Video summary
The video centers on the acquisition and restoration of a rare Century 5.7mm f/2.5 lens for a Bolex camera, a project born out of the creator's grief over losing their previous Angenieux lens. The narrator explains that finding wide-angle lenses for the 16mm format is notoriously difficult, as few options exist beyond 10mm full-frame equivalent. After spotting this specific Century lens on eBay for a bargain price from an online pawn shop, he initially struggled with severe focusing issues upon installation. The lens lacked a standard focusing helicoid and suffered from a flange distance problem that rendered infinity focus impossible right out of the box, leading to a humorous but frustrating experience where the creator felt physically ill from the difficulty of getting it to work.
To resolve the technical challenges, the narrator decided to disassemble the lens, a process he describes as difficult due to excessively tight torque on the internal components. During this teardown, he discovered eight gold shims strategically placed within the lens barrel, which he removed to shorten the flange distance and restore proper infinity focus. Once reassembled, the lens performed admirably for interior shots, offering an incredible wide-angle view despite its limitations. The creator notes that while the lens has significant fisheye distortion, he prefers correcting this in post-production to achieve a rectilinear look, prioritizing straight lines and a global shutter over natural optical artifacts. He also highlights the massive depth of field inherent to such a wide angle on 16mm film, which keeps everything from infinity to just a few feet in focus even when the aperture is wide open.
The narrative takes a turn during a road trip to Texas, where vibrations and rattling from the car caused the internal lens elements to drift over time, eventually losing their alignment and causing softness in the images. Without his tools available due to security concerns at airport checkpoints, he was forced to rely on the high ISO speed of Kodak Vision3 500T film and stopping down the aperture to compensate for the loss of focus. Although he later fixed the issue by disassembling the lens again, he shares this story to illustrate the fragility of vintage optics and the necessity of maintenance. He compares this find to other expensive or unavailable alternatives like the Angenieux 5.9mm or the Optics 4mm, concluding that this Century lens is a unique "jewel" that fits his Bolex turret system perfectly while allowing for a fluid, semi-documentary style inspired by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki.
Read the full video transcript
Today's episode is sponsored by
Squarespace.
So, I want to talk about this new lens
that I got because it's quite [music] an
oddity. My old Angenieux lens is
somewhere along I-40 in New Mexico. May
it rest in pieces, [music] probably.
It's all documented here in this horror
short film that I made after I went
through the 600 stages of grief. I chose
to begin this Bolex [music] lens rebuild
with a wide-angle as it's sort of my
personal preference when it comes to
moving pictures. Anything wider than a
24 mm full-frame equivalent will do. So,
we're looking [music] for something in
the ultra wide-angle category.
Unfortunately, finding a wide-angle for
the Bolex is a very difficult task. Not
many lenses exist wider than 10 mm. But,
wouldn't you believe it? A couple days
after I lost my Angenieux lens, which
ow, [music] yeah, that still hurts, a
wild eBay listing appeared for a less
common super wide-angle, a Century
[music] 5.7 mm f/2.5 that I got for a
steal because hitting buy now on good
deals for camera equipment is the only
way I feel anything anymore. It was
listed by an online pawn shop that maybe
didn't really know what they had because
there's not a lot of information online
[music] about it, much less any listings
for a a C-mount version. A 5.7 mm lens
is about a 20 mm full-frame equivalent,
and yeah, I did put this thing on a
full-frame camera just for fun [music]
once. Obviously, it doesn't cover
full-frame as the 16 mm format is much,
much smaller, but it's kind of a cool
look, [music] and the lens flares aren't
too bad, either. Anyway, that's enough
fun. There are some caveats with this
lens, which we'll get into, but first,
[music] let's load some Kodak Vision 3
250D for the road, a road that leads us
way out into Texas to generate some
images the old-fashioned way,
the hard way. All right, gang, we're
doing it. We're loading some 16 mm, some
250D. Oh,
yeah.
Powerful.
Come on.
I hate C-mount.
Yep, looks like she's inside. Perfect
for filming. We are going to be at
around
Oh, there's just a thud upstairs. Don't
love that.
When I got this lens in the mail, I
immediately threw up. [music] I mean, I
threw the lens on the Bolex.
And then I threw up. Everything was out
of focus and this lens doesn't exactly
have a focusing helicoid. More on that
later. Disappointed, I started thinking
outside of the box. Maybe it's just a
lens flange issue and there's actually
nothing wrong with it. I have heard in
the past that some lenses for reflex
versions of the Bolex do need to be
collimated. Either way, I spent the next
4 hours trying to spell collimation and
eventually fell asleep at my desk. But
when I woke up 2 days later, I just
decided to take the lens apart. I do
have some experience with lens
disassembly. More enough depth way like
Sid from Toy Story. But whatever, let's
try it anyway. So, I disassembled the
damn thing, which was quite [music]
difficult, by the way. It seems that
lens techs like loop techs like to
torque everything down to 700 ft lbs.
Anyway, after some digging, I found the
lost treasure of the Sierra Madre.
Something like eight gold shims in a
strategic location within the lens. So,
I took one out and reassembled [music]
it and voila, infinity focus. That's the
short of it. Get it because we're
shortening the flange.
So, clearly not enough light in here for
this lens. It's a F2.5 at its fastest.
Paired with a 250 ISO, it just wasn't
sucking enough. Sucking enough photons
in, I should I should specify.
But otherwise, I did find the wide angle
quite incredible for interiors.
>> So, this shot is cool because it's not
only, I guess, technically a home
invasion, but I did a super smooth rack
of the aperture upon entering the house.
So, this lens is quite unique because
there's no focusing helicoid on the
barrel. With such a wide-angle lens, why
would you need one? At 5.7 mm combined
with a standard 16 mm format, that is
quite small. Your depth of field will be
quite large, even wide open.
Everything from infinity to probably
around 3 or 4 ft is in focus, greater
still when you close the lens down. It's
more or less the same concept at work in
the lenses of disposable cameras.
Though, every camera is truly disposable
if you think about it. I guess the
downside is that if you want some artsy
wide-angle close-ups, you can either
close the lens down or, you know,
unscrew the lens from the mount a little
bit to bring the focus closer. But,
legally, I didn't tell you that. If you
ever end up doing this dumb leave
me out of it. I'll deny everything in
court.
>> I think Whataburger's known for the
burgers more.
>> Yeah.
It's in the name, dude.
>> I know.
>> It's not called What-A-Chicken Fingers.
>> So, let's pound some quick Whataburger,
famously the only fast food chain to
start with the letter W, and then switch
over to some Kodak Vision3 500T before I
trauma dump some more knowledge on you.
>> Have you ever
>> [music]
>> so hard you fart?
>> I just started recording, dude.
>> [music]
>> If you look closely at the footage,
there is a little bit of fisheye
distortion here. Well, truthfully, with
this lens, there is a decent [music]
amount of fisheye distortion. I just
went ahead and corrected it to
rectilinear in post the best I could
without, I guess, going too overboard.
I don't mind correcting that fisheye
effect personally. We still get a pretty
wide-angle field of view out of it, and
yeah, I feel like it isn't as
distracting anymore. It's a small price
that I'm very happy to pay for a
wide-angle rectilinear rendering on 16
mm. Cuz at the end of the day, I think
all I want from a wide-angle lens is,
you know, straight lines and a camera
that shoots global shutter. I want the
Fallen Angels look. Of course, that was
shot on Super 35 mm, but the
cinematographer Christopher Doyle
actually used another Century lens for
it, a Century 9.8 mm supposedly, and
then chopped it down even further with
an auxiliary wide-angle attachment,
making the lens combo a 6.8 mm at the
end of the day, which is somewhere in
the ballpark of a 10-mm [music] lens on
full frame. The closest wide-angle true
rectilinear lens that I could think of
that would fit on my Bolex is probably
the Angenieux 5.9 mm, probably quite a
capable lens itself, but it's going for
a startling pile of cash these days,
and, you know, good luck finding it in
C-mount. It is also fixed focus, and it
has a wide front element, so it probably
wouldn't really play that well with
other lenses on the Bolex turret. Hence,
this Century 5.7 mm might just be the
jewel that I needed.
One of my biggest inspirations ever for
motion picture is, of course, Emmanuel
Lubezki, the award-winning
cinematographer of Y [music] Tu Mamá
También, Children of Men, Birdman. The
list is extensively impressive. All it's
missing is the Nut Job 2. Lubezki
designs a lot of his camera work to be
fluid, sort of floating, [music]
and sometimes handheld, almost a
semi-documentary feel with his use of
natural light.
And that's a style [music] that's
inspired me quite a bit. Not that that's
really an excuse to walk around with
shaky handheld footage, but my only
excuse for now
>> [music]
>> Anyway, hundreds of miles on the floor
of the car eventually took its toll on
the old Century [music] 5.7 mm lens. The
vibrations and rattling of the car must
have I guess wiggled some things loose
over time and the internal lens elements
slowly drifted away from the film plane,
meaning infinity focus was lost.
Obviously, I didn't bring my tools with
me on that trip because I didn't want to
give TSA any other reason to
aggressively cavity search me. A man can
only take so much. So, I basically just
had to rely on the fast 500 speed of the
film stock and close down to make sure
everything was in focus.
And it worked for the most part. The
shot of Caleb is wide open and you can
kind of start to see the defocus
creeping in.
I've since have disassembled the lens
and remedied the issue, but I felt like
it was worth mentioning anyway. [music]
But before I issue my closing statements
and the golden path forward for this
lens, I'd like to first thank today's
sponsor Squarespace for their ongoing
support of this channel. It's 2026,
don't be the last person on the planet
without a website. Chances are you've
heard of the industry-leading website
builder Squarespace before, but did you
know the team behind the online
powerhouse recently implemented a bunch
of tools that utilize groundbreaking AI
to custom build the website of your
dreams? Tools like design intelligence,
which utilize artificial intelligence to
not only perfect, but personalize your
new website down to every last
cutting-edge [music] detail. Are you a
photographer like me looking to show off
your work? Get started doing so with
hundreds of professionally designed
templates. Time to take your work a step
further, sell some prints, and use
Squarespace's own AI to power things
that are normally kind of a drag to do
yourself, like product and video
descriptions, as well as email
campaigns. [music]
It's designed to take some of that load
off when crafting your new website
workspace to allocate other resources
like time and critical thinking [music]
to other more important components of
your online presence. And on the topic
of selling products, Squarespace even
features preset payment infrastructures
to start the flow of economy to you in
exchange for goods [music] or services.
If you've ever or of making profit,
Squarespace has you covered with payment
methods such as Klarna, direct debit,
Apple Pay, Afterpay, and even ClearPay.
So, what are you waiting for? If you're
ready to build a website, you can start
a free trial today at
checkout, you can get 10% [music] off
your first purchase.
Anyway, there isn't enough therapy in
the world to get me over losing that
Angenieux lens, but this is a solid
start. The only lens that I know of
nowadays that's wider and would work on
the system is the optics 4 mm. But, you
can't exactly commandeer that lens
anymore. It's a specialty cinema lens
nowadays. They used it on Poor Things
quite a bit, actually. Maybe someday
I'll rent one and make a cool video.
Or just a video. Otherwise, there are
two more turret spots on the Bolex, and
I've been doing a bunch of research as a
how to fill them holes.
There's a little joke in there
somewhere.
I'll be sure to update you in the
future. Unless, of course, no one
actually gives a crap about this, and
it's just me, which is Yeah, it's pretty
likely.