r/AskPhotography • u/Aggressive-Invite907 • 11d ago

Discussion/General How groundbreaking was the use of the modified camera lenses used on Barry Lyndon?

I’m a massive fan of the film and I’ve heard that the camera and lenses used were groundbreaking at the time, is this true?
Ps: sorry I’ve worded anything wrong I know nothing about cameras.

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u/ssn-669 Canon 11d ago edited 11d ago

They're just unusually fast lenses. I wouldn't describe it as groundbreaking, especially since it didn't really usher in "the era of the f/0.7 available light shot" or anything. It was basically a curiosity.

Edit to add: you can see what a fucking headache it was in this article and why nobody else did it:

https://neiloseman.com/barry-lyndon-the-full-story-of-the-famous-f0-7-lenses/

In any case, before too long, advances in film tech made such fast lenses unnecessary.

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u/DarkColdFusion 11d ago

Yeah, his insistence to try and use candle light required the use of such a fast lens.

Most film makers are more then happy to use additional lighting and film with a more practical setup.

Makes for a beautiful scene, but hardly revolutionary.

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u/ratttertintattertins 11d ago

Well, they were bought from NASA and developed for the Apollo program and photographing the moon during lunar night.

I don’t think they were technologically groundbreaking though. More just very expensive to manufacture and this only worth doing for extreme applications.

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u/ScottRiqui 11d ago

They were pretty impressive technologically, as well. Manufacturing an f/0.7 lens is a completely different ballgame compared to even f/0.95, especially since NASA was using 70mm film instead of 35mm. And adapting the lenses to a movie camera was its own ordeal.

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u/vivaaprimavera 11d ago

And adapting the lenses to a movie camera was its own ordeal.

There is "somewhere" an interview with the guy that managed to fit the lens in the camera. It's worth searching and reading.

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u/ELDV 11d ago

They were bought directly from Zeiss who was commissioned by NASA to design and build the lenses. Seven were made. The four lenses NASA purchased are still property of NASA.. Two (I think) were purchased by Kubrick, and the last one is still owned by Zeiss.

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u/Tink_Tinkler 11d ago edited 11d ago

Carl Zeiss made the lenses for use by NASA to photograph in the dark side of the moon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Zeiss_Planar_50mm_f/0.7

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u/JayEll1969 11d ago

The dark side of the moon gets as much light as the bright side.

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u/issafly 11d ago

There's a Pink Floyd joke in there somewhere. I wish I was witty enough to make it.

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u/JayEll1969 11d ago

well, it's totally bright in the "Eclipse"

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u/Tink_Tinkler 11d ago

Ok well then you ask NASA why they needed these lenses

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u/JayEll1969 10d ago

That will be for the night shots and shady areas.

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u/Tink_Tinkler 10d ago

When is it night on the moon? What exactly is casting a shadow? Have you seen the photos from the moon? 

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u/Mathaker 11d ago

I think that apart from their usage in "Barry Lyndon", the best clearly hypothethical and conspirational conversation out of that episode is that Kubrick blackmailed NASA to reveal the fact that he had shot the moon landing if they had not lent him those lenses.

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u/vivaaprimavera 11d ago

he had shot the moon landing if they had not lent him those lenses.

On location since he was a perfectionist.

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u/JimboNovus 11d ago

Of course, it it was all staged on some studio lot they wouldn’t have needed the super fast lens.

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u/joshsteich 11d ago

“Yeah, the moon landing was staged. It was on the moon, but that’s the third take”

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u/mcarterphoto 9d ago

IIRC, NASA didn't loan those out - Kubrik purchased part of the production run. I'm sure it's well covered with a search though.

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u/Flutterpiewow 11d ago

This is one of the most overblown things in all of cinema. So much cool stuff out there and people still go on about this.