MC Schneider-Kreuznach Super-Cinelux 2/55mm

MC Schneider-Kreuznach Super-Cinelux 2/55mm lens unmounted (with black electrical tape applied to ensure a snug fit in the focusing helicoid)

MC Schneider-Kreuznach Super-Cinelux 2/55mm adapted and ready to use on Sony E mount

MC Schneider-Kreuznach Super-Cinelux 2/55mm mounted on a Sony A7 II camera

If you just want to see some photographs, skip straight to the examples section.

Quite why 35mm cinema projection lenses are usually made with this gold finish is something of a mystery to me (after all, this lens, and the cinema projector it was designed to be mounted on, would have been hidden away in a small projection room and rarely seen by anybody but the projectionist!). But it can't be denied that it does look very impressive mounted on the front of my Sony A7 camera!

Most projection lenses, regardless of the type of projector they are designed to used with, are short telephoto lenses with a 35mm equivalent focal length in the 75-100mm range. Wider angle lenses, designed for use in smaller spaces when you wanted to maintain a large projected image even with a short distance between the projector and the screen are rare, but they do exist. So when I saw this Schneider-Kreuznach 55mm f2 lens on eBay for a reasonable price (I paid about £75 for it December 2024) my curiosity was immediately peaked by the idea of getting that distinctive projector lens look, but with a "standard lens" field of view.

MC Schneider-Kreuznach Super-Cinelux 2/55mm with lens hood removed. While this is a pretty big and hefty lens for a "standard" lens (adapted and ready to use on my Sony E mount camera it weighs in at 488 grams), it's not quit a big as it looks in the above photographs. The last 3cm of length is just an empty tube that easily screws off, so it effectively acts as a lenshood, as you can see in this photograph.

This lens was much simpler to adapt than a typical 35mm cinema projection lens with a 90mm focal length. In fact I was able to use just my standard collection of parts I normally use for lenses from standard 35mm slide projectors. Here is everything I used to adapt this lens:

A focusing helicoid designed to mount an M52 screw mount lens on an M42 screw mount SLR camera with a extension range of 36-90mm.

Note that is not a typo: M42 is a common lens mount for vintage SLR lenses, but I've never seen an M52 lens! But this is never-the-less the best size for this lens. You can find these helicoids on Amazon or eBay
A ultra-slim adapter to mount M42 lenses on your camera.

This lens would not focus to infinity with a standard E mount to M42 adaptor, so I used an 'ultra-slim' M42 adapter specially designed to mount focusing helicoids on a mirrorless camera. You can find these adapters on Amazon or eBay. I've paid as little as £3 by ordering direct from China.
Black electrical tape.

Wrap this around the lens until it is the right diameter to fit snugly in the focussing helicoid.

Method

The method for building this lens is very simple. I just wrapped black electrical tape around the lens until I got a really snug fit in the focussing helicoid (see the very first photograph above). I then put the lens in the helicoid and finally added the ultra-slim M42 to E mount adapter. Job done!

Notes on using your adapted projector lens

There were no particular issues using this lens (beside the usual things to consider when using adapted vintage lenses on a modern digital camera, see General notes on using adapted lenses for more information), but it's worth noting that even though I wound enough electrical tape around the lens barrel to get a really snug fit, after an hour or so walking around on a very cold January day, the lens just fell out! Fortunately the lens received just a couple of minor dents on the barrel, but when I put the lens back in the helicoid the fit was very loose. I can only assume the lens had contracted very slightly in the below-freezing temperatures. Only microscopically of course, but it was enough to allow the lens to just easily fall out. Shortly after getting back to my nice, warm flat it was a tight snug fit again! I added some extra tape to ensure the fit was extra snug, but if you use this lens in very cold whether be warned you need to be careful about your lens falling out!

I found a standard 67mm clip-on lens cap fitted nicely with the lenshood in place.

Examples

This lens gave very pleasing and sharp photographs. falling away nicely to lovely bokeh (like any other projector lens there is no aperture mechanism, so you're always shooting at full aperture). I did notice some of the usual optical problems I often see with projector lense, such as chromatic aberrations, but they were fairly mild, and over-all the results were lovely. There was of course quite a bit less of a shallow depth-of-field effect than you get with a 90-100mm lens with an f2 aperture, but the bokeh effect was still lovely and a bit more depth of field will suit many types of photograph.

Because this lens needs an ultra-slim M42 to E mount adapter to achieve infinity focus, a normal M42 to E mount adapter will act like an extension tube to give very close focussing if desired. All the examples currently on this page used the ultra-slim adaptor (which, it has to be said, still gave pretty close focussing!). I will post some more sample photographs when I get a chance to try out this lens with the normal adapter.

As usual the colour photographs were lightly process in Adobe Lightroom Classic. For some of them I used colour profiles other than the standard Adobe Color profile, so I've noted the profile used under the photograph. Any black and white ones were processed using Silver Efex Pro 2.