These prices are insane. You can buy all (most?) of the lenses they’re recreating for a fraction of the price and adapt them to a mirrorless camera no problem. I bought a Helios 44-2 recently for $100 and adapted it to my camera for like $15.
There's a difference between adapting for mirrorless versus adapting for cinema. They're not just throwing on an adapter to change the distance to the focal plane, they're actually rehousing the lens. Usually that means adding a de-clicked aperture and reducing focus breathing. These are all primes, but cine lenses are usually parfocal as well.
To your point, none of those things are important if you're just a regular consumer and taking stills, but they're all really nice to have/important if you're working on a film.
> There's a difference between adapting for mirrorless versus adapting for cinema.
The article says they’re adapting to mirrorless cameras
> As reported by CineD, the new Air series of lenses is designed to cater to the growing number of filmmakers who are using compact, lightweight mirrorless bodies for high-end professional work.
> The IronGlass Air lenses move away from IronGlass’ standard PL-mount cinema design toward compact, mirrorless-friendly designs
"The Helios 44-2 is a very popular Soviet-era lens among cinematographers" - yeah, not like there were any other Soviet lens available there. Legendary in this context means the only ones anyone there could get their hands on. I bought Zenit ET with those and can't say they were amazing compared to my Nikon or Sigma lens. Exotic factor is likely in the play here.
If it was just a simple matter of "what was available" these lenses would be an interesting footnote in Photography history. But that's not the case, people still buy them for their unique properties 50 years later and the fact a company exists to re-house them more than proves their legendary status in my mind.
What was so amazing about this company's soviet era camera lenses?
I googled it and all the pages were just this company saying "Yeah! We rehouse amazing soviet era lenses in modern lens bodies!"
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Which is cool, but where's the "legendary" part of the story? Like, why would you want one as opposed to another lens?
Google "Helios 44-2 bokeh" and look for portraits with a blurry background. The "swirly" effect is the artsy element. Add the fact that these lenses were mass-manufactured back in the day and it means that you can get them pretty cheap.
No, they disassembled German optics industry plants in 1945, moved them to the Soviet Union and started cranking out great cameras based on German designs. I've heard that some Soviet cameras had Leica labeled parts inside.
Stuff like that happened repeatedly: GAZ Chaika was a copy of Packard; SM-1 computer was a copy of PDP 11/34; Tu-144 looked just like Concorde, etc. etc.
Chaika was not a copy of a Packard. (They certainly admired the Packard bodywork, but Soviet industry was in no way ready to clone a Packard sedan)
Tu-144 was not a copy of the Concorde. (Convergent evolution is not the same as copying a design!)
The Soviets did clone a lot of DEC gear but I don't think SM-1, specifically, was a DEC clone. (In this lastmost case, the Soviets were left cloning computer equipment because it was forbidden to export to COMECON states)
To your point, none of those things are important if you're just a regular consumer and taking stills, but they're all really nice to have/important if you're working on a film.
The article says they’re adapting to mirrorless cameras
> As reported by CineD, the new Air series of lenses is designed to cater to the growing number of filmmakers who are using compact, lightweight mirrorless bodies for high-end professional work.
> The IronGlass Air lenses move away from IronGlass’ standard PL-mount cinema design toward compact, mirrorless-friendly designs
I googled it and all the pages were just this company saying "Yeah! We rehouse amazing soviet era lenses in modern lens bodies!" | Which is cool, but where's the "legendary" part of the story? Like, why would you want one as opposed to another lens?
Stuff like that happened repeatedly: GAZ Chaika was a copy of Packard; SM-1 computer was a copy of PDP 11/34; Tu-144 looked just like Concorde, etc. etc.
Tu-144 was not a copy of the Concorde. (Convergent evolution is not the same as copying a design!)
The Soviets did clone a lot of DEC gear but I don't think SM-1, specifically, was a DEC clone. (In this lastmost case, the Soviets were left cloning computer equipment because it was forbidden to export to COMECON states)