By site editor Dan Chung:
We all love a nice smooth cinema geared lens. Sadly not everyone can afford top of the line glass from Zeiss, Angenieux, Fujinon or Cooke. There are cheaper alternatives like the Samyang/Rokinon lenses and also conversions and re-housings from firms like TLS, GL Optics, Van Diemen and Primecircle, which aim to fill the gap.
Cinematics is a Chinese company that has also offered lens conversions in the past but these were not at the same level as the ones mentioned above (they looked nice but mostly comprised of metal collars added to existing lens bodies – often with rotating lens fronts). This year they have moved up a notch and are offering an eclectic variety of more substantial looking conversions and also a Pro line of re-housings.
Their $3000 US CT.Pro 28-70 f2.8 conversion is a solid chuck of glass and metal that has been equipped with a PL mount. It is worth noting that the aperture ring is manual but doesn’t have much travel distance. There are also a CT.Pro Nikon 80-200 f2.8 and Tokina 11-16 f2.8 PL conversions available.
The CT.Pro line also includes cine converted Zeiss stills primes like this Contax 25mm f2.8, fitted with a non-electronic EOS mount. Cost is around $2500 US including the original lens.
These lenses looked nice but the ones I found most interesting were the old East German Meyer Optic 50mm f1.8 and the former USSR Helios 44mm f2 conversions. These lenses are not optically perfect but have their own unique qualities that some shooters are fond of. Cinematics have fitted these with nice geared focus and iris. The lens internals and M42 mount of the originals remains untouched, but they are easily converted to popular mounts using screw on convertors.
The best thing about these conversions is the price – about $250 US for the Helios and $400 US for the Meyer.
There are plenty of other conversions available but one downside is that they don’t seem to be widely available outside China. Check out the Cinematics website for more details.
