Dog Schidt Optiks
Dog Schidt Optiks ‘Flare Factory 58g’ (Green Tint) Taking Lens + Iscorama 36 from Melting Bloke (Richard Gale) on Vimeo.
From the “Just When You Think You’ve Seen It All” department comes a UK company with the unusual name Dog Schidt Optiks. This innovative company brings to market an equally unusual new product line. The Dog Schidt ‘Flare Factory 58’ lenses. Custom lenses based around the Zeiss Biotar 58mm / Helios 44 design which are developed further in the manufacturing process to add analogue looks with raw, rustic flare and contrast character to footage. In particular they have been developed to add a hint of extra character when used with modern anamorphic lenses which can be a bit too clinical.
Each lens is slightly different due to their custom manufacturing techniques. Dog Schidt machine these lenses on a lathe and apply various colour tints which are activated by flare and glare, while not affecting the colour of the resolved image during non flared shots. The internal metal parts are carefully machined on the lathe by hand to boost the natural flaring of these lenses. Where normal lenses are internally coated or painted flat black to avoid reflections and suppress flare, everything Dog Schidt produces is, well, Schidt enhanced!
The process begins with the disassembly of old “Iron Curtain” era Eastern Block lenses based upon the Carl Zeiss Biotar 58mm / Helios 44 designs to recover the lens elements. Secondary step is the precision machining of a new lens body, or the reconditioning of the old one by changing the mount and polishing certain internal elements. Third step in the process is the re-coating of the old lens elements to add a particular lens “look” and then off to final assembly with the whole shebang.
The ‘Flare Factory 58’ is being produced now in M42 mount which means they can be adapted to just about every camera system including Canon EF, Sony E-Mount, M4/3, Arri PL and even C-Mount. So for all of us presently suffering from our video simply looking like plain shit, for only an additional £100.00 GBP your video can now look like Dog Schidt instead! (12 available, last I looked)(That is approximately $155.33 USD for those of us on this side of the big pond)
They will sell a million of them.
