I bought this at a garage sale. I didn't know what it was but f/0.95 certainly was intriguing. It turns out to be a true gem with an amazing history. At the time of its introduction it was the fastest lens ever created. It was made for movie cameras (C mount). It flew on the Ranger 7 space probe in July of 1964, and, on July 31st, took the very first pictures of the moon at "ground zero." (Thanks, Google.) I've ordered a Panasonic GF1 and adapter to mount this lens <edited here to remove technical misstatement concerning field of view and depth of field>. It'll vignette but who cares. I'd love to see any pictures that any of you have taken with a copy of this lens.

I would have loved to have been at the garage sale just before you.

Congrats on your great find.

Here's a flickr set (no not mine)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wendine/sets/72157622080643184/

kevinsullivan wrote:
...yielding a 50mm f/0.95 equivalent.

Not this again... 50/1.9 it would be.

25/0,95 = 26,3 entrance pupil
50/1.9 = 26,3 entrance pupil

In depth of field, yes. It's still a 0.95 lens, though.

Not this again...

I was thinking in terms of the combination of angle of view and speed, not depth of field. Even then, however, the issue of angle of view is somewhat unusual in this case, because cropping of the image circle will be incomplete. So, yes, I agree, they're really not equivalent. I stand corrected on the strict technical soundness of my original statement. As for etiquette ... ah, forget it . Regards, --Kevin

I've seen some great examples from this lens on Flickr - a lot of character. Yes it vignettes quite a bit on MFT. If you decide it's too funky for you, please let me know and I'll buy it off you!

What a find! Wowza.

Sweet! Let's see some shots when you get the adapter

Let's see some shots when you get the adapter

Will do! Unfortunately the quality of the lens likely exceeds the quality of my talent; but I'll try!

Nice! I've seen some examples of these shot on m43, etc. INteresting lens, no doubt. Not the last word in sharpness wide open but hell, it's 0.95! That's a $1k+ garage sale score, btw - quite a coup!

That's a $1k+ garage sale score, btw - quite a coup!

I figured that out pretty quickly once I got home. I hadn't been up for spending much $ but I felt so bad about having paid only $30 for that lens I went back and paid several hundred dollars for the rest of the box of old lenses. They probably would have taken $30 for the lot. One ended up being worth $200+ -- all old c-mount 16mm movie camera lenses, from a gentleman who passed away in his 90s, who had good taste in glass back in the 50s & 60s. So now I've got an interesting assortment to try on the GF1: the 25/.95, a 75/2.7, and a 135/3.5, all quite compact, and good fits, I hope, to the Pany cam.

I should have grabbed the Zunow 35/1.1 c-mount I saw the other day for $100. I'm bidding on a 13/1.9 right now, I bet it is amazing.

I'm bidding on a 13/1.9 right now, I bet it is amazing.

Cool. I think the image circles are pretty small on some of the short lenses. I.e., fairly severe vignetting on m4/3.

if your lens is either of M1 or M2 versions of Angenieux 25mm f/0.95
it should have about 95% coverage of the image circle

My GF1 and adapter arrived. Here's a quick initial test of this lens: a shot of neighborhood boys (one is my own), at f/0.95, 1/1000 second, on a heavily overcast day, at ISO 100.

Processing steps were (1) RAW conversion to 16 bits, (2) B/W conversion in PS CS4, (3) re-sized to current size, (4) smart sharpened for lens blur using a radius of 0.1 at 100%. The vignetting is the result of the image circle not quite covering the sensor.

Fantastic! I love the softness and the odd bokeh. Awesome shot.

I think you're going to have a lot of fun with this combo.

Good light to you, or in the case of a F 0.95 lens, any light to you ;-)

D

softness and the odd bokeh

Thanks, yeah, I figured that's what I was in for with such an old, fast, lens.

Crazy looking bokeh. Definitely tempted to try to grab one of these, but it looks like it's a bit tough to get one in good condition.

Here's a 100% crop from a shot of the cat, again at f/0.95, minimum focusing distance, to give a sense of the DOF (look at the back eye). Contrast is somewhat low coming straight out of the camera, so this one I jacked up a bit in PS.

Here's the original from which I took the 100% crop, resized and sharpened a tad, but otherwise unprocessed. Here the bokeh is without specular highlights, so you don't get those weird crescents. Here it actually looks pretty smooth. (I'm not sure about that row of missing pixels on the left. I haven't cropped this image. Maybe a PS/camera interaction.)

And finally a somewhat post-processed version. That's it for now. Happy Halloween.

Damn that lens is sharp.

Nice find.