Hi Folks! Welcome to my YouTube channel RetroFotoHouse. And today it's time to another review.
I continue to test ultimate quality vintage lenses and today we will talk about unique lens.This is a
Carl Zeiss Planar 1.4 85 millimeters HFT 3 blades iris for rollei cameras.
and in second i will unveil a planar tuned in my workshop for movie capturing purposes.
This review is composed of two parts: in first part i will talk about original version
So why this lens is so unique? Designed in 1973 in West Germany for top of the line rolleiflex
sl 350 camera it was the finest camera lens at that time and still is nowadays.
Lens saw limited production in Zeiss factory in Oberkochen, some 3300 pieces were built.
It was designed for wide range of applications in poor light, but of course its main purpose portrait photography with blurred and faded backgrounds.
This lens delivers exceptional image quality, even at wide open. Some of these fine shots made personally by me you are now looking at.
It has an elder brother cineplanar which was used in Hollywood to shoot among others The Shining starring Jack Nicholson
Here is the scene of this film showing triangular bokeh shape encircled in red.
For the sake of simplicity the number of aperture blades is indicated as three in specification,
but in fact diaphragm has nine blades coupled side by side in groups of three. Only the outer blades
are visible so bokeh shape looks like triangles with rounded sides. The exact reason for using
such diaphragm is unknown, however it was not a production cost cutting measure. Now let's take a
look at optics. A cutting edge coating technology was used for optical elements treatment.
It was called HFT-a high fidelity transfer. It boosts light transmission, ensures sharp and high
contrast images, minimizes ghosts and flares. What are the technical specs of this lens? So
the optical design consists of six elements in five groups, field of view 28.5 degrees,
fastest aperture F1.4, slowest aperture F16, focusing range is from one meter to infinity,
rollei qbm bayonet mount, flange focal distance 44.5 millimeters, front filter thread 67
millimeters, weight 620 grams. Now let's pass to a second part of my review where i would like to
present to you guys a cinemodded version of this planar HFT 3 blades version. So there are a few
points that i've added to this lens that are very important for filmmakers. So first of all
i've changed the mount from rollei qbm to canon EF for compatibility with many
filming cameras many many equipment. So it allows it preserves the original focusing from one meter
to infinity so now we have a canon EF mount mount, then i've de-clicked the aperture,
now you can you can see that is clickless, very important. I re-lubricated the focusing
ring so now we have a smooth as silk focusing because originally it's not so so good, because of
this lens is quite old so it needs service. I added the follow focus gear
for follow focus equipment and also i added here the 77 millimeter front. So it's fully working
you may see how three blades iris aperture is working and it delivers really stunning results