Kern-Paillard Yvar 75mm

The Kern-Paillard Yvar 75mm f/2.8 is a classic Swiss-made telephoto cine prime designed for Bolex H16 and other compatible 16mm C-Mount cameras.

On 16mm film, 75mm gives you a distinctly tight telephoto view, making it well suited to portraits, close details, distant subjects and shots where you want to isolate your subject from the surrounding scene.

It's a fully manual lens, with manual focus and aperture control, and features Kern's distinctive Visifocus depth-of-field scale. As the aperture changes, the Visifocus system gives the operator a quick visual indication of the available depth of field.

The lens was introduced in 1950, Bolex noted that it could remain on an H16 turret alongside shorter focal-length lenses without obstructing their field of view.

Best for

• 16mm filmmaking
• Bolex H16 cameras
• Portraits
• Close details
• Distant subjects
• Compressed compositions
• Documentary filmmaking
• Experimental filmmaking
• Vintage cine setups
• Kern and Bolex collectors

What to expect

The 75mm is a telephoto Lens.

Historical specifications give it a minimum focusing distance of around 5ft / 1.5m, with an aperture range from f/2.8 to f/22.

It uses a standard C-Mount. This is also an important distinction from shorter RX-specific Bolex lenses. Historical Bolex technical information explains that standard 16mm C-Mount lenses properly focus on both reflex and non-reflex H16 bodies, while RX optical correction becomes particularly important with certain shorter focal lengths because of the reflex prism.