Testing the Hawk Vintage ’74 Lenses


Eric Koretz recently posted a very nice article detailing his experience with the Hawk Vintage ’74 on his blog, The Image Hunter – Shot In The Wild. Koretz describes how the lenses performed and provides plenty of perfectly de squeezed frame grabs and setup shots.

So What are the Hawk Vintage 74s? They are 2x anamorphic lenses based off the V-Lite optics, with a front coating that provides lower contrast, creamy skintones and flares of the older 1970s anamorphics. Why would you want this? The “problem” stems from current digital cameras. The image sometimes feels too clean and too sharp and contrasty when used with the newest generation of lenses such as Master Primes and Ultra Primes etc.. Lenses such as the Panavision E Series, Kowa Anamorphics, Lomo Anamorphics, Zeiss Super Speeds, Super Baltars and Canon K35s have become popular again because of the way the old glass looks when matched with these newer high res cameras. It makes the imagery feel more organic and natural at the higher resolutions. The Hawk Vintage ’74s beautifully provide this vintage organic look mixed with modern mechanics and sharpness of the current Hawk lenses.

Check out the full write up here.
You can find Eric on twitter here.

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