Lenses

In the world of filmmaking, every frame is a canvas, and every lens is a brushstroke. Just as a painter selects their tools with meticulous care, filmmakers rely on precision-crafted lenses to bring their vision to life on the screen. As one of the premium manufacturers in the world of optics, Ernst Leitz Wetzlar is proud to bring their legacy of optical innovation and engineering excellence to the world of cine zoom lenses.

Memory sees Mexican writer and director Michel Franco push into new territory with a film that follows two characters who both have troubled relationships with memory. Jessica Chastain’s Sylvia is a social worker and recovering alcoholic with a history of sexual abuse while Peter Sarsgaard’s Saul is a widower suffering from dementia. The narrative weaves a story of uncertainty even as the two grow closer. Behind the camera was long-time collaborating cinematographer Yves Cape, AFC and the film opened in competition at the 2023 Venice Film Festival.

Just after the 39-45 war, Mathieu Plainfossé’s architect great-grandfather, inspired by the faith of the pioneers, set about rebuilding the town of Saint Malo, which had been almost destroyed by American bombing raids. It was a mammoth task that lasted more than 15 years, and which he oversaw with talent and perseverance. As for his grandfather, a renowned equestrian veterinarian, he had operated on nothing less than the Queen of England’s racehorses and those of the Aga Khan in his famous Grosbois clinic, using a technique invented by him. Remarkable men of whom he could later be proud.

A propulsion engineer at Ariane Group dreams of going into space. The European Space Agency didn’t want him at the time, so he’s building a capsule in the barn of his family’s farm. Is he nuts? Like the former astronaut who came out of retirement to advise him, the motley but determined team around him believes in him, in his talent and his discipline.

“I can’t get enough of this impression of blinding light and absolute blackness.” Darius Khondji, AFC, ASC, loves the dazzling effect of strong lights and, by contrast, the deep blacks where the light is engulfed and disappears completely.

18mm, 27mm, 35mm and 65mm Lenses Add Greater Flexibility to Cooke Flagship Primes Range for Cinematographers.

Evolution 2X, the new adaption of the legend Kowa anamorphic lenses will soon have a new look! - P+S Technik will from now on offer rehousing for Hasselblad.

Born in the mid-1960s in German-speaking Switzerland, Thomas Hardmeier spent his entire youth in a village named Küsnacht, which in German means “night kiss”. The name must have delighted Freud’s disciple Carl Gustav Jung. As almost everyone knows, Jung attached major importance to dreams and, as fewer people know, had lived in Küsnacht and died there a few years before.

We congratulate the whole team of "Lupin" and the production company Gaumont on the well-deserved success of the series, released on January 8.

Since Leitz, in 2011, released the complete range of Summilux-C lenses – which, four years later, was given the Scientific and Engineering Award® by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – cinematographer Michel Amathieu, AFC, has practically always used them whenever possible. Consequently, when he got involved with the Netflix series "Gone for Good", he immediately offered director Juan Carlos Medina to test the new Leitz Prime wide-format lenses which open at T: 1.8. Both men were so enthralled by those first tests that they did not even try other lenses.

Fujifilm France, associate member of the AFC, is pleased to announce the development of the wide-angle zoom lens Fujinon Premista 19-45mm T2.9 (Premista 19-45mm). Offering Cinematographers focal lengths between 19mm and 45mm, this will be the third model to join the Premista series of zoom lenses for cinema cameras that support large format sensors and film.

Although Paul Guilhaume has not been a film student for a while, he still dissects the storyboards of such masterpieces as Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter, David Cronenberg’s History of Violence or the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men - films that triggered his desire to be a cinematographer. Again and again, he watches the splendid lighting mismatches concocted by cinematographer-cum-magician Vilmos Zsigmond for Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, in the opening scene of which, on every single hot, everything and everyone is backlit against the sun!

Forty years ago, benevolent angels leaned over Leo Hinstin’s cradle, bestowing upon him the privilege of being born into a family of long, brilliant and enlightened bourgeois lineage. As far back as a genealogy-obsessed great-uncle was able to go, he had found a multitude of men whom France could be proud of: Ecole Polytechnique alumni, soldiers, intellectuals.

In 1991, while shooting J’embrasse pas (I Don’t Kiss), director André Téchiné falls in love with Super-8 images taken in some paratroopers’ barracks by the first assistant camera. Techiné has been entrusted with that footage by cinematographer Thierry Arbogast who is unable to finish the film.

In 1935, Benoît Delhomme’s grandfather Georges helped create Lancôme, a fragrance house for which he designed bottles or, more accurately, glass sculptures that were at once ethereal, bright and fanciful. "Magie", "Trésor", "Peut-être", "Joyeux Été" were the scents these bottles contained, the aim of which was to help women overcome the traumas of World War2.

On July 20, 2019 in the US, July 21 in France, the world celebrates the 50^th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. The retransmission of the incredible images of the success of this mission remains one of the most significant broadcast events of all time. To create these images, NASA selected, among other equipment, the lenses of a small French company: Angenieux optics. The Angenieux 6x25 zoom mounted on a Westinghouse camera and Angenieux 75mm prime lens on a Maurer 16mm camera were on-board the command module of Apollo 11.

On a specific day in September 1984 (a year George Orwell definitively made famous), in a small courtyard off the Rue Rollin in Paris, the final results are – at last! - to be posted of the competitive exam to enter (or not) the Louis Lumière Film School’s prestigious Camera Dept. Myriam Vinocour has been waiting all summer for this moment because, mere months ago, right after she took the exam, she ranked twenty-fifth… but only the top twenty-four were taken. But who knows? Perhaps Lady Luck is in a good mood and one of the twenty-four stood down?

The idea for the Technovision Classic lenses goes back to the iconic Technovision Lenses from the 70’s of last century that had been used for hundreds of impressive widescreen feature films like Leon (DoP Thierry Arbogast, AFC), Subway (DoP Carlo Varini, AFC), Evita (DoP Darius Khondji, AFC, ASC), Apocalypse now (DoP Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC) and many more. Due to the change to digital and scalable modern sensor technology a full frame version is the desired achievement. Coverage the larger sensors of cameras such as the Sony Venice, RED Monstro and the Arri Alexa LF was a design key element to offer a future proofed creative product.