The Blazar Remus 1.5x anamorphic lenses feel a little like they’ve come out of the blue, but the company has a bit more history than it may at first appear.

Blazar is a brand new name in the market, but not a brand new player, as this is just the new name for Great Joy. If you haven’t heard of Great Joy either it’s a company that first launched a screw-on 1.35x anamorphic adapter along with a 60mm 1.33x lens almost exactly two years ago, and which went on to produce three very nice, and very affordable 1.8x anamorphic lenses for S35 which almost covered full frame. Unfortunately, the ‘Great Joy’ name was seen as a bit ‘uncool’ by a lot of vocal users, so the company listened and changed it to something less interesting but presumably more widely acceptable – Blazar. 

Blazar also started with an anamorphic adapter called Nero, and has now moved into the complete lens market with these three 1.5x anamorphics. What makes these interesting is that they are designed for full-frame systems and that they are pretty small considering their maximum apertures. 

It wasn’t too long ago that it was hard to find a decent anamorphic lens that didn’t cost the Earth, but in the last five or so years, we’ve seen quite a flurry of lenses affordable enough for camera operators to actually own rather than rent. Sirui has been a big player in this area and now other manufacturers are joining in, including Great Joy, Laowa and now Blazar. With so much competition in this lower-cost arena, there is some pressure to produce something a little different to what is already on offer. In the past Great Joy achieved this with its more moderate anamorphic flare that made the look the lenses produced a little more enduring than the dramatic and over-powering blue flashes of some of the other manufacturers’ optics and which gave users a genuinely different set of characteristics to work with. It makes sense then that we might expect more of the same from these Blazar lenses. As is popular these days, the lenses will be available with blue or amber flare. 

The 1.5x factor

While many filmmakers think of a 4:3 sensor when considering shooting an anamorphic movie, times have moved on and many of the lower-cost mirrorless cameras on offer today don’t provide a 4:3 frame to work with. The reality is that many will shoot in 16:9 as they would with a spherical lens and will want to fit their results onto a standard 2.39:1 anamorphic screen. If you shoot 4:3, this 1.5x factor doesn’t make too much sense, as it delivers a fat 2:1 aspect ratio, but shooting in 16:9 will give us a frame just wider than the rather nice 2.66:1 aspect ratio that was once an early standard widescreen CinemaScope aspect ratio and which is very close to the 2.55:1 that was produced when sound was added to the film (Ben-Hur/La La Land). Hasselblad also used 2.66:1 in the 64x24mm XPan, and Panasonic still offers it in most of its S-series Lumix cameras. It’s a very nice-looking format, and though much wider than the 2.39:1 we see most often, but it can easily be cropped to fit a range of finished picture formats. 

I suspect though, the main issue will be that filmmakers might think 1.5x isn’t anamorphic enough to get the classic look of distorted backgrounds that make the focused subject jump out of the frame and that out-of-focus highlights might be too round instead of that magical cat’s eye oval. However, while we might lust after 1.8x and 2x anamorphic lenses, the proof is that many companies have shown there is a market for these lower-factor lenses. Sirui’s 1.33x lenses seem to have done well, and Laowa’s Nanomorph set is also 1.5x. The difference here is that these lenses cover full frame sensors, as well as the S35 and Micro Four Thirds formats other low-cost lenses are made for. 

General design

When I opened the neat hard case the lens set comes in I was struck by how different these lenses look to anything else on the market. The silver front section of the barrel and the matching lens caps really make the lenses stand out, and the transparent back caps complete a pretty cool style statement. 

The three lenses in the set really do match each other to the point that we need to read the barrel to know which lens we have picked up. The case has named places for each lens, which helps, but when they are all sunk into place or in another bag, it is impossible to tell one from the other – the sides of the barrel are the only places the focal length is indicated. The lenses are different sizes of course, but when they are not side by side, this is of not much help. 

The front section of the barrel features a cut away to reveal distances on the focus ring in feet, while the other side of the ring shows us the same information in metres. The white paint is sunk into engraved figures so it won’t wear off, and it stands out nicely from the matt black background. Apertures are similarly marked on both sides of the barrel, and users will note that the spacing between T stops is greater at the wide settings than it is at the smaller settings, to the point it will be hard to be accurate with fractions of a stop between the smallest apertures. T16 and T22 are extremely close together. 

The focus and iris rings are ribbed with regular 0.8 Mod gears for follow-focus and lens control systems. The gears on my samples are somewhat thinner and shallower than those that will grace the final production models, as early testing has shown them hard to align with follow-focus equipment and not deep enough for a firm grip. At the time of writing, the company couldn’t tell me exactly how much wider and deeper the gears would be, but they got it right with the Great Joy lenses, so I have few doubts they won’t correct this in an effective manner. 

The two rings are quite close together though, and when operating the lenses by hand, there were more than a few occasions on which I shifted the aperture when I meant to shift the focus. The closeness also makes it very difficult to mount lens control systems for both rings on the same side of the lens. 

The lenses are remarkably small for full-frame anamorphics and are also light enough that you can carry all three easily. Despite the size and weight though Blazar gives us a support thread at the front of the barrel for securing the lens to a rig and for taking the strain off the camera mount. This thread is positioned quite close to the front of the lens though, so those with clamp-on matt boxes will need to check they have enough room to attach it. Two decorative-looking engraved rings sit between the thread mount and the front of the lens, which might help as slot-in places. Although the backside of the sleek lens caps is free of text, the thread for the filters and accessories is 77mm. The thread isn’t very deep, and while regular filters screw-in nicely larger accessories may feel insecure. My H&Y Revorings needed extra attention to ensure they were in properly. 

The way a lens looks shouldn’t be important, but Great Joy recently discovered even a brand name is important. These lenses look very nice and quite space-age when they are off the camera and very cool as a set. However, as there are no silver cinema or mirrorless cameras these days, some might feel they look a little odd when mounted to a black camera. They stand out and make the kit look a bit unbalanced. Like I said, the way a lens looks shouldn’t matter, but it kinda does. 

The set I used here were mounted for PL, but they will also be available in EF, and users will be able to buy mounts separately to interchange themselves.

This video shows how these lenses respond to point light sources passing through the frame, and how out-of-focus highlights are represented. The performer is Anna Kachaienko

Anamorphic up front

People do like anamorphic flare, and as much as the Great Joy lenses offered a nice moderate amount of these streaks across the frame when confronted by a point light source, they did so in varying degrees because of their differing optical construction. In this Remus set though, we have all the anamorphic elements up front. This is easy to spot partly due to the rectangular baffle behind the front elements but also because when the iris is viewed through the front of the lens it looks oval. Viewed from behind it is round. 

Most anamorphic lenses are designed with their anamorphic group at the front because it enhances all the anamorphic characteristics we expect to see – oval highlights, lots of flare and that distorted background. I think this placement will please most users. 

Blazar Remus 45mm T2

The 45mm T2 is the wider of the lenses in this set and when mounted to a full-frame camera, will deliver a horizontal focal length of 30mm. It is also the smaller of the set, and the lighter at 90mm and 720g. The lens will focus to 2.23ft/0.68m and has an aperture range of T2-22. All of the lenses have 16 iris blades and a focus throw of 150°. 

This 45mm isn’t an especially sharp lens, but its resolution will probably look fine in 4K for most situations. It doesn’t really get sharp at any stage either but is best between T8 and T11. I’m not sure it is really supposed to be sharp in a technical sense, as the three lenses offer a retro glow about their images that could be considered ‘cinematic’. Here though, the chromatic separation that gives us red and cyan edges may not to be to everyone’s taste. The separation is horizontal, so of course, once the image is desqueezed the fringes alongside vertical parts of the scene become more obvious as they are widened. 

Barrelling is also a very big part of the output of this lens, and only straight lines in the middle of the frame are safe. Away from the centre all four edges enjoy a dramatic display of curvilinear distortion that can propel the subject from the frame – so long as it is in the middle of the picture. The drama is most marked along the longer edges at the top and bottom of the picture, but still marked at the sides too. In many cases, this degree of distortion can be attractive and a positive part of the picture, though the technical inaccuracy must be acknowledged before the lens is matched to the atmosphere required for the piece. 

Not surprisingly, vignetting is also a feature, and we should expect heavy shading at the wider apertures (extremely so in the corners at T2) and to find it only less noticeable five stops in. The vignetting is somewhat uneven in my sample, with shading in the top left than on the right. 

Flare is moderate considering the angle of view, and it takes a light shining directly into the lens to trigger the streaks, but when it happens, it looks nice and doesn’t eclipse the subject. Out-of-focus highlights are clean irregular droplets with a pronounced convex bulge closest to the corners of the frame. 

Blazar Remus 65mm T2

I usually have the highest hopes for lenses in the middle of a set, and the Remus 65mm T2 hasn’t disappointed me. Mounted on a full-frame camera, this lens gives us a horizontal focal length of about 43mm, which is technically closer to the angle of view of our eyes than the 50mm lenses usually suggested for this effect. At 782g and 101mm, it is larger and heavier than the 45mm – but not really by much. It will focus to 2.26ft/0.69m, which is pretty impressive, and makes it suited to close shooting situations without the need for dioptres. 

The lens seems designed to be much sharper in the middle than at the edges; though wide open it is quite soft in the middle too. The look allows the central area to stand out from the frame a little more. When we get to T5.6 the trick wears out and we begin to get pretty good resolution right across the frame that improves more as we close all the way down. We still have that diffused glow, though, and red/cyan separation lends vertical edges a colourful tint that isn’t wholly unattractive so long as you know what to expect. 

While not quite as dramatic as in the 45mm, the 65mm T2 also offers us a decent degree of barrel distortion that’s sufficient to make straight lines near the edges of the frame obviously bent. Some vignetting is also visible at the widest apertures, but it is less obvious by T5.6 and effectively gone by T8. 

Those anamorphic streaks are a little more pronounced in this lens, though still not over-powering, and out-of-focus highlights appear a good deal more oval than in the wider lens. 

Blazar Remus 100mm T2.8

Full frame users will get a horizontal focal length of about 67mm with this lens, making it a little more suited to head-and-shoulder and face shots, perhaps than the other two lenses in the set. With the extra focal length comes a slightly smaller aperture, presumably to keep the size and weight of the lens down – which is well achieved as at 788g it is only very slightly heavier than the 65mm and not a great deal longer either at 110mm. Close focus is still impressive, at 2.3ft/0.71m, so heads can really fill the frame. 

Of the three lenses this is the sharper and the one with the more consistent optical performance. It is still very glowy at the wide apertures, but there is a semblance of resolution too, and by the middle apertures, it is actually pretty sharp. By T8, I’d say it is actually very good. There is much less colour separation to knock out the detail, and we don’t get so much of those red fringes on vertical edges. 

As you might expect, barrelling is much less obvious, though it is present all the same, and the shallow depth-of-field at the wide apertures gives us excellent differential focus that really picks the subject out from the background. 

Flare is about on a par with that produced by the 65mm, though the streaks are a little tighter, and the out-of-focus highlights are almost triangular when they appear outside the central area of the image. They are reasonably clean, though, and not unattractive. I wonder if their shape might have drawn less attention had they been a little more even, but I expect their unusual geometry will excite some users.  

The future

There is a space in the case these lenses came in marked for a 30mm lens for S35, but with no lens in it. Blazar tells me this lens will come later and will actually be a 35mm 1.5x lens not a 30mm. It will be designed to offer S35 users a wide option, as when mounted in front of a S35 sensor, the widest current lens will only provide a 45mm focal length. The coming lens will also cost a little less, though at the moment Blazar couldn’t say when it would come or how much it would be – but that is the company’s intention. 

Conclusion

This is a fun set of anamorphics that are nicely small and light for the format they are designed to cover. They will be best shot with the full width of a full-frame sensor to enjoy the focal length range, but switching to S35/APS-C with the 100mm will also present us with another slightly longer option. 

It is fair to say that these haven’t been created with technical perfection in mind, but instead to produce an artistic look that users can make the most of when considering how the atmosphere will be portrayed in their film. The 1970/80s glow of the lenses is rather nice and their softness works to flatter the subject and create a slight mystery rather than to make the finished footage look out-of-focus or poorly shot. 

If you were worried that a 1.5x factor is insufficient to produce that stretched look and misshapen out-of-focus highlights, you no longer need to, as the images the lenses produce are full of anamorphic characteristics, and when aimed at the right subject in the right setting, they will offer great service. I’m still not convinced the cosmetic design really works once the lenses are mounted on a black camera, but fortunately, it isn’t something that bothers me particularly, and I’m looking forward to the redesigned gears on the focus and iris rings. 

At $2799 for the set including the case, or $999 for individual lenses, these lenses really do offer an affordable step into the anamorphic world for full frame users, and one they won’t have to regret so long as technical accuracy isn’t a high priority. The lenses have all the characteristics popularly demanded, and they will make a lot of filmmakers very happy. 

These lenses are sold directly on the Blazar website, with early bird prices starting at $2399 for the set. Those who bought Great Joy lenses and adapters in the past will also receive a coupon for further discounts.

Visit Blazer Lens for more on the Remus set.