uh pentax 67 um So it depends on the camera system. I have a really great 50 F2 for my Lyca. It's a sumicron from the late 50s that was originally designed for the military. And so I don't know if you've shot much with old school range finders, but the close focus is always capped at something horrible, like three feet. Which even with a 50, it's not really close enough to do like proper.

like portrait shirt. Like it's kind of like waist up. But this, because it was designed for the military, they built in like a close focus ability. So it's it's got this very clever design where you sort of like pull the focus ring forward a little bit and then like click over into close focus mode. You have to put these little goggles on and now you can focus down to like 18 inches. Oh cool. So it's especially for a range finder like it's the most versatile lens that you could possibly have in your pocket and you know it's it's maybe an inch and a half long um that's always on my m3 uh on my icon it's probably an 8514 um and on the pentax they made a really gorgeous um 105 2.4 which is with the larger format it kind of has images that are

very close to shooting with like an ultra fast lens on full front like shooting with like a knock deluxe or something you end up with razor thin depths of field and this really great sense of like separation between your subject and the background yeah i've got a uh rz 67 and the the pro too it's it sucks because i have carried that around i went to uh the oh like when um galaxy's edge opened at Disneyland and uh i had this image in my head where i wanted to shoot Galaxy's Edge with nobody in it at night. So I had my RZ 67.

I got, it was for my birthday, my sister got us a hotel room because that was the only way you could get a pass to the park because either you won it in a lottery of some kind or something or if you were staying at one of the resort

hotels, you just got one automatically. So we cheated the system and our like call time or whatever was like 8 p.m. 9 p.m. And so all fucking day, I had the RZ 67 in my backpack with a little tripod and just

I got the photos. They look really cool, but like the, you know, the Millennium Falcon at night just like, it looks like from the movie, you know, because I'm under like, I had to back up pretty far so it's like under a, you know, structure. Yeah. So super cool, but yeah, my fucking shoulders

were just cooked for the, But isn't that the thing, right? Like, the Pentax is always, that's always the camera that I bring on, like, a 10-mile hike. Because, like, if you're going to go to, like, some crazy location or the end of the earth, like, you want a big negative. So that's almost like the scale. It's like, if I'm just going out to, like, walk around a city, it's the LICA. If I'm going to, like, a really, you know, interesting location that's still not that treacherous, it's the Nikon. if it's like the ass end of British Columbia the Pentax 67 is getting brought along like

it's you know you're gonna do it right yeah I the thing that sucked about the the Disneyland thing was I've only got the 110 and so I had to stand pretty far back which is you know whatever equivalent equivalent like 55 or something but but on full frame but I want that 90 every time I see like a photo that I really like I'm like oh would you shoot that on there. Like the 90, I'm like, fuck. And the 90's a 28, right? I think so. The 110's a 2.8. So I'm like used to that exposure.

I could never deal with the waist level finder business. Like the reversed motion really screws me up. Oh, dude. So I got that camera in 2008. I probably got that figured out by 2014.

Yeah. Now it's less of memory, but. Oh, God. It's fun though, because like you, whenever I show people that camera, because it looks ridiculous. You know, it's a massive, it's a studio camera. And, but it's always fun to like pop the viewfinder open and show it to someone. And they always look in there and nine times out to 10, they go, it looks 3D.

Yes. Or they'll say, it looks real. And I'm like, it is real. What are you talking about? Literally. But, yeah, there's just something about that image that's so compelling that makes shooting with it more fun. Yeah. Yeah.

I think in the same way that like just shooting analog is engaging like shooting a huge negative like that just keeps you more engaged as well. The way you know shooting analog keeps you very engaged in sort of like making the image. When you make the leap to medium format it's just like heightened that much more, right? Like you know you have even fewer exposures to work with but it's also the medium is just so that you can't help but sort of like play with it more, sort of like look for more interesting things to do with it. Yeah, I always say like, you know, you know what I always say is I always say, I got to stop

doing that. But with medium format, like because you've only got 10, maybe 12 exposures, that's more like if you have one idea, you shoot a role of medium format. If you've got like an area, then you can shoot 35. Yeah, exactly. I've been shooting a bunch at, like, the Venice Skate Park over the last year or so. Those are great shots. I appreciate it.

It's the only place in L.A. that you can, like, basically do street photography. I mean, now with things are starting to thaw out a little bit, but, like, that's the only place where anyone's doing anything interesting, not wearing a mask. And so the first few times was like, all right, you know, I'll shoot 35. First it was with the Lyca, then it was with the Nikon. Partially, it was just like a focus pulling exercise. I don't have any auto-focus bodies, so it's just like, all right, like, can I nail someone, like, doing a wild jump at, like, a pretty, you know, shallow stop and not have it look terrible. And then after a few of those trips, I was like, it's probably time to bust out the medium format and see what's possible there. and, you know, go even bigger and play with it.

Because, yeah, I mean, that, it doesn't focus quickly. It's really cumbersome. And so you really have to have your wits about you. And also, yeah, sort of like go into it like a plan. Like this is where I'm going to try and get a couple shots because I know the light's going to be just right. It's like the sunsets, stuff like that. Well, if you do it enough, you get sort of the intuition you need to pull that off.

Yeah. But that also goes back to what I was going to say earlier, which is, I'm always looking for on my best days, because obviously I'm just as lazy as anyone else, but on my best days, I'm always looking for activities that do force you to do things the hard way, so to speak. One example that's incredibly nerdy is when I was trying to be better at leadership, I ran a ski club at my college and I was not good at it because I was, You know, I was not a good leader. And so, you know, being on set directing things, got to be a good leader. And so what I did was playing Counterstrike, a first-person shooter video game on the PC. I just immediately started saying, all right, unless someone steps up, I'm going to, like, have plans.

Because you can't just start barking people around. You have to have an idea of what you want to do. And start getting people to do that stuff. And I would just do that, like, every day as a test. of, or not a test, but like as repetitions, as leadership training, you know, because then you learn when people don't want to work with you and shit. But it's the same thing with, with, uh, shooting analog is like, it's, it does force you to have a plan. It does force you to consider your frame. It does force you to like, quote unquote, do things the

hard way, but that makes shooting digital easier. Right. And I think that's a valuable skill. I think so. And it's also, I mean, I think it sort of defeats some people, you know, because no one's used to waiting for anything now. But I think if you, if you accept it as like a sort of challenge, you know, if it is, you know, about sort of like trying to grow and trying to develop as an artist, then it leaves a lot there because you can, or it contributes a lot there because, you know, you can, for example, with like a LICA, you know, it's a range finder, you're not even seeing through the lens at that point. So you've, like, made it as difficult as it could possibly be to get a good photograph, especially with a moving subject. It's just like, all right, like, I've done this with an SLR.

Now let's see if I can nail focus by, like, judging off a little patch in the middle of, like, a little window that's sort of approximating what I'm going to be shooting with this lens. And just sort of like keep sort of upping the ante to see, you know, how well you can do and, you know, how tight your skill set can become. And that's, yeah, the only stuff I shoot digitally is product photos or stuff for Instagram that couldn't, you know, be shot on film because it has to be a quick turnaround or something. But it's, it's shooting digitally just feels like atrophying at this point. It's just like this is, there's no resistance here. There's nothing to be mastered. So, you know, I'll toss this off, be done with it, and then, you know, go shoot a real camera. There is, yeah, there is, that's a, that's a great way to put it is there's no resistance.

There's something about coming up against resistance in any art form or any job that is, like, healthy. Yeah. Yeah. It's like sugar, you know, free calories are not good for you. Exactly. And, you know, if you're, if you're like, or if you're like lifting weights, you know, muscle only comes from tearing your muscles, you know, it's, it's tearing and regrowing and tearing and regrowing. You know, if you're just chilling out and not doing anything, we'll never grow those muscles. Well, I learned that the hard way this year.

Yeah, same. Well, we're coming up on an hour. I like to ask everyone the same questions. first off well we kind of already covered it which was do you want to promote anything which get your lenses rehoused at zero optic yeah I mean you know we don't begrudge anyone going anywhere else so I'd say get your lenses rehoused at zero optic if you know we seem like the best fit for you the best sort of best option sure and finally what what is one thing whether it be a lifestyle change or product or

whatever, that made you a better, normally cinematographer, which we can count that, or a photographer or even in your current career. Ooh, recent or ever? Probably, I think the spirit of the question is, is ever. But if recent comes to mine, sure. Like, I know Tobias Schleser said, being kind. But then he also said light meter, carrying around the light meter. You know, it's a pretty open-ended question.

If I go all the way back, when I started sort of practicing photography in high school, my parents both had shot a lot of photography. My dad at one point, I think, had taught photography at Virginia Tech. and so for me just like shooting pictures and getting a roll of film back and looking at the print was magical but where things really clicked was you know the when you're growing up and you're taking pictures of things it's usually like of stuff you know it's it's your family members because there's like a birthday party or it's to document something very particular but the real which was essentially if the goal is more fine art photography or more, you know, an

expression of something, my dad kept telling me like, you know, stop taking pictures like of things and start trying to make a coherent frame. And I feel like that could be applied to a lot of stuff because it's essentially, you know, considering something more holistically and considering how the whole thing presents rather than just trying to check off like the singular box. So even, you know, with rehousing, it's taking care to make sure that the entire package is as good as it can be and presents as well as it can rather than just, you know, taking pictures of things and making sure that the lens, you know, moves back and forth and accomplishes what it's supposed to. Yeah. No, I love that. That's actually a great one. I think there's for me as a photographer there was definitely so I think it came

when I was shooting concerts but there's definitely a switch between taking a picture of for instance the musician and and taking a picture of the concert like telling the story of what was happening you know if he's screaming what you know I have so many early on I have so many close-ups of guitarists right and it's like that's useless he could be anywhere right been in my backyard it's like a trap it's catnip because the lighting is always so crazy so it's just like this looks amazing no matter what you take you know what they're doing it looks incredible but yeah you don't have any sort of like other narrative to it or no context for the frame yeah well that is that's the whole time

but i've thoroughly enjoyed this conversation yeah me too we should do it again literally whenever we're starting to build up repeat like a list of people who would enjoy coming back so we'll just have to have you come back outside of Lens Month. Yeah, anytime. It's been honored. Frame and reference is an Owlbot production. It's produced and edited by me, Kenny McMillan, and distributed by Pro Video Coalition. Our theme song is written and performed by Mark Pelly, and the F-At-R-Mapbox logo was designed by Nate Truax of Truax Branding Company.

You can read or watch the podcast you've just heard by going to ProVidiocoolition.com or YouTube.com slash owlbot, respectively. And as always, thanks for listening. Thank you.