Questions About Isco Blue Star Integrated and Other Wide Scope Lenses

[Joshua Mendoza]

Hello!

I'm new here but I've been a lurker on the forums for a little while.

I've been trying to find out as much as I can about the wide scope lenses that Isco made, but I had some questions I couldn't fully find answered.

I know that normally separate cinemascope attachments are the way to go in terms of overall quality, but I was wondering if the wide Blue Star Integrated lenses that came in 42mm, 45mm, and 48mm had approximately the same level of quality that the separate Blue Star attachment had with Ultra Star HD Plus lenses.

I ask that because the old Isco website (which you can still pull the info on from the Wayback Machine) mentions a 6 element construction for the anamorphic portion of those wide lenses, which is the same amount of elements in the separate Blue Star attachment.

There were also the Ultra-MC Anamorphic 2x lenses in a 35mm and 40mm focal length that were incredibly expensive (the 35mm was listed at 39,000 EUR in 2006) that I have not found anything about, other than what they were listed for. Does anyone have any info on these?

I've also only found one picture online for any of these, and it was for the Blue Star Integrated, which I found on an old PDF. Does anyone have pictures of these lenses?

Thanks!

[Sean McKinnon]

An integrated anamorphic is actually preferred because the ability of the manufacturer to match and align the anamorphic elements and the "back up" elements leads to a lens with less distortion than a typical anamoprhic adapter and prime lens. The downside is that you are stuck at the focal length that it is.

[Stefan Scholz]

The anamorphic attachments used in these BlueStar labelled Cinemascope combo lenses were identical to the gold and red bodied combo lenses.
Only the Blue Star attachment was a 6 lens construction with highest image quality.
AFAIR the BlueStar combo combined an Ultra Star HD Studio base lens with a quality selected attachment. But the standard lens setup.
The Ultra MC 2x in 35 mm and 40 mm were incredibly expensive, and no discount, as these do not make sense in theatre design. So if you insist, we can make them.
But be aware your price for a single lens is the price of the 10 batch we have to produce, and we will dump 9 in three years. Just like the spherical 22 mm and eventually 25 mm lens.