Being inspired by this great music video “Jill – All your words“ I wanted to experiment with very wide angle shots.
With my main camera being a Canon C100 MkII with a super 35 sensor, I had to find a full frame lens that was at least 16mm to get the wide angle look I was after. Having a search around I found the Sigma Filtamatic, a really interesting lens from the 70s. The reason it is called a “Filtermatic” is that it has inbuilt colour lenses – Orange, Pink, Blue (I doubt I will ever use them but it’s an interesting idea none the less). The things that ticked the boxes for me was that its F2.8, smooth focus, sharp and relatively light.
I got it up from eBay in excellent condition just with a small amount of fungus and glue deterioration. The lens is incredibly simple to clean as all the parts simply unscrew in sections allowing you access to all the individual lens elements.
I washed each lens element with a soft wet cloth slowly working away at the fungus, while running water over the glass to reduce any chance of scratching. Once all the elements were cleaned I let them drip dry then used a lens cloth to remove any small contamination from the water. I then reassembled the lens making sure each section was dust free, I did this by using a lens blower so not to touch the glass.
Because I will use it almost entirely for film work, I glued a 0.8 lens gear to the focus ring, meaning it will work with my Kessler Z-Drive focus pull.