Top all-time · #8256
Neil Oseman
Personal blog · neiloseman.comdesignculture
Neil Oseman's personal blog at neiloseman.com covers design and culture. Since 2019, 10 different Hacker News readers have linked it 10 times, most often ““Barry Lyndon”: The Full Story of the Famous F/0.7 Lenses (2017)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-10, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (9) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Neil Oseman's long post on how Stanley Kubrick shot Barry Lyndon by candlelight with custom Zeiss f/0.7 lenses, and commenters cite it for filmmaking and lens history.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 9 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- /barry-lyndon-the-full-story-of-the-famous-f0-7-lenses/6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2023-01-22
- “Barry Lyndon”: The Full Story of the Famous F/0.7 Lenses (2017)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-09-10
What Hacker News says?
I like the reference to Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. For anyone interested, the story of how he was able to film by candle light[1] is a really interesting bit of engineering in the pursuit of art. 1. https://neiloseman.com/barry-lyndon-the-full-story-of-the-fa...
Comment linking /barry-lyndon-the-full-story-of-the-famous-f0-7-lenses/
on “Valve Built An Orb: The making of the Steam Deck OLED launch trailer”Submitted “Barry Lyndon”: The Full Story of the Famous F/0.7 Lenses (2017) as a story · 5 points
HN discussionI think you could shoot Barry Lyndon’s candle light scenes on iPhone just fine. The lens was custom made ƒ/0.7 because the film was shot at ISO 100, IIRC. People forget how much more sensitive silicon is to light than film. Edit: got currious, it was ISO 100 pushed 1 stop during development[1]. So, since an iPhone's ƒ/1.78 main lens is ≈2.5 stops slower than ƒ0.7, using ISO ≈1200 should give you the same exposure (i…
Comment linking /barry-lyndon-the-full-story-of-the-famous-f0-7-lenses/
on “Behind the scenes: An Apple Event shot on iPhone”Infinity focus for the moon I'm sure and special rigs for Barry Lyndon apparently: http://neiloseman.com/barry-lyndon-the-full-story-of-the-fam... I also remember reading somewhere the actors had a bad time from having to make sure to stand still to not go out of focus. 4cm of depth of field isn't much.
Comment linking /barry-lyndon-the-full-story-of-the-famous-f0-7-lenses/
on “Nikon's 300mm F/2”If we're talking about crazy lenses, might as well jump straight to the Zeiss 50/0.7: http://neiloseman.com/barry-lyndon-the-full-story-of-the-fam... Only ten were made. NASA bought six to send round the dark side of the moon. Stanley Kubrick bought the other three.
Comment linking /barry-lyndon-the-full-story-of-the-famous-f0-7-lenses/
on “Nikon's 300mm F/2”> Modern digital cinema cameras can capture dark scenes far better than the film stocks of the 90s and earlier. So set designers don’t need to blast light everywhere to have actors be visible… > Go watch a 90s movie and look at a night or interior scene. You’ll see that everyone is actually lit by blue lights. Not natural darkness. That’s a major change. Let me introduce you to some film history: https://neiloseman.…
Comment linking /barry-lyndon-the-full-story-of-the-famous-f0-7-lenses/
on “Why 90s Movies Feel More Alive Than Anything on Netflix”Not so much a "borrow" but rather "they had already been designed so the hard part was done - he just bought some." https://neiloseman.com/barry-lyndon-the-full-story-of-the-fa... > Kubrick obsessively researched the problem. He eventually discovered that Nasa had commissioned Carl Zeiss to build ten Planar 50mm f/0.7 stills lenses in the sixties, which were used to take photos of the dark side of the moon. > ... >…
Comment linking /barry-lyndon-the-full-story-of-the-famous-f0-7-lenses/
on “The contagious visual blandness of Netflix”> No, your favorite movie is not crap because the creators didn't grind their own lens. One of the reasons Barry Lyndon is over 50 years old and still looks like no other movie today is because Kubrick tracked down a few lenses originally designed for NASA and had custom mounts built for them to use with cinema cameras. https://neiloseman.com/barry-lyndon-the-full-story-of-the-fa... > Popular and highly acclaimed ga…
Comment linking /barry-lyndon-the-full-story-of-the-famous-f0-7-lenses/
on “I Miss Thinking Hard”The photo nerd hacking tweak of note here was the pushing of the stock to 200 and using uniquely crafted NASA lenses built to photograph the dark side of the moon with not seen before aparture. Arguably a youtube rending of a compressed digital source viewed on a computer screen falls short of a 1970s full cinema via film live viweing. Technically it was pushing well past the envelope for the day: https://neiloseman…
Comment linking /barry-lyndon-the-full-story-of-the-famous-f0-7-lenses/
on “An Enslaved Gardener Transformed the Pecan into a Cash Crop”I agree with the poster above, that you're taking umbridge with my use of the verb "hack" - I mean this in a respectful way towards engineers who devise clever solutions to problems, and iterate quickly and knowledgeably, rather than "designing by committee". I'm sure Grant would confirm that (as happening for the lifetime of his brilliant company) so go ask him next time you get a chance to hop off your high horse…
Comment linking /blackmagic-production-camera-field-report/
on “Blackmagic Camera for iPhone”
