Cinema Modification | Cine-Mod lens sets

What Is The Cine-Mod?

Short for "Cinema Modification", Cine-Mod is a process developed lenses that improves still photo lenses in several ways, making them more usable for motion picture applications. Consisting of three primary parts; a seamless 32-pitch (0.8 module) focus gear, a standardized front ring, and a de-clicked, damped aperture movement.

Jacob films modifying vintage photo lenses for use on new mirrorless and motion picture cameras. ​ A true cine-mod lens includes an 77mm Outer Diameter SimRing, a seamless 32 pitch (0.8 module) aluminum SIMple Fit Follow Focus Gear, a de-clicked and dampened aperture ring, and a professionally installed EF Conversion. These lens sets make images the most cinematic look and feel. We only use 01 set of lenses for each project, it will make the whole footages have a same color, bokeh, look and feel!

Jacob proudly owns 05 sets of lenses, that are very rare on the market now: 1. Zuiko MC, 2. Canon FD, 3. Takumar Asahi, 4. UV Topcor , 5. Helios 

I will introduce you from the 5th to the 1st:

A flare prime cine lens with neutral color & oval diaphragm. They deliver beautiful blue horizontal flares and oval bokeh and in the same time preserve natural color of footage, so you can shoot low light and daylight scenes without any color correction issues.

4 lenses set - EF mount

Focal Length: 28 mm 58 mm 85 mm 135 mm

Jacob's investment: 1200$

These unique lens designs do not have an aperture setting ring, as this is found on the camera body. The maximum aperture of the lens is "dialed-in" to a camera body mounted control when the lens is first fitted. This sets a maximum aperture parameter for the camera's exposure system. All Topcor UV lenses have a common minimum aperture of f/22. UV stands for Ultra Violet, as the lenses had a UV coating, and did not need a separate UV filter.

7 lenses set - EF mount

 28mm f/4, 35mm f/3.5, 48mm f/2, 53mm f/2, 100mm f/4, 135mm f/4, 200mm f/4 

Jacob's investment: 1500$

Takumar is the name that Asahi Optical gave to its lenses, notably but not exclusively those for its own SLR cameras. Named after the Japanese-American portrait painter, Takuma Kajiwara (梶原啄磨, Kajiwara Takuma), whose brother Kumao Kajiwara founded Asahi Optical.

Asahi Optical is one of the oldest lens manufacturers in Japan, with complete capabilities of design, melting, and polishing several types of glass and mechanical engineers for the focusing mechanism, as such they made lenses for their own cameras, as well as some other companies. The first appearance of the name Takumar was in lenses used in the Asahiflex camera, which used the 37mm screw mount (1952). Takumar was carried over to lenses that fit the 35mm M42(1957-1973) cameras and went through a series of iterations as build quality and coatings were developed with names such as Super-Takumar, Super-Multi-Coated Takumar, and SMC Takumar (with open-metering capability). These lenses were made at a high standard of optical and mechanical quality and all lenses were provided in a leather case and a custom lens hood, except those that came as standard lenses with camera bodies. Filter sizes were also standardized by Asahi in order to help customers, being 49mm and 58mm for most 35mm lenses.

8 lenses set - EF mount 

20mm f/3.5, 24mm f/3.5, 28 mm f/3.5, 35mm f/2, 50mm f/1.4, 85mm f/1.9, 100mm f2.8, 135mm f/2.5 

Jacob's investment: 2500$

The second series of breech-lock FD lenses (1973-1976), which discontinued the chrome barrel front, is engraved "S.C." in white or "S.S.C." in red on the front of the lens. The S.S.C. coating was extended to most lenses in this series. The basic S.C. coating was, for the most part, limited to the least expensive lenses. These 2nd breech ring generation FD lenses still had a green "o", but now there was a chrome lock button on the aperture ring that had to be depressed to put the lens on or take the lens off of "o". One still could not put the lens on "o" unless the camera body had the AE switch pin hole. And the lens could not be mounted on a non-EE / AE body if the lens was set on "o". The breech ring now featured a lock which prevented it from rotating unless a rear cap was put on or the lens was mounted to a body. Further, the breech ring rotated slightly when the lens was mounted to aid in getting the lens securely mounted. The aperture diaphragm was opened fully when the breech ring was in the locked position.

6 lenses set - EF mount

20mm, 24mm, 35mm, 50mm 50mm macro, 85mm

Investment: 3000$

This set is my most favorited one! 

OM lenses when through a number of changes over the years. The earliest change was merely cosmetic: when the M-System became the OM system, because of trademark issues with Leica. But later changes sometimes coincided with changes in the optics and coatings. It’s pretty clear that Olympus updated the optical design at least once over the OM era for many of these lenses, as well as having at least three generations of coatings. Sometimes the optical changes are obvious: the number of elements or groups changes, so it must have been redesigned. But there are other optics that must also have been redesigned if you pay close attention, because the overall size of the lens has altered enough that it couldn’t be exactly the same formulation. It’s hard to be sure exactly when in the production run this happens though. Unlike some makers, Olympus never advertised Mk II!

The next era was when gradually all the lenses because multicoated and had “Zuiko MC” written on the lens ring. MC stand for: Multi coating

8 lenses set - EF mount

21mm f3.5, 24mm f2, 28mm f2, 35mm f2, 50mm f1.2, 85mm f2, 135mm f2.8, 35-70mm f3.6

Jacob's investment: 11.000$