Any adapter for the 3x canon lens?
 

Since the canon X3 wide angular is a little bit less wide mounted in the xl2, i was think if there is any adapter that could fit in this lens. Somethink like an X0.7 or so to have a 18 mm (equivalent to 35mm film) without having fish eye distortion.

Bye!

I doubt that would work with any distortion. But what do I know...

There certainly is a 0.5 x wide-angle converter that will work well with the 3x zoom and not give you any barrel distortion. It takes the 24 mm to 72 mm (equivalents) and makes it a 12 mm to 36 mm lens - seriously wide indeed on the Xl1s.

The catch is the price. The aspheric multi-coated single element Bolex Aspheron (search ebay) is only half zoom through, and you'll need an 85 mm adaptor to attach it to the front of the 3x zoom. I simply adore mine, and the lack of distortion is just amazing.

tom.

Thanks Tom. Could you just attach some images of the lense and footage? It would be great!

Sure. The web site that hosts my images is
http://www.fortvir.net/gallery/tom-s-photo-album

Come back to me if you want more info.

tom.

Wow! Tom, that's something! Any footage (hopefully including rectilinear shapes) you can post?

Yes John, that Aspheron really is something. I can track through buildings and pass through door without the amateurish look of having the door frames bow outwards as I pass through them. I can track behind the bride and groom and not worry about barrel distortion making her bum look big. I can do pans and tilts and not have objects within the image bulge towards me as I pass by. I can shoot buildings and not have them looking as if they're full of compressed air and about to explode.

No movies to post, but the words (above) will tell you all you need to know.

I'm amazed aspherics aten't more popular, but folk always want to have 'zoom through' for whatever reason, and they also don't want to pay the price - that I can understand.

tom.

Ah, yes, the feared bridal bum problem.

You're using this on Canon's 3x XL series lens, no? Have you used it on any other zooms for the XL series? Canon's manual 14x, perhaps?

Not sure I'm asking this clearly, but what range of the zoom is prevented?

A bit later ...
 

Tom, I took your suggestion & picked up a nice clean Bolex Aspheron on Ebay for $695.

Any suggestions on step-up/down rings for mounting it? I don't have a Canon XL 3x zoom (yet), but did just one adapter ring mate the Bolex to same?

About that CaVision shade you have on the Bolex at your photo album: did you need any adapter rings to mate that? Do you recommend the shade, generally? (I know they're often useful if only as a "foot" on which to safely rest such a curved piece of glass.) Do you find it useful for shooting?

No, I've not used the Aspheron on an XL lens, but I've used this lens on many a movie camera and I haven't come across one yet that it didn't work with. It was designed primarily for the Bolex (Kern) Switar range of 16 mm zoom lenses, and comes with an 85 mm attachment thread. I've tried it with (among many others) the GL2, the MVX31, the TRV900, VX2000, FX1, DVX100 and it works beautifully with them all.

The zoom-through is generally restricted to half, so that if you have a 12x zoom (say) then it'll convert this to a very wide-angle 6x zoom. The more powerful the close focus of the zoom to which it's attached, the more you can zoom before it pops (quite dramatically) out of focus.

tom.

Do you happen to know the diameters of the front & back threads?

Any vignetting issues you've noticed?

EXCELLENT NEWS, John! You'll love it. In good condition? Supplied with both end caps? $695 may sound like a lot of money, but remember the new Century 0.65x lens for the FX1 costs a staggering $995, and not only is it a lot less powerful than the Aspheron, but I'll bet it barrel distorts like mad.

As to adapters, you'll need to get a 'special' made. There's a firm here in the UK that will machine you one up and black anodise it if you want. You'll need to go from the Bolex's 85 mm down to whatever the filter thread size is of the lens you intend to fit it to. I bet a lot of people have abandoned thoughts of buying the 3x Canon (no steadyshot, lots of money) and simply fit the Aspheron to the front of their 16 or 20x zoom.

The Cavision hood is a perfect fit onto the Aspheron. There's a groove inside the rubber and that grabs the Aspheron outer diameter as if they came from the same drawing board. I recommend the shade without reservation, and others will tell you my theory that a lens hood is the cheapest, lightest best accessory you can buy to improve your picture performance. Don't leave home without one. I have a series of 'how-to' pictures that I could send you if that would help.

There's no front thread (at least not on mine) and no - no vignetting issues at all, not even on the FX1.

tom

"In good condition? Supplied with both end caps?"

Judge for yourself---the auction has a couple photos:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...e=STRK:MEWN:IT

Looks clean to me (& has the caps). I called the seller---a Canadian aggregator of Bolex & Arri miscellany named Mike---& he says it's had one owner & he'll ship today.

"As to adapters, you'll need to get a 'special' made."

No problem. I'm in Los Angeles. There are almost as many high-end machine shops here as low-end talent agencies!

"The Cavision hood is a perfect fit onto the Aspheron."

Do you recall CaVision's model number (I'll call them, but just in case you know it)? Here's their page of lens shades:

http://www.cavision.com/LensHood/sunshade.htm

"I have a series of 'how-to' pictures that I could send you if that would help."

Yes, please do. I'd be grateful.

"I bet a lot of people have abandoned thoughts of buying the 3x Canon (no steadyshot, lots of money) and simply fit the Aspheron to the front of their 16 or 20x zoom."

I wouldn't be surprised, if it performs as well as you report. I've been meaning to pick up a Canon XL 3x; this is the perfect reason to do so. I'll be testing this Bolex on Canon's 3x and their 14x manual zooms on my MagiqCam (a Steadicam knockoff). Looking for that glass-smooth feel ...

Tom, have you measured the close-focus distance for this Aspheron? I.e., nearest distance to the front element? Do you happen to know, for that matter, how many elements this adapter contains? (My Century .7x wide, which is beautifully made, has 4 elements.)

Questions, questions - I can see you're as excited about finding this lens as I was. Mine is Nr 50047, so you'rs is later off the Swiss production line.

The Cavision hood is LH100P, though strangely it's not 4:3, more like 4:3.5, and too square. Let's hope they make a 16:9 version for the Bolex + FX1.

The Aspheron is a single, aspherical, glass element, hence the non zoom-through. The reason it's so expensive is that aspherical surfaces have to be ground individually, whereas spherical surfaced elements can be ground tens at a time, considerably reducing the cost. The aspheric elements inside our zooms are injection moulded plastic of course, making these much cheaper.

The close focus of the camera is unaffected by fitting the Aspheron, but as you've halved the focal length at a stroke, you've increased the depth of field for any given aperture. So it's quite possible to focus sharply on dust on the inner surface of the Aspheron - so you'll need to keep it spotlessly clean. Most viewfinders don't have the resolution to tell you this problem exists.

I'll try and get the pictures to you today.

tom.

I have a lot of interest in this adapter myself and would find it very informative if you can add any info about having this converter manufactured for it. I don't live anywhere where I could personally go and have an adapter made for me so this info would be invaluable to me. I am currently keeping my eyes open for a used unit but haven't seen any. Is there anyplace where I can buy it new and if so where?

You can buy them new from Bolex in Switzerland, but getting it shipped to me in England was going to cost just under GPB 1000 - say $1800. So I bought second hand in London.

I've just found I can use the Aspheron on my Canon EOS still
camera. I took the Tecpro 0.5x apart and attached the powerful close-up lens to the front of my 28mm. Then I attached the Aspheron to the front of that.
OK, I have to use f11 to bring the corners sharp, but it makes a wow of a zero distortion 15mm lens. Behold: serious wideness.

There's a filter specialist called SRB Film Service, based in Luton who supply and can manufacture all kinds of adapters. I've got some pretty odd size adapters from them before, straight from stock, but if they don't have it on their list, they can machine one themselves. You need an 85mm to whatever your lens's filter thread is.

http://www.srbfilm.co.uk

tom.

CaVision LH100P
 

Tom, thanks. I looked at your photos again & noticed you'd labeled the lens shade clearly. Sorry.

And you're right about the aspect ratio--hadn't thought of that. I'll ask CaVision which of their hoods they've tested with the XL2's 16:9.

$1800 US dollars? If so.....holy feaking ****. That is some serious glass and John got a heck of a deal. I was thinking it might be in the $1000 range.....I love the lack of distortion but I am not sure I can justify the cost. Let me know if am reading this wrong and it is not "that" expensive. I know good lenses are expensive but I was hoping that the price John got was something I might be able to find myself should I decide to go this route.

Thanks!
Marty

Oh yeah...I have a question regarding the performance. Can you still obtain sharp image all the way to the edges when you have a larger aperture like f2.8 or such when using it on the FX1?

Marty, the minute I read Tom's first post of yesterday, my radar went off and I jumped onto Google. The best search string I found was "bolex aspheron," which yielded 97 separate weblinks (not counting the redundancies Google winnows out).

I found that Bolex has made Aspheron lenses as separate attachments and as built-ins (on some 8mm film cams). I found Bolex Aspherons at 4mm, intended (Tom, correct me here) for their 10mm Switar prime. I also saw listings for a 4.5mm and a 5.5mm from Bolex. One site listed 1976 as the introduction date of the Aspheron line.

If Bolex's own site, http://www.bolex.ch/, lists their Aspherons separately, I didn't find it in a cursory look. I'll email them.

They have a listing of used equipment here: http://www.bolex.ch/neps.htm.

That same search string yielded few images at Google, but they were, ahem, illustrative of the paucity of this line. I'm now in learning mode about aspherical designs from other OEMs.

Prices are hard to glean from the web. I found an old auction at a non-Ebay site where a "Bolex Aspheron" sold for $475, but neither lens specs nor currency were specified. A Japanese site lists an Aspheron+lens combo for 138,000 Yen, which looks to be about US $1300.

Daily rents seem to hover in the mid-10s range.

technical info
 

For those interested, Canon has some background on aspherical optics:

http://www.canon.com/technology/deta...pherical_lens/

Well I was drooling untill getting to the part about having to get an adapter made. Don't understand why there isn't one available.

- Ray

Having a better understanding of how an aspherical lens works is great. But it brings into question how the light might get all screwed up bouncing around the rest of the "lens". In other words the graphics on the canon site does a great job of showing how an aspherical lens focus all of the light to a fine point, which would in theory be the CCD, film plane, whatever. And that would be ok in a standalone lens. But since this unit goes onto another lens which has optical properties that will influence the image itself it seems sketchy.

Of course it is hard to argue with Toms images which show perfect geometry using this adapter with the VX2000. What about Chromatic Abberation and shift toward the edges?

Just wondering. In the last 2 months since I started using a Wide Angle Adapter and had problems, I have been taken to school! I have learned so much about lenses, optics and all of his googa!

It's great. You always learn the most when something doesn't work and you have to research to fix it or understand it.

I'm with you, Marty. Ignorance is a painful wonder, easily cured.

I'll be a guinea pig. This Bolex Aspheron I bought is s'posed to ship today from Montreal. I'll report my initial results with Canon's 14x manual zoom (the only XL series lens I have).

Open Request to Tom Hardwick: Would you have access to an XL2 with one of their OIS lenses (the white jobs)? If so, would you be able to post any stills from footage taken through the Bolex/Canon lens combo?

I'm sorry John, but I have no access to an XL2. The cameraman alongside me at last week's shoot had an XL1, and he was suitably impressed with the Aspheron on the VX2000. We simply didn't have time to try it on his 16X zoom.

A word to Raymond: You have to have a special adapter made for the Aspheron simply because of the position of the attachment thread on the lens. The aspheric is designed to work with Bolex's Vario Switar 12.5 - 100 mm zoom, and the 85 mm thread suits this lens perfectly.

Marty: The aspheric element simply ''gathers in the light'' before pumping it into the front element of the zoom to which it's attached. Same as with any converter lens, telephoto, wide-angle, spherical or otherwise. The beauty of the expensively ground aspheric surface is that it minimises the barrel distortion which all spherical lenses give.

If you can live with bendy doors and curving horizons, don't waste money on an aspheric. The chromatic aberations are largely uncontrolled, and a multi-element design such as the Century often does better in this department. But from my experience it's lack of distortion that's immediately obvious and the number one benefit; chromatic aberation is not something people notice in moving images.

tom.

Got your photos, Tom
 

Thank you; nicely done. Had you prepared these stills for some other purpose?

My lens is a few days away, so:

Did you have any trouble removing the textured rubber ring from the front flange of the Aspheron? Was it glued on? If so---& if you glued it back on---what adhesive did you use, or did you let friction keep it?

I couldn't find any info at Bolex's site about a case for this Aspheron. Do you know if they ever sold one? If so, have you got a picture &/or a source for sales? If not, what do you use to keep your Aspheron safe?

Last: can you think of any reason Bolex would have skimped on coatings (or other preventives) for chroma aberration? Surely it wasn't to keep cost down!

Glad the photos got to you safely John. All shot to SD card on my camcorder actually. I have more ...

I write to a huge number of people and for magazines, so I'm always out testing kit and accessories and photographing it. The editor of a British magazine asked if I'd do the test on the XL2 but I turned the job down as I thought the readers would be better informed if a current XL1s user did the test. I like to think I know my limitations. :-)

The cylimndrical rubber 'focus' ring just peels (carefully) off. It's decoration really, and can be popped back any time. It's like a big elastic band, so stays in place ok.

Interesting news about the case, and no - I've never heard of one. I just keep it end-capped in my camera bag.

John - at that price there's no skimping going on at Bolex! The lens is beautifully multi-coated as you'll have seen from my photos, and with the lens in place in front of your camera it's like a black hole down there. The chromatic aberation comes about because this is a single element - go here for more on this:

http://www.dvinfo.net/articles/optics/lensdefects.php

Some of what looks like chromatic aberation may well be due to the angle at which the light strikes the chips, and this is well documented in digital circles. As I say, it's certainly not glaring, not in the way barrel distortion is.

tom.

Tom, thanks for the link to that DV lens article---it explains plenty.

Browsing SRB's website, I found a stock 72mm-(lens)-to-86mm-(accessory) adapter for £5.50---or about $11, if I can find comparable here in the US. CaVision wants $74 for their LH-100P shade (includes $15 shipping), so to match your Aspheron kit will have cost me $801. That's more than I paid for my Canon zoom for the XL2, but easily worth it, from all appearances.

Can't wait to test this piece of glass. The more I learn the XL2, with its "true" 16:9 aspect ratio, the wider I crave to go.

Have you shot with any of the recent "rectilinear" ultrawides available for stills cameras? If so---& given DV's inherent resolution limits---how would you generally compare the Bolex Aspheron's performance?

Started to google around for it and guess who turned up:

"Bolex Aspheron wide-angle converter lens wanted. This single element converter was sold by Bolex to compliment some of their Switar lenses. Send details to tomh@rdwick.freeserve.co.uk"

http://www.fvi.org.uk/smalladverts2.htm

Yeah, from what I can tell, Tom doesn't actually sleep. He just sends emails and turns down lucrative magazine-writing deals.

Here I am, not sleeping again.
John - the Bolex thread is 85 mm and so the SRB has to be a 'special'. Another picture on its way to you.

For many years I had a 20 mm f2.8 Canon FD on my EF 35 mm SLR, and this got me really hooked on non-distorting very wide-angle lenses. Loved the perspective distortion, yes - but that was there for the taking or leaving. Finding the equivalent prime for a 1/3" chipped camcorder means finding a prime lens with a focal length of something like 3 mm. They're not to be found.

The Aspheron does the next best thing. It's been designed to work on 16 mm Kodachrome, and each frame of that well exceeds the resolution capability of HDV, let alone DV. So DV is a very limiting factor.

One interesting (movie) super-wide shot is to have the camera at ground level with you squatting down. Then you move (track) the camera in a wide arc around you, just above the grass, bringing it to a stop on the subject. It can be a very smoothly controlled move (needs a side-screen though), and the resulting perspective is most unusual.

Ignacio - that 'wanted' advert you found didn't turn anything up. I spent some time finding an Aspheron I could afford.

tom.

Bolex Aspheron arrived
 

Came at lunch today by Express Post from Montreal. It's in beautiful shape: clean and little-used. Soon as I find a shop to make up an adapter, I'll clap it onto my XL2 and see how the wide world looks ...

By my math, this will shorten the focal length of my 14x manual Canon zoom from 5.7mm to 2.964mm---with no barrel distortion! That's the rough equivalent of a 21mm rectilinear SLR lens. (Be still, my beating heart.)

John,
You must have a really good use for this unit. Do you mind if I ask you what kind of stuff you'll be filming with it? Dramatic work in small rooms or more wide panaramic stuff?

As much of both as I can manage; all dramatic stuff. As a matter of fact, I'm writing a short script which cuts back & forth a lot between overexposed suburban street exteriors and dim, cramped suburban household interiors. I think this lens will save my butt more than once.

Tom Hardwick's comments about how close this lens can focus (given what it's mounted to) are tantalizing. The deep-focus possibilities, esp. with the XL2's 16:9 image, have me imagining lots of shots ...

I'm also impatient to use this with my MagiqCam stabilizer. And I've just finished building an 8-foot jib ... hell, I may never take this Aspheron off the camera.

Got some calls out to machine shops about the requisite adapter but nobody's gotten back to me today.

Hey John can you fill us in on how the Aspheron is working out for you on your XL2?

Naturally I'm curious about how it looks in 16x9, and how well it works with the 20x lens. Also how much did your specially made adapter end up costing? (assuming you found someone to make one)...all I could find online was the one from barbertech for like $70....which is kinda high just for a step ring.

Found this the other day John:
http://www.lesbosher.co.uk

Just the sort of place to make you up a Bolex > Canon adapter.

Les is a really nice guy, and should be able to help make you what you need. Just give him a ring, or send an Email.