If crazy swirly bokeh is your thing, here’s a unique vintage lens that will catch your attention. Our favorite weird lens enthusiast Mathieu Stern once found a Carl Zeiss Jena Kipronar 105mm f/1.9, a rare 35mm cinema projector lens, for roughly 20 Euros. Now, if you’ve been following the Paris-based photographer’s videos, you already know that he often performs DIY hacks to attach these lenses to his Sony mirrorless camera. If you’re curious about how it went for this one, Stern’s short but sweet video above has all the answers!
First, he shares a few details that make this lens interesting. It has no aperture blades and focusing mechanism, but he fit it inside a helicoid ring adapter so he could manually focus with it. So, with the contraption, he was able to take full advantage of the insane swirly bokeh created by this lens.
The effect proved especially interesting for footage shot in locations with lots of foliage or textures. It’s easy to see how it would also look dreamy for portrait photography.
Ever shot with a bokeh-licious weird lens like Stern did? Share your experience with us in the comments below, or in our group discussion if you’re already part of the Photofocus Community!
The article would be enhanced if there examples of the described photography.
I’d argue this article is severely lacking for it’s omission of an example photograph.
I really like the detailed example photos of the bokeh effect. (Sarcasm).
Guys, if you all just watch the video above, you’ll find plenty of examples from all the footage that Mathieu Stern took while testing the vintage lens.
Some commenters above don’t know how to play a video or perhaps they need a glossy magazine to get the point
Pretty awesome hack adapting a cine lens to still. Thanks for the video Joy