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Weird Lenses

This wooden lens was built using the guts of a Super-Takumar 55mm f/2 and it actually works

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When we think of lenses, we usually think of chunks of metal or plastic with glass elements inside them. If somebody says “wooden lens” to us, we usually think of CNC or laser-cut models of lenses that don’t actually have any optical properties and are simply chunks of wood that resemble a lens. But not this time. Oh, no. This one’s a wooden lens, with glass optics that actually works.

And who do you think made this lens a reality? Yup, that’s right, weird lens king, Mathieu Stern, who teamed up with the folks at Hungarian photographer lens creator, Weird Lenses, to bring the lens to life and regardless of how it might see – which seems quite good – it looks pretty awesome, too!

Try one of these seven weird and unusual lenses to shoot your next documentary

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The king of weird lenses, Mathieu Stern set himself a challenge with a documentary short film he shot recently. The challenge was to use only anamorphic and swirly bokeh lenses. But he wasn’t just getting off-the-shelf ready-to-go lenses you can pick up online (although he did use a couple). He ended up using seven different lenses to film his documentary, along with various adapters and doohickies to tell his anamorphic story.

The short film itself, which follows the journey of Louis-Thibaud Chambon, AKA The Waterfall Hunter, is quite interesting in itself but visually it’s also very appealing indeed. The footage itself was shot using the Sony A7III camera and Mathieu wanted to use lenses that not only gave the film a cinematic look but also presented it in an almost magical way. And this wonderful array of lenses and adapters certainly did that!

Shooting a giant crazy wide angle f/2 projector lens on the Fuji GFX100

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Weird lenses are always fun, and they seem to be popping up quite regularly. But there isn’t much out there that’s weirder than this. This is a super wide-angle Iwerks f/2.0 lens, designed to project 70mm film. Here, though, Jay P Morgan is using it the other way around to get an ultra-wide view on the world shooting portraits in a local market.

Jay P’s shooting the somewhat ridiculous looking lens on the Fuji GFX 100 medium format camera – which still doesn’t cover the entire projection circle of this insane lens. Originally designed to project images inside a domed cinema, it actually works pretty well for shooting some interesting looking indoor portraits, thanks to that wide f/2.0 aperture.

This rare medical lens shoots super-sharp macro photos

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Non-photographic lenses such as projector or spy lenses can be used for taking some stunning photos. But have you considered using a medical lens? Mathieu Stern got to test an Elicar 90mm f2.5 Macro Medical V-HQ, a relatively rare lens that was used by medical professionals in the ‘80s. And it turns out that it’s super sharp and great for close-up shots.

This filmmaker found a 400mm f/6.3 prime lens for his GH5 for only €2

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It’s not much of a secret that I’m a big fan of M42 lenses, especially for things like video or timelapse. I’ve got a few dozen of them that I use when I’m after a particular look and feel that would take a lot of work to achieve with more modern glass.

But occasionally I see a video or photos using an M42 lens that I haven’t come across before. In this case, it’s a Soligor 400mm f/6.3 lens. A lens that filmmaker Victor Bart managed to pick up for the princely sum of €2. In this video, he shows it off on the 2x crop Panasonic GH5, for an equivalent field of view to full frame 800mm.

This camera lens was made from an iceberg

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Photographer and filmmaker Mathieu Stern enjoys buying, modifying and even making his own weird lenses. He dreamt of his latest project for two years and now he’s finally made it – a lens made of ice. He traveled all the way to Iceland to be able to turn his idea into reality.

Making the ice lens came with a lot of challenges, but Mathieu managed to overcome them. He kindly shares with DIYP some photos and videos he took with this ice lens, as well as the story of how he made it. And it’s all really cool (no pun intended)!

This rare 130mm f/1.0 lens has triangular bokeh and it can be yours for “only” $18,500

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If you are passionate about rare lenses, here’s a treat for you. A Berthiot Monital 130mm f/1.0 cine lens is currently being sold on eBay. Other than being very rare and having a wide aperture, it has a pretty unique trait: it produces triangular bokeh.

NameThatLens is a cross-platform tool to inject EXIF data into vintage lens photos

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I’ve been mounting “non-standard” lenses on my cameras for years. Ever since I discovered that I could put M42 lenses on Nikon and Canon bodies I was hooked. Many older lenses offer a look and feeling that you simply can’t get with more modern “perfect” glass.

But deciphering photographs on the computer by searching through EXIF isn’t easy, because such lenses don’t communicate with the camera, so don’t store that lens information. This new cross-platform app, NameThatLens by Georg Fiedler wants to help solve that problem by allowing you to inject custom lens metadata into your images through a nice cross-platform graphical interface.

This 70 year old projector lens creates “insane swirly bokeh” that rivals a $7K Leica

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Weird and crazy lenses is what Mathieu Stern has become known for. He seems to find some of the most unusual lenses that ever existed, and then makes them fit onto his Sony mirrorless camera. Fortunately for us, he posts images and video captured by those lenses he finds to YouTube.

And this particular lens is a beauty. A Carl Zeiss Kipronar 120mm f/1.9 projector lens which cost him only $70. It’s fixed wide open at f/1.9 and was never meant to be used for shooting photos. But Mathieu was able to adapt it. He says the closest he could find to a modern equivalent of this lens is the $7,000 Leica APO-Macro_Summarit-S F2.5/120mm.

The Weirdest Macro Lens – Laowa 24mm f/14 2:1 Underwater Field Test

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Back in June, I was given the opportunity to test the new crazy lens by Laowa – the Laowa 24mm f/14 2:1 Relay Lens. It measures about 40cm in length and looks more like an endoscope rather than a traditional lens. While such relay lens designs are not entirely new with a few other examples in underwater macro photography, there are rarely any readily available options for terrestrial macro photography.

I only managed to spend a few hours with it during an inter-tidal shoot, and compiled some clips in the intro video here:

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