Canon’s 1960s Leica killers brought to life with TLS love!

July 09, 2022 / Michael Lindsay

Canon Dream Lenses (TLS)

The story behind these lenses begins in 2 different continents and 2 different points in time. Back in the late 1950s Canon lenses designers Hiroshi Itoh and Jirou Mukai put together a series of rangefinder lenses with such lofty ambitions that they challenged Leica’s stronghold over high end rangefinder lensing. Jump forwards 60 years to Germany and Arri was working to change the standard for Cinema lens mounts to work better for both large format and the digital imaging. They did this by introducing the LPL mount which is both shorter and wider than the ubiquitous PL mount. On seeing Arri’s new mount in 2018 16oz started nagging TLS’s Gavin Whitehurst to look at rehousing a variety of vintage stills lenses that had never previously been possible to rehoused due to the limitations of the PL mount.

The 1st lens to be rehoused was Canon record breaking and signature 50mm f0.95. 16oz was careful to find a mint TV version which omitted the rangefinder couplings and therefore leaves all the glass intact. After this was complete we set about testing and acquiring a full matching set of focal lengths. Last month we took delivery of the 25mm which completed our basic set of 5 Canon Dream lenses.

Dreamy vintage organic images for a sterile digital age! If your production needs vintage organic FF lenses with soft golden flares and a glowing dreamy look…. these really have no equal!

More lenses are coming… we have acquired donor glass to round off the set with a a 19mm, 28mm, 40mm, 58mm, 135mm and 200mm on the cards!