Hey Filmmakers Chung Dha here! In this video I am going to show you how to make a DIY Deakinizer lens, but first for those who don’t know what a Deakinizer is.
The Deakinizer is a special modified lens commissioned by Roger Deakins. Main look of this lens is a spot focus with zoom blur like effect and tear drops bokeh to capture a dreamy old camera lens look, that you can’t achieve in post. If you have watched The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, you might have notice a specific dreamy look in some of the shots. The lens that captures this look is called the Deakinizer.
I am showing you two methods of making your own Deakinizer. The first one is a less preferred method by using a wide angle converter and instead of screwing it normally onto your lens, we are just going to hold it backwards in front of your lens. But this method has its downside as not every wide angle adapter and lens combination works and you need to test out different combinations to find out which works. I myself encountered this ordering a large wide angle adapter and not getting any of the effect, while it worked with a small phone wide angle adapter. So I don’t suggest wasting money to find out which wide angle adapter works and which doesn’t.
The 2nd method which I prefer, as it is made with a specific lens. This setup uses a modified MIR 1B 37MM F2.8 on a Tilt shift adapter. The tilt adapter allows me to move the spot focus around enabling me to focus on specific objects in my frame, but also hold it in place without me needing to hold the lens.
Mir 1B 37mm f2.8 Lens – https://ebay.us/5U0Xvb
M42 to EF adapter – https://amzn.to/3oiTUvW
Tilt Adapter for Sony Nex – https://amzn.to/3H6foVk
To modify your MIR 1B, you need to use a lens wrench to open the front and flip the front element around. This already achieves the spot focus effect and the teardrops bokeh. While there are a lot of artifacts happening in frame, it still produces nice sharp images at the spot it focuses on.
While the deakinizer effect is not for everyone’s taste, it is a specialized lens with a specific look that you might want to achieve for a specific scene, like a dream sequence or if someone is drunk or any situation where you want the shots to look dreamy and out of this world.
I myself build this lens to achieve a specific look that is needed in a script that I have written.
Hope you found this and interesting video and please hit the like and subscribe for more videos, see you in the next video bye bye.
