The production employed a range of Panavision anamorphic lenses that were modified for the filmmakers by lens designer Dan Sasaki, who has since joined A&S Precision to create lenses for Dalsa Digital Cinema. Elswit’s primary lenses were C-Series lenses Sasaki had originally prepared for Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris. Additionally, the production used a full set of E-Series lenses; two modified spherical Panavision SP lenses, a 35mm and 55mm whose optics were roughly 40 years old; and a set of Super High Speed lenses (ranging from 35mm to 85mm) whose optics were based on modifications Sasaki had made to another set for Memoirs of a Geisha (AC Jan. ’06).
Sasaki also tricked up a vintage 43mm lens that was built around the optical element of a 1910 Pathé camera Anderson had bought and used for select scenes in Magnolia. According to Barry “Baz” Idoine, Elswit’s 1st AC, “The C-Series lenses were generally used for interiors that didn’t require high-speed lenses. The Es had lower contrast and resolution than standard Es and a softer look than the modified Cs; that set was often used for exteriors to soften the harsh desert daylight a bit. The Super High Speed lenses were really amazing — they were so fresh from the machine shop they weren’t even anodized. We used those for night sequences, of course, but Bob also used them to capture some dusk sequences that were just phenomenal. The SP lenses were anamorphized by Dan after we’d done some tests with them. The 43mm lens definitely had a vintage look — desaturated, low-contrast, vignetting and low-resolution.”
Sasaki explains, “The main modifications I made [to the C- and E-Series lenses] involved replacing the old taking lenses with more modern glass, but we also changed the cylinder prescriptions a little to make the lenses flatter. The Es were optimized for maximum fidelity, but we made the Cs more vulnerable to flaring with modifications that would cause the light to scatter a bit more; in some of them, we introduced reflective material, and in others, we removed the anti-reflective coatings from the lenses. Paul didn’t want the flares to look like the kind you might see in a music video; he wanted the controlled, organic look you’d get from a dated lens.