[Leica] F 0.7 Cine Lenses (Was Noctilux Result)

["Mike Durling" <durling@widomaker.com>]

As promised I looked up the F0.7 lenses used by Stanley Kubrick and John
Alcott for "Barry Lyndon".  As Austin Burbridge said they were made by
Zeiss.  They were developed for NASA for the Apollo moon landing program.
There were three, 50mm lenses, which were originally used for still
photography.  They had internal leaf shutters which had to be removed in
order to mount the lenses in the modified Mitchell BNC cameras.  The film
gate had to be machined because the rear lens element was only 4mm from the
film plane at infinity.  These lenses were modified by Ed DiGiulio of Cinema
Products.

One of the lenses was fitted with a wide-angle adapter used for projection
lenses made by Kollmorgen.  This made a lens with an effective focal length
of 36.5mm.  Both of these lenses would have been moderate telephotos since
the cine frame size is half the size of the Leica format and masked for the
1:1.85 aspect ratio.

The Mitchell BNC was a non-reflex camera and employed a rack-over focusing
technique.  The focusing mount had a very fine thread and the lens had to be
cranked way out in order for the rear element to clear the rack-over
mechanism.  In use the lenses were focused by scale.  Tests were done and
the lens marked for various distances.  In a sense it was like using a
Noctilux on a Leica M (On Topic).  They viewed through an optical viewfinder
where everything appeared in focus.  Alcott, the director of photography,
says that the lens had almost no depth of field (as you might expect).

These lenses were used for scenes lit entirely by candlelight.  Alcott
reported that the light was about three foot-candles.  They apparently had
Angenieux 0.95 and Panavision T 1.1 lenses available but chose to use the
special lenses for the extra stop.

The articles mentioned that Kubrick did own the cameras and lenses used in
his films.  That question came up a month or two ago.

The source for this information was "American Cinematographer" March, 1976.

Sorry for the long, disjointed post, more or less off topic.  If you want to
see some great, almost available light photography go see "Barry Lyndon".
It really is a visually stunning film.

Mike D