In recent years, some of the world's cheapest lenses have made appearances in the world's most expensive movies. Several scenes in "Batman" (2022) and "Dune: Part Two" (2024) were filmed using re-housed vintage Soviet optics first produced in the 1950s. Surprisingly, these lenses—actually defective copies of optically superior German Zeiss designs mass-produced in Soviet factories—are cheap and plentiful and can be obtained for under $100 apiece. So why are major movies being shot on cheap lenses?