(cmount) B&H 앙제뉴/angenieux 25mm f0.95

cmount에는 궁극의 렌즈밝기로 통하는 f0.85~f1.1의 렌즈들이 꽤 됩니다.
렌즈 밝기도 그렇지만.. 렌즈의 등급도 좋은 렌즈들은 다음과 같습니다.

scheneider xenon 25mm f0.95
angenineux 25mm f0.95
Fujinon 25mm f0.85 (m4/3에 사용 불가)
kern-paillard macro-switar 26mm f1.1

이 렌즈 중에서 Angenieux 25mm f0.95입니다.

M1 타입과 B&H 타입이 있는 것 같습니다.
제가 가진것은 B&H타입이며, M1타입과는 무슨 차이가 있는 지 모르겠습니다.


이름 : Bell & Howell Angenieux 25mm f0.95
마운트 : c mount (마운트부분 작업 필요없음)
무게 : 170g
크기 : 필름통크기에 약간 뚱뚱함
최단촬영거리 : 40cm
조리개 : 렌즈바깥쪽, F0.95 ~ F16까지 딱딱 조리개
초점링 : 렌즈안쪽, 부드럽게 조정됨

비네팅 (f0.95, f8.0 순입니다.)

소감 :
렌즈 만듦새 좋습니다.
배경흐림은 35mm 바디의 50.8 과 비슷하게 나옵니다.
(정확하게는 0.95에서 50.8과 비슷하지만, 1.4, 2.0까지 내려가도 50 2.0~2.2 근처와 비슷합니다.)
e-p1 실버/화이트에 잘 어울리는 외관입니다.
회오리느낌은 거의 없고.. 배경이 뭉개지는 배경흐림입니다.
중앙부화질은 70%는 좋고, 그 주변부는 별로 입니다.
가장큰 단점은 비쌉니다.. 그 외는 좋습니다. ^^
화질 개방에서는 약간 선예도가 떨어지지만 몽롱한 느낌의 사진이 괜찮습니다.

사진들 (09.5~f1.4의 사진입니다)

(외국 소개글 참조)

Angenieux 1 inch 25 mm f/0.95, one of the most legendary lenses ever created by Pierre Angenieux.

This ultraluminous standard lens for 16 mm cinematographic format is a great objective, though it has got a reputation of soft at the widest f/0.95 and f/1.4 apertures.

Anyhow, though being true that this lens is in most samples soft at f/0.95, it is really difficult even today, fifty-seven years later, finding a f/1 or f/0.95 lens delivering good image quality at such huge maximum aperture. We are speaking about 1953, and to have available an f/0.95 luminosity was a great optical feat then. The important thing was that though being soft, it is possible to save shootings in very low light conditions where f/1.4 is not enough, getting a simply acceptable quality, and from f/1.4 on, the lens really delivers very good quality.

This is a top-notch standard prime, but its design in 1953 (the fastest lens in the world at that time) by Pierre Angenieux was an outstanding optical tour de force, because only Zeiss and Leitz had at that moment the earliest types of computers applied to the designing of lenses since the beginning of fifties (for example Leica had the very heavy IBM 650 in Midlands, the Z5 in Wetzlar and some years later, from 1958, it had the Elliot 402F which implemented the first steps in automatic optimization), so this Angenieux 1 inch f/0.95 had to be made under highly manual parameters.

Therefore, it was virtually impossible to avoid a lens to lens variation in optical and mechanical performance, and there are samples of this lens delivering acceptable quality at f/0.95 and f/1.4 and there are others whose performance at these two apertures (specially the former) is soft. We can´t wish the performance of a Zeiss Arri 16 Ultra Prime at full aperture for the cost of the Angenieux lens and the time in which it was made.

If we bear in mind that the photographic Noctilux-M 50 mm f/1.2 Asph designed by Helmut Marx and Paul Sindel in 1966, was possible thanks to the merge between the brutal knowledge of both German designers and the help of the Elliot 402 F computer, and that in spite of it, it was also impossible for them to avoid the lens-to-lens variation and a real challenge for the manufacturing engineers to put this first Noctilux into series production, so some Noctilux-M 50 mm f/1.2 Asph are better than others, we can realize the immense talent of the French designer, who had to work greatly in the development of the Angenieux 1 inch f/0.95 following Ludwig Berthele´s working parameters.

The Angenieux 1 inch 25 mm f/0.95 is a great lens, a wonderful classical masterpiece, far from being perfect, because the perfect lens doesn´t exist and even in the best ultraluminous lenses belonging to secret military domain, lenses are always a question of compromises.

And besides, in my viewpoint, to miss in this lens (made in 1953) superlative parameters of optical performance and technical perfection of other much more perfect, much more expensive, much heavier ultraluminous objectives as Optar Illumina Super Speed Lenses, Zeiss Super Speed MkIII or Zeiss Ultra 16, which evidently deliver far superior image quality at wide apertures and are far beyond in image quality, would be a big error.

However it may be, the Angenieux 1 inch 25 mm f/0.95 can render great image quality, specially with low and medium sensitivity films including obviously not stellar but at least fully operative and acceptable image quality at f/0.95, good at f/1.4 and very good from f/2 on, always understanding that not everything related to image quality is resolving power and contrast (very important indeed) but there are other factors: acutance, rendering of the out of focus areas, aesthetics of image, abrupt or progressive transition to focused to out of focused zones, easiness of use and transportability, etc.

In my viewpoint, the price/performance ratio of this classic standard French 25 mm lens is not easily beatable in the cinematographic 16 mm realm.

Another view of the Bell & Howell Angenieux 1 inch 25 mm f/0.95, a legendary ultraluminous lens for 16 mm format, an impressive optical feat for 1953, the year in which it was launched into the market.

Among many other historical milestones, this super fast Angenieux standard lens was used for the NASA between July 28 and 31 of 1964 on board of the Ranger 7 space probe to make the first high resolution pictures of the Lunar surface, of which the first photography of the Moon ever taken by a United States spaceship was on July 31, 1964, depicting Alphonsus, Ptolemaus and Arzachel craters.