GEAR VINTAGE LENSES
and controls that work with today’s cameras and focus systems, you’ll often need to look at rehousing. It is possible to attempt this yourself if you’re brave – Förderer has tried it, but concedes: “I think you really need to know that if you’re taking a lens apart or modifying something, you need a specialist. “There are amazing companies now like TLS in the UK, Zero Optik in LA and TK Lenses in Thailand. Rehousing is expensive but it’s an investment that hopefully gives them a long life. Cameras come and go, but the lenses can last generations, especially if you have lenses that cover full-frame sensors.” Kounthawatphinyo has an inside view of the process. His company operates from a small workshop in Bangkok, specialising in lens rehousing and custom mechanical work for cinema use. His main customers are small-to-medium rental houses, due to the expense involved in the rehousing process. “Assembling a complete set is not just about finding the complete focal lengths; you also have to consider the condition of the glass and whether the colours match. Even lenses produced around the same year can have different colour rendering, so finding a colour- matched set takes a long time. In many cases, the rehousing process costs more than the donor lens itself. This limits the market, meaning over 80% of our clients are rental houses.” Their motivation is drawing business from cinematographers who love the vintage look but can’t justify a rehousing project themselves. Occasionally, TK Lenses gets a commission from an individual owner brandishing an off-beat
lens they just love the look of and want for long-term use – a Meyer Optik or Carl Zeiss Biotar, perhaps – but mostly the rental firms are their bread and butter. For Leicestershire-based TLS, which is one of the world’s top specialists in the field of converting, servicing and repairing lenses for film and TV, around 90% of business used to come from rental houses when they first started offering the service, “but it’s evening out more now,” says Gavin Whitehurst, MD. “We’re seeing a lot more DOPs wanting their own sets, as well as putting them on consignment – again with the rental houses – but that mix is really changing at the moment.” INSIDE THE WORKSHOP The rehousing process can throw up many challenges – which the teams at both TLS and TK Lenses are intimately familiar with. One issue is that the people commissioning the projects have, to put it plainly, unrealistic ideas of what can be achieved. “You have three options: fast, good, and cheap – the project management triangle – and you can only pick two!” quips Kounthawatphinyo. “You simply can’t have all three simultaneously, and many people struggle to understand this. They truly believe that regardless of the price, the quality should be identical. They believe an inexpensive rehousing service should offer the same quality as a high-end one, which is just physically impossible. The design involves complex technical hurdles, and even engineers often disagree on solutions.” “Filmmakers don’t realise the amount of work that goes into the assembly of
NO STONE UNTURNED CINEFLARES founder Markus Förderer testing a lens (pictured here); a TK Lenses specialist at work (below)
these lenses,” agrees TLS’s Stephen Lowe. “Whenever we host an open house, or we show DOPs around, they are blown away with the level of detail and personal time that goes into the build of each one of our lenses. When they see every little detail of the job that goes into it, they then understand why it costs that much to have the work done.” The first thing you need is suitable donor glass – deep scratches, haze or fungus can make your project a non- starter. Coating damage can also be an issue, because while “you can polish and recoat if it’s not too bad,” says Whitehurst, “the problem is that you’re taking off that vintage coating which is exactly what people love and, unless you can replicate that, you’re going to be altering the lens in some way, leading to a different result.” Beyond optical condition, there are also fundamental design limitations that
26
DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM
Powered by FlippingBook