In 1920, Cook of England introduced a design he called Opic, which was the first Gauss type that is now mainstream. There were Gauss lenses such as the Gauss type for which it is named and the Zeiss Planar, but Opic was the first to break symmetry. Although not very popular at first, Speed Panchro was a huge success and is said to have been used in most classic films from the 1930s to the 1950s.
The characteristic of Speed Panchro is that it has all the aberrations necessary for Kino (movie), but none of them are too noticeable. It is certainly noticeable, but latent. It naturally expresses everything you want, such as highlighting the subject, giving it a sense of dynamism, restrained softness, richness, sweet delicacy, aestheticism, and transience. What would happen if the British, the world's most talented rule maker who has prescribed most of the rules of world sports, organized the standards of clothing, and designed the world's order, prescribed a lens when there was a rather contradictory request: "I want a good lens, but I also want a sense of style?" That was Speed Panchro and Super Six, and since then, nothing has been designed that goes beyond these conclusions. Speed Panchro is such a standard that you cannot understand the true meaning of other lenses unless you experience it first.
"Speed" refers to a high-sensitivity lens, and "panchromatic" refers to panchromatic black-and-white film. The names did not change even in the color era.
The warmth of the light, the swaying afterboom, and the distinctive sweetness are all hallmarks of the '31 panchromatic era.
Needless to say, you can probably guess that this was not taken with our replica lenses.
Kino (movie) project long images, so it is important not to tire or stress the viewer. Aberration-free lenses have no taste or smell and stimulate the eyes. The same is true for still images, and the existence of Petzval lenses shows that this was recognized from the early days of lenses. Petzval made two types of lenses, one for portrait and one for landscape, and both were commercially successful, but people quickly got bored of them. Because they were not really good. Cook's own optical system was also rejected in the UK, and after thinking about what to do, he decided to send people to Hollywood to hear the opinions of creators.
Petzval's idea was not wrong in terms of direction, but it was not easy to elevate it to the realm of art. There was a considerable gap between the senses of optical engineers and cinematographers. Optical engineers care about specs and engineering skills, and that is important, but for Hollywood people, the impact on the work is everything. Hollywood cinematographers had a clear common understanding. Why did they have a common understanding? Until then, custom-made film lenses were the norm, and they could make what they wanted. Through information exchanges with fellow cinematographers, the required elements were moving in the direction of refinement. It was around this time that Cook's research was carried out, and the Speed Panchro was designed after gathering many opinions. However, from the technical side of optics, there are many problems. Improvements continue, and other companies have developed film lenses, and there are many better ones. Despite this, some people return to the original Speed Panchro. There is a sense that nothing can surpass this. Strangely enough, the first one made by Angénieux was also the best. It is a typical lens that pursues timeless universality. This is a typical lens that pursues timelessness and "never gets old". If you pursue the true standard, you will end up with a lens like this. It is one of the conclusions we arrived at after starting with Petzval.
The recommended angle of view for the Speed Panchro(UK Patent GB377537) is recommended angle of view is 35 degrees, the focal length is about 75mm for green light, and 50mm for blue light. The aperture is f2 as specified. The 50mm (2 inch) speed panchromates on the market at the time had many dark corners. These were physically cut out by narrowing the diameter of the glass. This was because 35mm film for movies is used vertically, so an image circle of about 30mm is sufficient. It is thought that cutting out the unused parts prevented light diffraction. Therefore, for the reprint, the entire glass was made as large as possible to allow as much light as possible in.
The Opic is thought to be the Speed Panchro Series 0, released in 1926. It is no wonder that the image quality was noisy and poorly received. The 1931 model, which was released via Hollywood, is not considered a Series I, but in fact it is. The 1945 model, released with the introduction of coatings and a design change to cover 35mm standard film (image circle changed from 27mm to 31mm), is considered a Series II, and in 1954 the brighter, wide-angle 18.25mm Series III was released.
Focal length
Panchro 1931
Panchro 1945 after
18mm
f1.7 (7groups 9 elements)
25mm
f2.0 (4groups 6 elements)
f1.8 (7groups 9 elements)
28mm
f2.0 (4groups 6 elements)
32mm
f2.0 (4groups 6 elements)
f2.0 (5groups 7 elements)
35mm
f2.0 (4groups 6 elements)
40mm
f2.0 (4groups 6 elements)
f2.0 (5groups 7 elements)
50mm
f2.0 (4groups 6 elements)
f2.0 (5groups 7 elements)
75mm
f2.0 (4groups 6 elements)
f2.0 (4groups 6 elements)
The Series I was designed by Lee, and the Series II was improved by his successor, Wormsham. Leitz was taken over by Berek and then by Mandler, who ushered in a new era while retaining the characteristics of Leica lenses. The same can be said of Cooke in England. While keeping the basic aberration arrangement, improvements were made by adding something on top of the base. Lee is also famous for designing triplets, but he seems to have thought that thicker glass was better (UK Patent GB474815, etc.), and in this respect he seems to have gone in the same direction as Goertz in Berlin. On the other hand, Wormsham thoroughly studied Petzval(UK Patent GB258092, etc.). These differences in personality can also be felt in Speed Panchro.
Not only does the Series I have high chromatic aberration, but the shorter wavelength blue is positive. The positions of red and blue are reversed. The colors of different wavelengths are crossed and twisted. The chromatic aberration is overcorrected (inverted), light appears dim. The light is warm, like gas lamp, but without any sparkle. The Steinheil Group Aplanat is probably the first example of this aberration arrangement. Paul Rudolph tried it with his f5.5 Tessar, and Bertele with the first Ernostar designs. There's also an example of the first Leica Triplet, Nicola Perscheid. This is by design for monochrome, and what works well in monochrome tends to work well in color, at least as far as color processing is concerned. series I series II
The UV rays of two types of lenses that we have produced in the past, as well as the first and second generation Speed Panchro lenses, are displayed in pink.
The second generation and the Hanakage S1 (Kino Thamber on the right) are almost free of chromatic aberration, but they are subtly inverted. In contrast, the first generation Speed Panchro has a large amount of ultraviolet light. This allows human skin to be photographed beautifully. The tradeoff is that in harsh environments such as backlighting, ultraviolet light appears purple and contrast decreases. The effectiveness of UV filters varies depending on the lens, but it seems to be quite effective when used with the first generation Panchro. If that is the case, there is no point in choosing this lens.
There may have been several models of the Series I. Lee designed the Series I in 1931 and continued to improve it after switching to Warmisham in 1935.
So Lee's first design could have been made between 1931 and 1935. Between 1935 and 1937, Wormisham decided to stop overcorrecting the chromatic aberration and to undercorrect the spherical aberration. He also widened the field of view. This was designated as an improvement over the speed panchro. There is some patent language that suggests this improvement received complaints. So he went back to the ideas behind his earlier model, but kept the construction with undercorrected spherical aberration because it was still the monochrome era and overcorrecting chromatic aberration would have resulted in a hard image. The following year, in 1938,study Dagor, After they came up with a design that would later be called the Super Six. And in 1940, they took steps to completely correct chromatic aberration. But for the Series II in 1942, it was discontinued. The Series II was derived from the Schneider Xenon supplied to Leica. That's why it has one more glass element. The Xenon was developed before the Speed Panchro. It was then refined in 1938, 1940, and 1943, further improved, but with a narrower aperture, which led to the Speed Panchro II. The Leica Xenon was supplied until 1949, so it's likely that the later model was the f1.5 Speed Panchro Series II.
The Series II influenced future generations with its accumulated know-how and its compatibility with color film. The aberration arrangement was also adopted by Leica and Angénieux, and is still the basic arrangement today. The Series II is a masterpiece, and is worth reproducing because it has the persuasive power to keep imitators at bay. It is calm. However, the Super Six, which is the origin of the series, is even more attractive. Still, f2 and f1.9 are different, and the Super Six has more aberration. It is still different, a troubling difference. It is highly likely that the Series I was the Super Six f2, which had a narrower angle of view.
The original Series I brings light to life. Even though it was designed in 1931, the arrangement of aberrations is 19th century. The richness of the thick glass is reminiscent of the Dagor of Emil von Horgh's time. Maybe that's why Walmisham went back to Dagor. The Series I is not suitable for countryside shooting (opinion may differ, it depends on the work). It is an urban lens. It can capture the liveliness of the city. In that sense, the modest Series II is a safe choice. On the other hand, the Series I Original is irreplaceable, unique, and generally not the most common denominator outside of old Hollywood. The Speed Panchro Original f2 and Super Six f1.9 are impressive.
The 1931 version is from a time when coatings were not available, so we will use that. The glass used is highly weather resistant, so we decided that it would be fine without the coating, but considering the hardness of the images taken with modern digital cameras, we decided that it would be better not to apply a coating if possible. This lens is also intended for use in both photography and video, so like the 院落 P1, it is made with a delicate balance of no clicks, loose helicoid oil, and a rotation that is slightly larger than for video but smaller than for video.
Filter Diameter 40.5mm
Outside aluminum is thicker than the previous P1, so it weighs around 180g instead of the usual 130g. The idea was to make it look more sturdy, but it only had a slight effect compared to the previous model. The hood is also thicker.
香箋 Kousen G1 50mm f2JPY 195,000
This is fine for full size 35mm format, but what about large format?
The green center line does not pass through. The aberration diagram is also not displayed due to an error.
There were a considerable number of patent applications for the Gauss type by the British company Cook, which shows that cutting-edge research was being carried out on it. In the following, the focal length will be unified at 50 mm.
The first was the Opik, designed in 1920(UK Patent GB157040). The aperture is specified as f2 and the angle of view is 50 degrees. It would be difficult to manufacture it at f2 because the aperture space is narrow. It is a lens with a considerable bokeh effect.
In 1927, an improved model was released that had the same angle of view but with a significantly brighter aperture of f1.5(UK Patent GB298769). It is made up of three layers, each with one flat surface. It is complicated, but I think it was necessary to achieve nearly twice the brightness. There is a lot of spherical aberration, which results in a very soft image.
This lens was designed the following year, in 1928, with a narrower f/1.4 lens and a 40 degree field of view(UK Patent GB373950). However, it is obviously not f1.4, and there is no space to add an aperture. The last two lenses are flat on one side and curved on the other, and both use the same glass. It feels as if they just swapped the position of the curved surface and added another piece of glass for that purpose. The refractive index and dispersion of the glass used are close, so you can expect classical and natural depiction. This is said to be the same as the Schneider Xenon and the later Leica Summarit. It has a very soft focus, but if you set the aperture to f1.5, it will be a little more mellow.
The lens has been changed to f1.5, and the angle of view has been expanded to a focal length equivalent to 50mm. Speed Panchro (UK Patent GB377537)was filed in 1931.
Looking at the front and rear designs, chromatic aberration has been eliminated as much as possible to produce a hard depiction, but in exchange, spherical aberration has been over-corrected to produce a soft depiction. It can be seen that the Speed Panchro was designed by abandoning the basic aberration arrangement of the Cook lens.
Also improved in 1931, f2, angle of view limited to 40 degrees? Spherical aberration is too large(UK Patent GB397261). It's been said many times that the focus is pushed to the limit, so this seems to be a feature of the film - soft focus for the cinema.
When using it in a projector, we found that if the glass was glued together, it would come off due to heat, so we left a small gap to make it easier to clean. There is also an improvement to Speed Panchro(UK Patent GB377537)that eliminated the gluing(UK Patent GB427008). This is for projecting images taken with speed panchro. It's f2. The aperture can be made larger, but the curvature of the air layer is different, so the limit is where the glass hits. The angle of view was 28 degrees.
In the same year (1934), it had a large aperture of f1.1 and a 40-degree angle of view (UK Patent GB435149). Spherical aberration is severely undercorrected, but is thought to be correctable with aspheric lenses.
The patent was filed under the name of Capella Limited, the design firm of Speed Panchro designer Horace William Lee, but Lee's name was removed from the Lee/Capella joint credit and Arthur Wormisham took over responsibility, and in 1935 the first Gauss-type patent was filed for an unexpected "Improvement in Speed Panchro" (UK Patent GB461304). The aperture remains at f2. All three types of glass are the same, just with minor adjustments written on them. The first one is similar to the Series II. The latter two have reduced chromatic aberration. Warmisham seems to have thought that the chromatic aberration was too much, and the final conclusion was that the first one had undercorrected spherical aberration. This aberration arrangement was later adopted for the Series II, so the idea seems to have been set. However, the Series II was 10 years away. It has been improved many times since then, so it is possible that the Series I changed to this along the way.
It's the 1936 F2 (UK Patent GB474784). It is designed to soften the entire screen evenly.
According to Wormisham, it became apparent that the Speed Panchro needed further improvement, and in 1937 two designs were submitted (UK Patent GB507184). Basically, it seems that they went back to the original Series I and simply suppressed the chromatic aberration. However, they did not invert the chromatic aberration. Inversion is meant to cancel out the chromatic aberration, and they deliberately over-corrected it to make the colors stronger. Although it is monochrome, they did not do so because it would be possible to express the colors more strongly.
We will explain using three elements how the use of aspheric surfaces makes it possible to create a large aperture lens with an f1.1 aperture (UK Patent GB514441). The first one is f8 and the other is f7.3. I checked it at 60 degrees, but it seems to only reach about 50 degrees.
Remove one of the pieces: Rear Gauss type, f4.
Dagor type, f4.2
Although it is f3, the angle of view is narrow and set to 40 degrees. Super Six f1.8. The angle of view is 50 degrees. The Super Six was manufactured by Dallmeyer, but in the end, the designer may have been the same.
It is an F2 Super Six. The angle of view is up to 58 degrees.
It's an f1.8 Super Six and has a 58 degree field of view.
It's f1.1. The angle of view seems to be limited to 36 degrees.
At the end of 1938, it was f1.4 (UK Patent GB522651). Xenon was a very unreasonable design, but this one has been improved. It's possible that it was changed to this one at some point.
This was also at the end of 1938, around the same time (UK Patent GB523061). This is an improved version using lantern glass. There are four of them.
It is thought to be an improved version of the f2. Speed Panchro, but this is not specified.
The f1.5 seems like a design flaw, in theory this is what they wanted to do.
f1.4. This is a theoretical value as it cannot be manufactured, but the properties are more natural than modified xenon.
At f2 this also seems to be an improvement over the Speed Panchro, but it does seem to want to undercorrect spherical aberration.
1940 f1.4 (UK Patent GB544658). This seems to be an even greater improvement over Xenon.
In 1940, new types of glass using new rare earth elements were used to achieve complete colorlessness. Three Gauss designs and four other new glasses, including Ernostar, are described (UK Patent GB547666). Check only the Gauss type. Start at f2, increase the field of view to f2 again, and finish at f1.4. The long wavelength red and short wavelength violet overlap and are inverted.
1941, wide angle f2, the refractive indices of the glasses used are all approximations, Abbe's glass is nearly the same, showing that this is possible only with similar glass (UK Patent GB550623).
At the end of 1941, the company introduced a wide-angle F2 lens with three different aberrations (UK Patent GB553639). The Abbe number is set to an average of 49 or less.
In the 1942 application it was shown that the residual chromatic aberration that remains in a simple combination of crown and flint glass can be completely corrected without affecting the other elements (UK Patent GB560540).
In the same year, 1942, achromatism was achieved in an f/2 wide-angle lens by creating a large difference in the Abbe number at the junction of the crown and the flint glass (UK Patent GB560609). In the second example, the long wavelength red and the short wavelength violet nearly overlap.
At the same time, I will submit another document with some changes to the data (UK Patent GB564816).
In the same year, five new designs of f1.5 (UK Patent GB566963). I've changed the data a bit for comparison, but the design is pretty much the same, the first diagram is the same.
This document seems to be the Speed Panchro Series II. All were changed to F2 and the glass diameter was narrowed, but the following indication is for stills rather than the kino image circle. Better than Series I. There are no changes to the five types listed, but all have aberration diagrams. Differences are also written, but most do not seem to be that important. It is unclear which ones were ultimately commercialized as Series II. When I looked it up, they were arranged in order of low to high contrast. It seems that these five types were manufactured and the ones to be commercialized were decided. Since Series II was compatible with color film, contrast was important, and this is thought to be due to accumulated research on contrast. The incidence angle at the four corners is narrower than Series I. This is also presumably for the purpose of improving contrast.
Filter Diameter 40.5mm
