Why (formerly not) Canon EOS lenses?

[Evin Grant]

(The Birger EF lens mount has now changed this.)
I have had countless Canon EOS system owners posting here and asking if there will be an EOS mount for the Red One. The answer is no for the forseeable future. This is not because the Red team are Nikon super fanboys, (although I am) in fact Jim is an avid Canon 1DsMII shooter and would like nothing more than to mount his 1200mm L lens to Spike. Unfortunately the all electronic nature of Canon's EOS mount means that no aperture/iris control can be achieved without their proprietary data connection. It is just too impractical for the Red team to both reverse engineer the conection and get the proper licencing from Canon to include a fully functional EOS mount. That being said there are some third party companies working on this problem. And we may yet see a viable fully electronic control system for EOS, Nikon G and Olympus 4/3 lenses.

Hope this helps clear some confusion.:confused:
E.

[Simon Blackledge]

Someone call Sigma!.. :)

[Andrew M.]

Do you know the link to Sigma website?
Andrew

[Petr Dvorak]

Do you know the link to Sigma website?
Andrew

What about Google? ;)
... and result is
http://www.sigmaphoto.com/lenses/lenses_all.asp

[J. Bernard Vallon]

Sigma has some lenses that look promising on the surface. Very wide angle primes, like 14mm and 18mm, with apertures nice and wide, 2.8 or even 1.8. Does anyone have any experience with them on a DSLR?

I own a 17-35mm sigma and i have to say im not impressed...not very sharp images, and some funky distortion at the edges at 17mm.

I'd like to hear what other people have to say.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

In my experience, Sigma lenses tend to be soft. But I don't have any experience with their wide angle lenses. Only a couple longer zooms and their 50mm prime. Their 50mm prime is OK, but the Nikkor ones are way better and don't cost much more.

[Tom Lowe]

I love Canon. Have you guys talked to them? It sounds like an opportunity, even if a small one, for them to sell more high-end lenses and gain a little footing in the HD cinema market with the baddest new camera around.

[Evin Grant]

They would never allow another company to use their intellectual property without licencing it. As impressive as 1500 Red reservations is it's nowhere near the tens of thousands of lenses Sigma, Tamron and Tokina sell to justify paying a few bucks of every lens back to Canon. I doubt Jim would give a % or every Red one to Canon just to have an EOS mount available.
BTW the patents on Nikons mount are long gone, thus Zeiss can make MF ZF primes without paying a dime.

[Martin Drew]

The Guys at Birger Engineering are looking into this. They have an intelligent adapter which allows control of EF mount lenses, but it currently requires a computer to be connected to it for communication with the lens. http://www.birger.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=ef232_home

There has been an amount of discussion about repurposing this technology to make a RedOne mount for EF lenses which would have a separate hardware controller, could be wired or wireless. This would allow for focus as well as iris control and it could be configured to act as a very effective follow focus. The mechanical action of the focus ring on the lens could be remapped to allow for much more effective manual control than could be executed with the focus ring. Parts of the focus range could be expanded, preset focus points could be assigned to buttons... lots of potentiol.

This is all exciting stuff, but still vapourware at the moment, however Birger have suggested that there may be an announcement coming up to NAB. I have attached a quote from a post by Erik at Birger which comes from the "Spike Black... First Prototype photos" sticky on the Red One forum.

Martin



So the story goes... Foveon (the manufacturer of the sensor in the Sigma SLR camera) sold its development kit with a Canon EF lens mount on it. They supplied a cheap film camera body with that kit for setting the iris on the lens. The instructions were to mount the lens, take a bulb exposure with aperture setting that you want, and remove the battery from the camera to keep the iris at that setting.

The other way that I have been told works is to use a camera with an aperture preview button, and while pushing down that preview button quickly remove the lens, and pray that iris doesn't reset. Repeat procedure until successful.

My company, Birger Engineering, does sell such a device for Canon EF lenses. We have Sigma SA, FourThirds, and Nikon F (D or G for iris, AF-S for focus) devices in the works. We are talking to a number of people in the community to understand how to best purpose the device for this market, particularly the RED camera.

The current configuration is as a replaceable lens mount, where an external device, such as a PDA, or computer can act as the source/sink of the data. Many of our industrial customers have integrated this in such a way that the sensor is involved in the control loop, and the camera is the source/sink for the data.

We have set an internal deadline of NAB2007 for an announcement, but just as soon as we have a concrete plan we will let everyone know.

Our controller is already used by at least one customer on a P+S Technik Pro35. But given the high cost of this device, it is primarily available through rental houses, and it has not proven to be a big market. The RedRock on the other hand is targetted at such a cost conscious user that we have yet to see anything more than fleeting interest.

RED changes things in a big way, or so we think. Particularly interesting is the way it will enable owner/operators, and our belief that owner operators are going to want to own affordable lenses as well. With a "smart" lens mount we can provide the data that would be needed in post to remove artifacts of lens breathing, for example. And with the short focus throw of these lenses, using the internal motors, rather than an external gear and knob, should provide a very good quality of result for focus pulling.

It is not so much an if, as it is a how / what / when, question right now.


Regards,
Erik.

[Simon Blackledge]

My Sig 28-70 2.8 was very sharp though had a slight yellow tint. So I changed to the canon L. A few tamrons are sharp. Tonikas are bulit like tanks.

you could always hire Nikon lenses...

[Moir]

There are literally hundreds of user reviews of Sigma (and Canon) lenses on DSLR forums. As with all such reviews, some are useful and neutral, others are the opposite.

The bottom line with Sigma lenses (at least the EX line) seems to be that good copies can be as good as their Canon L series counterparts, but they have serious QC issues on some of their lines.

The only Sigma lens I currently own and use is the 120-300mm f2.8, which is a little soft wide open but sharp when stopped down half a stop. I would love to use this lens on Red, but mine's EOS-fit...

[Simon Blackledge]

Arn't most lenses soft fully open? or is that not applicable to primes?

I agree QC for sigma isn't great.. then again canon's not fantastic.

Wouldn't mind getting the old 200 1.8L on a Red though!

[Martin Drew]

They would never allow another company to use their intellectual property without licencing it. As impressive as 1500 Red reservations is it's nowhere near the tens of thousands of lenses Sigma, Tamron and Tokina sell to justify paying a few bucks of every lens back to Canon.

An interesting point. Canon haven't licensed their EF mount technology. All the 3rd party companies which produce EF mount lenses have reverse engineered the interface.

Martin

[Evin Grant]

It's even less probable that Red would do that.

[Akcelik]

it looks like this guy has figured out a way to control aperture ring: http://michel.thoby.free.fr/Adaptateur_EOS_Nikon/Instal_a_manual-Stop_setting_on_the_Nik-EOS_adapter.html

[Jeremy Hughes]

Would Canon ever consider designing lenses specifically for the RED ONE? A non EOS lens for the RED ONE? Just a thought.

[Martin Drew]

I very much doubt they would consider the market big enough in the short term, but long term... who knows. One of the aspects about RedOne and the SI camera I find interesting is that their price point makes it possible that they may define a new market.

M

[Mark B.]

Patents suck... talk about a loss of freedom and a hindrance to mankind's progress...

But anyway, Canon has a U.S. utility patent on their EF mount, and I could easily be wrong but it looks like it's patent #4841327.

Filed on January 11, 1988, so it should be legal for anyone to reproduce the mount as of January 12, 2008. But I'm not a lawyer and I could be wrong about that, so talk to a lawyer before you tool up to make a bunch of EF mounts.

[Ken Willinger]

I have a great set of Canon FD lenses that I use with a Brevis adapter on the HVX. Will there be an FD mount produced for RED?

[Evin Grant]

Eventually yes.

[Mark B.]

I have a Sigma 70-210 F2.8 and it's awesome. I also have the 50mm and 105mm Sigma macros, and those are also very nice. I have a Sigma 17-35 F2.8-F4 zoom that hasn't impressed me quite as much, but it's also been one of my most-used lenses.

[Sanjin Jukic]

Again the question "Why not EOS adapter?"

If we would use manual lens control only in the RED ONE like all film cameras than maybe with the RED ONE we could get also "simplified" EOS adapter like RedRock sells to their customers that we could for example attach a wide range of excellent MANUAL Canon FD, Hasselblad, Leica-R, Nikon F, M42, Contax-Yashica, Pentax 645 and Pentax 67 lenses...have a look at the picture below

http://www.sanjinjukic.com/extras/canon_eos_adapters.jpg

Hope the RED team is listening to this request that was repeating here many times. To conclude to say no electronic just to screw adapters for many different lens mounts.

Imagine to attach Leica PC-Super-Angulon-R 28 mm f/2.8

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/images/largeimages/29592.jpg

http://www.leica-camera.us/photography/r_system/lenses/506.html

or

Hasselblad HC 4/210

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/images/largeimages/264715.jpg

http://www.hasselblad.com/products/h-system/lenses/hc-4210.aspx

[Mark B.]

I think a Canon EOS mount makes perfect sense, since affordable adapters are available to convert other manufacturer's lenses to the Canon mount. Here's just one of many sites selling the conversion mounts... http://www.fotodiox.com/shop/index.php?cPath=27

So people with Nikon, Leica, Hasselblad, Mamiya, Olympus or Rollei could all switch their lenses to the EOS mount. But it's a one-way deal because the EOS mount doesn't get coverted to any of those other lens mounts (shortest distance to film plane maybe?). So I'd suggest Red make the EOS mount available straight from the get go.

[Evin Grant]

There have been may reported problems with the less well made versions of these adapters. I feel there would just be too much slop in the double mount system for effective cinema use. Plus this adds a significant cost per lens if you were required to buy an additional adapter in order to use any still lens.
I think an EOS mount should be made, but it should be made to properly interface with EOS lenses. I also think a Leica R mount should be made. BTW you can get Hassy and Pentax 645 adapters for Nikon F mount.

[Sanjin Jukic]

There have been may reported problems with the less well made versions of these adapters. I feel there would just be too much slop in the double mount system for effective cinema use. Plus this adds a significant cost per lens if you were required to buy an additional adapter in order to use any still lens.
I think an EOS mount should be made, but it should be made to properly interface with EOS lenses. I also think a Leica R mount should be made. BTW you can get Hassy and Pentax 645 adapters for Nikon F mount.

Of course that we expecting from the RED to make high quality accessories and optional lens adapter in the highest. BTW I've got Hassy for Nikon F mount.

http://www.sanjinjukic.com/extras/hassy_nikon.jpg

[Michael Hastings]

I have a strong interest in this sort of thing for use in making the underwater housing for the RED. We have a compact board with an onboard micro controller that we use to do focus, iris, etc. through LAN C that I believe could be easily reprogrammed to send whatever RS232 commands the birger adapter needs. It seems to me that with what they have done already and if RED will give us the information on the front plate of the camera and flange distances to the sensor it wouldn't be that hard to do the physical part either. It seems like the RED team should be seriously considering the utility of the EF setup as it seems like the Iris is easier to do on the canon EF than the Nikon system. Also, it seems like the EF-S 10-22 would be a possibility since the sensor size is almost identical and it would provide the phenomenal wide angle zoom that I think a lot of us are looking for - but particular us underwater guys. We have a CNC machining center, so if RED is overloaded, with a little help we could do it here.




The Guys at Birger Engineering are looking into this. They have an intelligent adapter which allows control of EF mount lenses, but it currently requires a computer to be connected to it for communication with the lens. http://www.birger.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=ef232_home

There has been an amount of discussion about repurposing this technology to make a RedOne mount for EF lenses which would have a separate hardware controller, could be wired or wireless. This would allow for focus as well as iris control and it could be configured to act as a very effective follow focus. The mechanical action of the focus ring on the lens could be remapped to allow for much more effective manual control than could be executed with the focus ring. Parts of the focus range could be expanded, preset focus points could be assigned to buttons... lots of potentiol.

This is all exciting stuff, but still vapourware at the moment, however Birger have suggested that there may be an announcement coming up to NAB. I have attached a quote from a post by Erik at Birger which comes from the "Spike Black... First Prototype photos" sticky on the Red One forum.

Martin

[Erik Widding]

I have a strong interest in this sort of thing for use in making the underwater housing for the RED. We have a compact board with an onboard micro controller that we use to do focus, iris, etc. through LAN C that I believe could be easily reprogrammed to send whatever RS232 commands the birger adapter needs. It seems to me that with what they have done already and if RED will give us the information on the front plate of the camera and flange distances to the sensor it wouldn't be that hard to do the physical part either. It seems like the RED team should be seriously considering the utility of the EF setup as it seems like the Iris is easier to do on the canon EF than the Nikon system. Also, it seems like the EF-S 10-22 would be a possibility since the sensor size is almost identical and it would provide the phenomenal wide angle zoom that I think a lot of us are looking for - but particular us underwater guys. We have a CNC machining center, so if RED is overloaded, with a little help we could do it here.

[Aquavideo, I didn't see this post until after I responded to you in the Bubble Blowin thread... sorry for the redundancy...]

We will have a mechanical adapter and cable combination as a standard product for RED. We are just waiting for drawings from RED for the front plate of the camera, and the electrical spec of the port that we are going to suck power from. Supposed to be here shortly. We will provide a cable to get power from the camera and a mechanical adapter to the camera. Data for our unit will have to come (at least initially) from a source other than the camera. The scenario that you describe will be quite straightforward.

The lens you want to use works with our unit already. The compatibility list on our website is limited to those lenses that we have had in our hands here at our office. We currently have no known incompatibilities with the newest library. Problem with the known compatible list is that we just haven't had a need to test many lenses. Not on the list right now means it either hasn't been used, or it has never had any issues with customers, so we don't have a need to test it. I suppose we should simply add lenses that are reported as compatible by customers, and footnote that limitation. We just need to get our customers to email when we haven't done something wrong. Where would the fun be in that?

[Andrew M.]

What about Google? ;)
... and result is
http://www.sigmaphoto.com/lenses/lenses_all.asp

Thanks!

[Jeremy Hughes]

http://red.com/pricelist.htm

Why is there a Canon 35mm mount listed here?

[Evin Grant]

It's for Canon FD manual focus lenses.

[Michael Hastings]

Erik: I just want to be clear, are you saying that we would supply the commands to move the iris and focus from our board (presumably via RS-232), then your board would actually provide the voltages to move the focus and iris gears?

Secondly, I agree - after 25 years of short run/custom manufacturing, it would be nice to get feedback when we haven't done something wrong.

I think when people start to catch on to what we are talking about, they are going to see that this is an incredibly potent solution.

Eventually I will contact you directly, I just have had a bunch of other things on my plate.


Thanks, Mike



[Aquavideo, I didn't see this post until after I responded to you in the Bubble Blowin thread... sorry for the redundancy...]

We will have a mechanical adapter and cable combination as a standard product for RED. We are just waiting for drawings from RED for the front plate of the camera, and the electrical spec of the port that we are going to suck power from. Supposed to be here shortly. We will provide a cable to get power from the camera and a mechanical adapter to the camera. Data for our unit will have to come (at least initially) from a source other than the camera. The scenario that you describe will be quite straightforward.

The lens you want to use works with our unit already. The compatibility list on our website is limited to those lenses that we have had in our hands here at our office. We currently have no known incompatibilities with the newest library. Problem with the known compatible list is that we just haven't had a need to test many lenses. Not on the list right now means it either hasn't been used, or it has never had any issues with customers, so we don't have a need to test it. I suppose we should simply add lenses that are reported as compatible by customers, and footnote that limitation. We just need to get our customers to email when we haven't done something wrong. Where would the fun be in that?

[Jeremy Hughes]

Okay. I see.

[David Nardini]

... the EF-S 10-22 would be a possibility since the sensor size is almost identical and it would provide the phenomenal wide angle zoom that I think a lot of us are looking for - but particular us underwater guys.


...We will have a mechanical adapter and cable combination as a standard product for RED. We are just waiting for drawings from RED for the front plate of the camera, and the electrical spec of the port that we are going to suck power from.

Hello AquaVideo & birgerEngineer,

Fantastic news that you are collaborating on this (enabling EOS lenses) !

Just for clarity at my end, how will the aperture control be enabled (I apologise in advance if I've missed the thread where you may have covered this) ?

I appreciate that the RED may/will power the RED EOS adapter, but is the aperture selected via buttons ? rotary control ? or ... ? (what do you mean by 'mechanical adapter and cable combination').
Just trying to envisage what control type I may have to make up for the housing :biggrin:

Birger : do you have plans to release more details soon ? NAB ?

Cheers,

[Erik Widding]

Erik: I just want to be clear, are you saying that we would supply the commands to move the iris and focus from our board (presumably via RS-232), then your board would actually provide the voltages to move the focus and iris gears?

This is correct.


I think when people start to catch on to what we are talking about, they are going to see that this is an incredibly potent solution.

I agree.

[Erik Widding]

Hello AquaVideo & birgerEngineer,

Fantastic news that you are collaborating on this (enabling EOS lenses) !

Just for clarity at my end, how will the aperture control be enabled (I apologise in advance if I've missed the thread where you may have covered this) ?

I appreciate that the RED may/will power the RED EOS adapter, but is the aperture selected via buttons ? rotary control ? or ... ? (what do you mean by 'mechanical adapter and cable combination').
Just trying to envisage what control type I may have to make up for the housing :biggrin:

On our control unit the aperture and focus will be controlled by knobs. But this is just a control unit that speaks rs232 to the mount. This will take the place of a PDA or computer that might otherwise be used to send commands to the mount. I am assuming Aquavideo has plans that may be different than those on dry land, so I will allow him to speak to this.

The mechanical adapter is needed to make up the difference between the front face of the camera and the back face of our unit. The cable would allow power, and possibly an rs232 port from the camera to be directed to the mount.


Birger : do you have plans to release more details soon ? NAB ?

We expect to be able to announce more details by NAB. To be clear, we will not be exhibiting at NAB. I will be attending. Further details will be made available through the forum at this time.

[planet e]

holy cow! that would be awesome. i have so many EF lenses from my XL2 days and also still photography.

imagine RED attached to this! the moonscape in 4K! the mind boggles.

http://ia300239.us.archive.org/2/items/Really_big_lens/biglens.JPG

[chuck colburn]

Whoa planet e you gotta make those files a bit smaller. That took my computer almost 30 sec. to down load.

[planet e]

yeah, i know. sorry about that. it's on my "to do" list, haha. right up there with cleaning the gutters...

worth it, though, wouldn't you say?

[Martin Drew]

Erik

You mentioned in another thread about Nikon lenses performing very well. I know it is early days yet but do you have a preference for Nikon or Canon lenses, from a control point of view? Is it your intention to bring out a mount for Canon and a mount for Nikon at the same time or would you expect the Canon solution to be out first?

M

[Michael Hastings]

ERIK: I am just as happy to use your controller. All we really want to be able to do is put a 12" or so cable so we can have the knobs from the outside located in a handy position. In other words one method would be to just unsolder your pots and attach a short wire and then attach the pot to the sealed shaft that penetrates the wall of the housing. Obviously a much nicer solution would to either install a connector ourselves to parallel the control knobs, or ideally to have you have a connector(s) (I assume they are just 3 leg pots, so a six pin or two three pin) on your control unit that allowed us just tap into or parallel the pots to our pots and knobs. (We have pots that we use with broadcast lenses, that come with 1/4" stainless steel long shafts that can be sealed directly with our standard control seal.) It seems to me this would be useful for anyone that wants to do remote from a jib or whatever. (I realize that situation may be handled by just moving the controller and having a longer RS232 cable - but it seems like the connector would be pretty cheap and even allow the possibility of alternative pots, rockers, splitting the iris and focus knobs apart for two handed use on a tripod or separate people having responsibility for focus and iris) The connector could parallel or just be switched back and forth if there is an electronic conflict.

Secondly, by making it so everyone uses your control it makes it useful for other things besides just the housing.

I will be at NAB and it would be great to meet with you sometime and see your unit.


On our control unit the aperture and focus will be controlled by knobs. But this is just a control unit that speaks rs232 to the mount. This will take the place of a PDA or computer that might otherwise be used to send commands to the mount. I am assuming Aquavideo has plans that may be different than those on dry land, so I will allow him to speak to this.

[Michael Hastings]

Erik:

Isn't the Canon iris electric, as opposed to a mechanical pin on the Nikon that makes it harder to make an accurate controller.?

It seems to me that one of the confusion points for people on the forum is that the Canon and Nikon mounts listed from RED are just physical mounts for the older mechanical style lenses.

Yet the newer lenses - and particular the Canon EF-S and Nikon DX Lenses which, because they are designed for the digital sensor which is smaller - like the RED sensor - give us the SuperWide lenses like the 10-22 that just aren't available in any of the old mechanical mounts - as they wouldn't have covered the full 24x36mm frame of standard 35mm Still cameras. The EF-S and DX lenses operate via electric motors - which is really more like what we are familiar with on video cameras.

RED may at some point come up with controllers for these and for iris control on B4 video lenses, but it is a whole lot more complicated. One of the reasons RED could achieve a camera in such a short time is that they really didn't have to deal with exposure detection and autoiris - since they were dealing with the motion picture paradigm where exposure is always manually controlled.

RED's electronic engineering task really was just integrating the chip and then a bunch of computer interfaces. Exposure is the user's problem, and since they are essentially feeding out some form of RAW data (even if compressed) they didn't have to deal much with the knee circuits, colorimetry, etc. that really complicates things in a video camera. Not to trivialize the RED engineering, but simply to point out that comparing a RED to a broadcast type HD camera is not entirely apples to apples.



Erik

You mentioned in another thread about Nikon lenses performing very well. I know it is early days yet but do you have a preference for Nikon or Canon lenses, from a control point of view?
M

[Erik Widding]

Isn't the Canon iris electric, as opposed to a mechanical pin on the Nikon that makes it harder to make an accurate controller.?


The Canon EF control is a preference for us, over the Nikon F, because we already have it as a tested and shipping product. It has been shipping in various forms for about five years. We give the Canon lens digital numbers to command it to do things, and we get similar feedback. This way we know if the lens did what we commanded it to, did almost what we commanded it to, or just errored out. We chose to do the Canon first because it was all electronic.

As a contrast, there is a mechanical component to the iris control on the Nikon lenses. THe Nikon D and G type lenses tell us what they are capable of doing, but a mechanical actuator is still required for the iris. In the one Nikon lens that I have taken apart (a very cheap one) I was surprised to find an encoder that allowed for the backlash in the gearing system to be accounted for in focus. It suggested to me that the cheap Nikon lenses may produce a more accurate result than the cheap Canon lenses. The cheap Canon lenses don't have this. It makes sense. Until recently all Nikon lenses had to have a gear train. Even the high end ones. Canon had the luxury within the framework of their system to have direct drive.

[Erik Widding]

ERIK: I am just as happy to use your controller. All we really want to be able to do is put a 12" or so cable so we can have the knobs from the outside located in a handy position. In other words one method would be to just unsolder your pots and attach a short wire and then attach the pot to the sealed shaft that penetrates the wall of the housing. Obviously a much nicer solution would to either install a connector ourselves to parallel the control knobs, or ideally to have you have a connector(s) (I assume they are just 3 leg pots, so a six pin or two three pin) on your control unit that allowed us just tap into or parallel the pots to our pots and knobs. (We have pots that we use with broadcast lenses, that come with 1/4" stainless steel long shafts that can be sealed directly with our standard control seal.) It seems to me this would be useful for anyone that wants to do remote from a jib or whatever. (I realize that situation may be handled by just moving the controller and having a longer RS232 cable - but it seems like the connector would be pretty cheap and even allow the possibility of alternative pots, rockers, splitting the iris and focus knobs apart for two handed use on a tripod or separate people having responsibility for focus and iris) The connector could parallel or just be switched back and forth if there is an electronic conflict.


This gives me a bunch of things to think about...

[Michael Hastings]

My point wasn't so much about accuracy, it was simply that the Canon is all electronic - the Nikon mount would have to have some kind of motors and such to move the pin on the Nikon lens - creating the need for a significant amount of electromechanical design. But it is interesting to note on the focus. How much difference are we talking in practical terms, and do the commands actually equal a specific distance for the focus or is it all relative?





As a contrast, there is a mechanical component to the iris control on the Nikon lenses.

[Erik Widding]

My point wasn't so much about accuracy, it was simply that the Canon is all electronic - the Nikon mount would have to have some kind of motors and such to move the pin on the Nikon lens - creating the need for a significant amount of electromechanical design.

We are presently doing this work. And I will acknowledge "significant" is a reasonable descriptor. When we can, we substitute electronics, software and sensors for mechanical stuff. The tooling costs are so much less expensive. Little tiny motors are not the easiest thing in the world to buy. There isn't so much in the way of standard prodcts to buy.


But it is interesting to note on the focus. How much difference are we talking in practical terms, and do the commands actually equal a specific distance for the focus or is it all relative?

Good question, but unfortunately I will have to answer later. We are finishing up the servo mode on the Canon controller, and do know that we will make improvements. It works great with some lenses, and needs a little more tuning with some others. With the Nikon lenses we just don't have a large enough sample size to know yet.

[Jon Armstrong]

Being a long time Canon user my favourite lens is a very old f2.8 20-35. none of the later lenses can match it since the later ones exhibit a lot of spherical aberation.

Many of the old Canon FD lenses are extremely good. They may not meet the optical standards of the new high tech lenses but they are well coated very sharp and have little or no distortion

The major advantage of the EF lenses is the enormous exit pupil upon which the efficiency of the optics depends

Jon

[Michael Hastings]

Erik:

My question about accuracy was really about the Canon lenses you have been working with.

BTW: There seem to be a fair number of people that are hung up on using their existing Nikon lenses, and that 's OK, but to me - coming from the video world where the cheapest B4 wide angles (not superwides) are about $7K and the Superwides that would be equivalent to the 10-22 start at about $25K - a precision 10-22 lens for $700 and even if your adapter is $2K - is to me almost laughably cheap. So to have to purchase a new Canon lens if that is what works better doesn't seem to me much of a sacrifice.

PS Just a decent wide angle converter for say an HVX200 is about $1200.
PPS - It still would be nice if your adapter and controller came in at $1500 or so.




My original question: How much difference are we talking in practical terms, and do the commands actually equal a specific distance for the focus or is it all relative?

Good question, but unfortunately I will have to answer later. We are finishing up the servo mode on the Canon controller, and do know that we will make improvements. It works great with some lenses, and needs a little more tuning with some others. With the Nikon lenses we just don't have a large enough sample size to know yet.

[Erik Widding]

My question about accuracy was really about the Canon lenses you have been working with.

With lenses that have ring-type USM motors we are seeing repeatability on the order of a few steps. The step counts for some of these lenses:
85mm f/1.2: 4200 steps
14mm f/2.8: 1400
70-200mm f/2.8: 2500
200mm f/1.8: 3750
200mm f/2.8: 2100
35mm f/1.4: 2500
60mm f/2.8: 2000
100mm f/2.8: 2500

On all of these lenses we have repeatability on the order of 0.1%. Steps correspond to more of a log than a linear scale of focus distance. Half of the steps might be used for the first meter or two of focus on some lenses. Steps are linear in terms of the rotation of the mechanism.

The 10-22 f/3.5-4.3 has about 1200 steps. We have played with this lens for about five minutes. It is not one of the ones that works really well with servo mode, yet. We will add it to our set. Give us a few weeks... It is extremely repeatable with our normal mode of operation, move stop move stop etc. Servo mode is really new.

Basically the lenses are more accurate in their positioning than a typical human being is capable of by simply turning the dial manually. This offers some really interesting possibilities if Graeme's radical new focus assist were to be the basis for an auto-interactive focus mode for ENG users. We can all guess what the focus assist is going to offer.

But if this is even just a texture based quality of focus (maximized high frequency component means better focus) it has enough information to keep a "talking head" in focus as the 3D path of the head relative to the focus plane can be understood. If best focus is near the middle of the object (think nose) focus is too close. If best focus is near the outer edges, focus is too far away. Blob analyze the scene... blob analyze the focus quality... apply Newton's second law (i.e. a PID loop)... voila... auto-interactive focusing...

I call this auto-interactive focus, as the camera operator just has to pick which blob to start tracking.


BTW: There seem to be a fair number of people that are hung up on using their existing Nikon lenses, and that 's OK, but to me - coming from the video world where the cheapest B4 wide angles (not superwides) are about $7K and the Superwides that would be equivalent to the 10-22 start at about $25K - a precision 10-22 lens for $700 and even if your adapter is $2K - is to me almost laughably cheap. So to have to purchase a new Canon lens if that is what works better doesn't seem to me much of a sacrifice.


Many of our industrial customers have the same hangup. Surprisingly even after their economics are accounted for. You wouldn't believe the per minute costs to run some test facilities, from the testing of operating jet engines to the crash testing of automobiles. Just saving 15 minutes on the setup of the imaging system can pay for the controller and the lens. That being said, "the customer is always right"; we are coming out with a nikon product; and we expect it will mostly just help with the credibility/attention for our canon product.



PPS - It still would be nice if your adapter and controller came in at $1500 or so.

I think you will not be disappointed...

[LighthouseMEdia]

Idea guys....
What if you could also program several focus points, and have the lens transition between them?

[Michael Hastings]

Erik - your the man!!!!



----PPS - It still would be nice if your adapter and controller came in at $1500 or so.----

I think you will not be disappointed...

[Michael Hastings]

Erik: Do you have one of the 10-22 or do you have to borrow one? I know it is tough to do development trying to work around a loaner schedule and would be willing to buy one of the 10-22s and leave it with you for a while so you could work on it at your leisure. The 10-22 is important for us as it seems to me the only real solution for high quality. low cost superwide on the RED.

Also wondering if you could explain a little more what is servo mode?







The 10-22 f/3.5-4.3 has about 1200 steps. We have played with this lens for about five minutes. It is not one of the ones that works really well with servo mode, yet. We will add it to our set. Give us a few weeks... It is extremely repeatable with our normal mode of operation, move stop move stop etc. Servo mode is really new.

[Erik Widding]

Erik: Do you have one of the 10-22 or do you have to borrow one? I know it is tough to do development trying to work around a loaner schedule and would be willing to buy one of the 10-22s and leave it with you for a while so you could work on it at your leisure. The 10-22 is important for us as it seems to me the only real solution for high quality. low cost superwide on the RED.

A rental house we are working with in Montreal has one. I will probably add one to our test set in a couple of weeks. This lens will definitely become a permanent member of the test set when we release the motorized zoom version of our product, possibly late this year. But if you wanted to loan us one of these for a few weeks I certainly won't complain. ;-)


Also wondering if you could explain a little more what is servo mode?

Servo mode is a term that we stole from the SLR guys. When using the camera in "servo" mode the focus will track a moving object while the photographrer choses when to actually shoot one or a series of pictures. All the great sports shots that you have seen were taken using the camera in this mode.

So, in servo mode, we command the lens to adjust its trajectory and or destination while the lens is moving. This allows us to make the lens movement look smooth so adjustments can be made while acquiring imagery. The trajectory that we are following is in the short term a moving knob, or a series of waypoints from a moco system, for example.

Another way of putting this is our normal static mode will move the lens as commanded as quickly as possible, and then tell the controlling system that it has completed this move. This lag does not allow for continuous motion. The servo mode allows a time (speed) component to be included so that the lens will be where you want it when you want it there.

[Vincent Rice]

Can I just put vote in for Olympus/Leica/Sigma 4/3 system lenses? Its always struck me that the 4/3 aperture size is perfect for 35mm motion picture use. The units are very compact and Olympus 'exotic glass' lenses are generally very good.

[Tom Lowe]

I've got a 10-22 if someone in the LA/OC area wants to test it.

[Jeremy Hughes]

http://www.red.com/news/view/78

Yay!

[Jon McCoy]

Am I correct in surmising then, that the real difference between a 35mm cine lens, and a 35mm photographic lens is superficial? Immediately to mind - geared/toothed focus ring for follow focus apparatus (okay, not "superficial", but can be overcome).

I've come from a video background, so have always bought lenses flogged by the manufacturers for the specific cameras or systems - a combination of vendor obedience and "compatibility".

Given that the Red camera is effectively a Digital 35mm camera, it'd seem that the laws of 35mm seem to apply.

With that in mind, clearly if you can get the focal points to line up, then 35mm film is no different from 35mm film. (Not to mention, if a lens can shoot 16M pixels, then it's bound to be happy shooting 4K without distortion).

Simply, I'm trying to get it straight, ensure I'm not getting high off the fumes from the local industrial estate, that I can get the quality and the flexibility of shooting 4K on a Red One camera, using an EOS (or even 4/3rds) lens?

:help:

[DAServices]

Erik,

Have you tested the 16-35mm f2.8/L? Or plan on supporting it? And if so how repeatable is it? I plan on buying your mount and currently own 70-200mm f2.8/L (Which you support), 85mm f1.2/L (Which you support), I just wanted to know about the 16-35mm f2.8/L, 100-400mm f4.5-5.6/L, 50mm f1.8, and the Tamron 28-105mm f2.8. Have you tested and Canon 3rd party EF lens?

[Erik Widding]

Have you tested the 16-35mm f2.8/L? Or plan on supporting it? And if so how repeatable is it? I plan on buying your mount and currently own 70-200mm f2.8/L (Which you support), 85mm f1.2/L (Which you support), I just wanted to know about the 16-35mm f2.8/L, 100-400mm f4.5-5.6/L, 50mm f1.8, and the Tamron 28-105mm f2.8. Have you tested and Canon 3rd party EF lens?

We won't be testing third party lenses on our mount. If you are interested in Sigma lenses they will be supported on our soon to be released SigmaSA and FourThirds mounts. This is not to say they won't work. We just won't be testing or supporting them. Five minutes with the lens, mount, and controller of your choice (i.e. SuperGrip) will give you a feeling as to whether or not you will like a lens for a given setup and application.

The 100-400mm lens might be a bit of a pain to use, given the large change in length when zooming, and the push-pull mechanism. Rotary zooms can be easily motorized. Push-pull not quite so easy.

The 50mm f/1.8 is a pretty crapily constructed lens (from a mechanical perspective). It makes nice images, but the mechanism has a tendency to wind up when it hits the stop, and absolute position reference will be lost. If this lens is used, it will be fine with a "rocker" control (i.e. ENG grip), but almost certainly not with a "knob" (i.e. cinema follow focus) or in a moco setup.

[DAServices]

Yeah, I really didn't plan on using the 100-400. I figured if I did it would be a pain, because of the push/pull, The 50mm I almost never use once I bought the 85mm f1.2. The 70-200mm f2.8 (my favorite on the 1 DS mkII) but the one I'm very interested in also, is the superwide 16-35 f2.8/L have you done any testing yet?,

[kgelner]

One thing about the earlier post suggestion 4/3 format lenses - what is the sensor size on the Red? If it's really 35mm then it wouldn't be able to make use of the lenses build for 1.5x crops or below... if the sensor were small enough, the Sigma 10-20mm EX would be an interesting alternative.

For those asking after the quality of the Sigma 14mm and 15mm primes earlier, I can vouch from personal use that both of these are extremely sharp - the 15mm is a fish though, just to warn you it would be somewhat curvy. Some example images from each lens can be found at PBase in the Sigmadslr user lens sample galleries:

http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/14_mm_ex_

http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/15_fish

Now what you really want on the end of the Red is a Sigma 200-500 f2.8...

http://kigiphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/2582507#136064090

[Bachman]

I have a Sigma 70-210 F2.8 and it's awesome. I also have the 50mm and 105mm Sigma macros, and those are also very nice. I have a Sigma 17-35 F2.8-F4 zoom that hasn't impressed me quite as much, but it's also been one of my most-used lenses.

yeah i have one of the 70-210 2.8's as well for my Nikon. it's a good lens. So I can use this on my RED? Awesome!

[wizard]

When I find first information about RED and Canon EOS Lenses posibility, I decided to buy RED. I have a collection of L series lenses, and I love them for picture quality, colours, sharpnes, watersealed constuction, IS and ultra fast focusing (especialy 300m 2.8 IS).

I am shooting ice hockey and RED with up to 120frames p.s. at 720p is great for a slow motion goals reviews. But try to focus manualy.... I understood, that a filmmakers focus manualy, I prefer it also in studio, but somethimes autofocus is great help.

I dont care abou exposure, I can setup manualy, it's just a lot of practies, or you purchase a Sekonic light meter. But focus manualy at ice hockey game its not posible real time.

I am explaining my situation because I am going to buy Panasonic HVX200 because of shooting ice hockey / variable frame rate. But if a red (even with add/on HW for up to 3.000USD) should handle Canon lenses autofocus, I will order RED.

Bud I think that its not about connecting and interface, but Canons 1d series have a two Risc CPU that handle autofocusing, 45 autofocus points, some of them are crosstype for higher accuracy... How could RED handle this ?
And how about low light focusing, EV range,... ? Nice to read arcticles about RED, but I am looking for a test, to review sensor quality... But if it all good enough its a dream camera... I hope so...

wizard

[Clint Johnson]

Wizard,

I'm thinking you could use a midrange zoom like the 28-70 f2.8L or the 24-105 f4L closed down to f13 or more to give you a deeper depth of focus. Combine that with capturing windowed 720p to give you a smaller sensor area for deeper apparent depth of focus. You'd have to gain up to 800 ISO equivalent (or more) and let it underexpose if it wants to... just bring it up in Redcine.

This might allow you to keep pretty much the entire rink in acceptable focus.

Personally, I'd probably prefer to open up the lens a little bit and ballpark the focus manually. An autofocus system hunts around too much with that much action taking place in front of the lens. That is said with only a few hours videotaping hockey games with Canon and Panasonic prosumer cameras so your mileage will vary.

If you try to capture at their maximum frame rates (Red @ 120 and HVX @ 60), both the Red One and the HVX200 will want more light than there is in the arena. I'm guessing that the Red One would give you greater latitude for cleaning up the image in post.

[Sanjin Jukic]

Auto focus is very OK. But auto focus is limited. Manual focus is a king. Especially for moving images. I am happy to add Leica-R for EOS Canon adapter and have possibility to try out a wide range of Leica-R lenses that suppose to be the top end of manual still lenses. Looking forward to have a lot of fun using Leica-R lenses with RED.

[sully]

To use Leicaflex R lenses (or any still camera lens) on cine cameras, it's a good practice to remove the F-stop dedents so there is no annoying bump when you make a small iris adjustment while filming. I just talked to Don Goldberg (Leica repair specialist) and he said it was no problem to remove the dedents. Although he only works on Leicas, I'm sure there are other good techs that can remove the dedents from Nikon and Canon(FD) lenses.

[chuck colburn]

Wizard,

I'm thinking you could use a midrange zoom like the 28-70 f2.8L or the 24-105 f4L closed down to f13 or more to give you a deeper depth of focus. Combine that with capturing windowed 720p to give you a smaller sensor area for deeper apparent depth of focus. You'd have to gain up to 800 ISO equivalent (or more) and let it underexpose if it wants to... just bring it up in Redcine.

This might allow you to keep pretty much the entire rink in acceptable focus.

Personally, I'd probably prefer to open up the lens a little bit and ballpark the focus manually. An autofocus system hunts around too much with that much action taking place in front of the lens. That is said with only a few hours videotaping hockey games with Canon and Panasonic prosumer cameras so your mileage will vary.

If you try to capture at their maximum frame rates (Red @ 120 and HVX @ 60), both the Red One and the HVX200 will want more light than there is in the arena. I'm guessing that the Red One would give you greater latitude for cleaning up the image in post.

Hi Clint,

Unless I'm missing something, I think you might be confusing depth of focus with depth of field. Say hello to those beautiful doggies of yours.

Chuck

[Clint Johnson]

Hi Clint,

Unless I'm missing something, I think you might be confusing depth of focus with depth of field. Say hello to those beautiful doggies of yours.

Chuck

Hi Chuck,

I suppose that I should go with the current usage. Historically depth of focus was interchangeable with depth of field (and some still do use it that way), but it has mostly become used for the sensor plane side of lens. They are the same thing but just on either side of the lens. So yes, I should have said "depth of field".

And I'm not too happy with the wolf... he discovered he liked the taste of hot tub covers.

http://www.clint-johnson.com/images/Article_illustration/wolf-chew-toy.jpg

[Rocco Schult]

If you are interested in Sigma lenses they will be supported on our soon to be released SigmaSA and FourThirds mounts. This is not to say they won't work. We just won't be testing or supporting them. Five minutes with the lens, mount, and controller of your choice (i.e. SuperGrip) will give you a feeling as to whether or not you will like a lens for a given setup and application...

errr - does this mean you're working on SigmaSA and Fourthirds too ? I mean for RED ?
And if so, I have to repeat the question because I didn't expect that to happen, Nikon ? With a SuperGrip ?

[ColinSmith]

FourThirds is not my format, but isn't the Red sensor pretty much the same size as the Nikon 1.5x crop dslrs?
The FourThirds sensors size is smaller than that.... so lenses would likely struggle to cover the whole sensor area on the Red?

[Rocco Schult]

basically I'm just asking if Birger is working on an AF control like for the EOS lenses... its Nikon that I'm interested in....:whistling:

[ColinSmith]

From what I remember they do have plans to do a Nikon lens mount with appature and focus remote control, like the EOS. It's not autofocus though, EOS or Nikon, it is "just" a powered manual control.
The Nikon mount needs a combined electrical/mechanical connection though, so is likely to take longer/cost more (my guesses) than the purely electrical EOS mount.

[wizard]

Of course, if I close dows fo f13 should help, but its require a lot of light, and because ice hockey is too fast, usualy its not enought light for f13. I am usualy shooting with ISO 1600, and maximum is f5.6 at reasonable speed.

But my question is not how to shoot it, but how Red makes an autofocus witch canon. Is it just an manual focus like with servo motor and I need it control by myslef, or is there some processors for autofocus ? What king of focusing is it ? How many focus points are there ? How I can control autofocus ?

Again I must say, that I also prefer manual, but somethimes autofocus realy helps, especialy if you didnt have enought time to setup everywhing manualy. Ergonomics also realy matters...

[ericyoung]

I don't think there will be autofocus for Red with the current Birger system. The Canon autofocus is a function of the Canon camera which then talks to the lens focus servo that moves the focus elements.

I believe the Birger system interfaces with the focus and iris servos for manual control of those functions only. For autofocus it would also have to interface with the Red camera and process the image for contrast at edges to get focus information. Maybe possible in the future, but don't think the current system does it. :sad:

Please correct me if I'm wrong Erik!

[Clint Johnson]

I'm no Erik but I'll second Eric. Jim has insisted on the Red One being all manual from the very beginning and all the autofocusing smarts have to be done by the camera so there won't be any autofocus for the Red One.

[Erik Widding]

I believe the Birger system interfaces with the focus and iris servos for manual control of those functions only. For autofocus it would also have to interface with the Red camera and process the image for contrast at edges to get focus information. Maybe possible in the future, but don't think the current system does it. :sad:

This is a correct statement.

[Justin K Phillips]

I have a couple of questions about the Birger EOS mount:

Will it be possible to use the Image Stabilization function of lenses that feature it?
Will it work with EF-S lenses?

I apologize if these questions have already been asked.

Thanks,
Justin

[ColinSmith]

I'll jump in with the Canon answers, maybe Erik has more detail on the mount side of things....

1) The IS is a lens feature, and doesn't depend on any information from the body, so it should work fine.

2) EF-S lenses cover a big enough area of the sensor to be fine for use with Red. True Canon EF-S lenses (like the 10-22 I dream of putting on a Red one day) have a safety pin to stop them mounting on EF slr bodies (where they would foul the mirror). There are no clearance issues with Red, so all that is needed is for the mount to be machined to take the EF-S lenses, which I am sure Birger are already doing.

[Justin K Phillips]

Thank you Colin.


(like the 10-22 I dream of putting on a Red one day)

That's exactly what I had in mind...:wink:

[Michael Hastings]

These are old questions so I'll help out.

1. Yes.

2. Yes.

Birger has been making these mounts for quite awhile. The physical mount and electronic control have been operating for industrial/scientific cameras for quite some time. It is only a matter of some relatively minor physical adapting to the RED camera body (obviously it needs to be the proper alignment and distance to the Mysterium). The control is done through RS232 and I think they are also working on a handheld unit with the knobs and such for that since for their industrial uses it was often used with a PC.









I have a couple of questions about the Birger EOS mount:

Will it be possible to use the Image Stabilization function of lenses that feature it?
Will it work with EF-S lenses?

I apologize if these questions have already been asked.

Thanks,
Justin

[Erik Widding]

Birger has been making these mounts for quite awhile. The physical mount and electronic control have been operating for industrial/scientific cameras for quite some time. It is only a matter of some relatively minor physical adapting to the RED camera body (obviously it needs to be the proper alignment and distance to the Mysterium). The control is done through RS232 and I think they are also working on a handheld unit with the knobs and such for that since for their industrial uses it was often used with a PC.

Thanks for fielding a few questions. There will be a few more features than we initially promised. We will have the details out in the next few days... I promise. A few features that are going to add to the RED specific mount...

BlueTooth... we tested it today, and it works fantastically. No latency issues that we noticed. Our hand controller will also have BT. This will be an open protocol, so anything that can do 1SPP protocol over BT (basically an emulated serial port, the most basic profile) can talk to the lens mount. This could be a laptop, PDA, or some third party follow focus control. The antenna will screw into the top of the mount.

Zoom Control.... There will be motorized zoom supported through the use of an external motor, and using the encoder already in the lens we should be able to interpolate a pretty accurate zoom position in fractions of a mm.

I have been quiet for a few days. We have been busy.

[Mark Tyson]

Eric;

Is this planned for both the Canon & Nikon mounts?

Mark Tyson

[Erik Widding]

Is this planned for both the Canon & Nikon mounts?

Canon first. Nikon later. On the industrial side, we have promised Nikon by November. This is a conservative promise. The RED version will be available shortly after the industrial version.

[ericyoung]

Canon for now. Nikon in the future - more complicated as the Nikon lenses do not have integral focus motors, so will require a Birger mount to have some sort of motor drive.

Edit: Oops. Erik beat me to it! :biggrin:

[ColinSmith]

Zoom Control.... There will be motorized zoom supported through the use of an external motor, and using the encoder already in the lens we should be able to interpolate a pretty accurate zoom position in fractions of a mm.


Wow, surprised :-)
I suppose it was always possible to rig, but I'm pleasantly surprised that is is accurate...... be interesting to see for sure - things keep on leaping ahead... :-)

[Mark Tyson]

Thanks for the rapid response and great news.

Mark Tyson

[Clint Johnson]

Thanks for fielding a few questions. There will be a few more features than we initially promised. We will have the details out in the next few days... I promise. A few features that are going to add to the RED specific mount...

BlueTooth... we tested it today, and it works fantastically. No latency issues that we noticed. Our hand controller will also have BT. This will be an open protocol, so anything that can do 1SPP protocol over BT (basically an emulated serial port, the most basic profile) can talk to the lens mount. This could be a laptop, PDA, or some third party follow focus control. The antenna will screw into the top of the mount.

Zoom Control.... There will be motorized zoom supported through the use of an external motor, and using the encoder already in the lens we should be able to interpolate a pretty accurate zoom position in fractions of a mm.

I have been quiet for a few days. We have been busy.

This keeps getting better and better! There is going to have to be a pretty substantial increase in quality with the PL cine lenses to wean me off of Birger's EOS system if it works as well as it specs.

[Hugh]

This all sounds fantastic, guys....

I've just spent the last 10 minutes or so reading through the whole thread, and I'm excited to see that Canon EF lenses will be supported (I had originally mis-read the RED website and thought that they already were....)

Do you know what happened to the press release on the RED site? It seems to have disappeared....

[Michael Hastings]

Erik:

That sounds great, keep the hits coming.


Thanks for fielding a few questions. There will be a few more features than we initially promised. We will have the details out in the next few days... I promise. A few features that are going to add to the RED specific mount...

BlueTooth...

Zoom Control.... There will be motorized zoom supported through the use of an external motor, and using the encoder already in the lens we should be able to interpolate a pretty accurate zoom position in fractions of a mm.

I have been quiet for a few days. We have been busy.

[Shawn Nelson]

Canon first. Nikon later. On the industrial side, we have promised Nikon by November. This is a conservative promise. The RED version will be available shortly after the industrial version.

Okay, so does this mean we can generally expect the Canon EF mount around December? I was sure hoping it would be this summer!

[Hugh]

Shawn: I believe he was talking specifically about the Nikon mount....

The timeline, as I understand it, is:

Canon EF (for RED)
Nikon (generic)
Nikon (for RED)

[Erik Widding]

Okay, so does this mean we can generally expect the Canon EF mount around December? I was sure hoping it would be this summer!

Canon EF has already been on Natasha, but this was simply a mechanical adapter with our industrial product. Production units should be available right around the time your camera ships. FCC testing may delay the legal use of BlueTooth feature. So you may have to be wired for the first few weeks.

[Evin Grant]

Erik, will a controler be included with the unit?

[Erik Widding]

Erik, will a controler be included with the unit?

This will be an a la carte option. We will offer an inexpensive controller, and know of at least one other third party option from MTL Video in Montreal.

We just bought a 3D printer, it will be here next week:
http://www.dimensionprinting.com/printers/printing-sst.shtml
So we will have some very functional beta units long before we have to finalize the design, and have molds made.

We hope to work with some of the earliest adopters to refine the ergonomics. We will reward for this Beta testing in some way or another. Just not yet sure of the plan yet.:whistling:

[Tom Lowe]

So this will work with EFS lenses as well?

[Erik Widding]

So this will work with EFS lenses as well?

Yes..

[Keith Brust]

Erik,

I would love to have a follow focus type knob and be able to set the close and infinity focus for a range that is comfortable. It would also be great if you could set points in between that you could either feel when you hit them or press a button and jump to the preset. I would like to be able to clamp this knob to a 15mm rod or a handle.

[Mark A. Beal]

Erik,

I would love to have a follow focus type knob and be able to set the close and infinity focus for a range that is comfortable. . . . I would like to be able to clamp this knob to a 15mm rod or a handle.

I had a similar thought. Perhaps something along the lines of the Bebob FOXI?

[Evin Grant]

I'm sure they can do better than the Foxi.

[Mark A. Beal]

I'm sure they can do better than the Foxi.


I would hope so. But the Foxi is only all electronic lens control I'm aware of with a follow-focus style form factor.

[Evin Grant]

Here's the Preston unit...
http://www.24fps.biz/images/fiz2.jpg
http://www.24fps.biz/images/fizcu.jpg

[Mark A. Beal]

Whoa, sexy . . . not exactly what I visualized using to focus my SLR lenses with.

[Erik Widding]

I'm sure they can do better than the Foxi.

What are the three best and three worst features of this?

[Mark A. Beal]

What are the three best and three worst features of this?

The concept of the Foxi is cool and I like that it can be had for under $500. I think something similar would work well for controlling an EOS lens. In keeping with the spirit of those users who are mounting SLR lenses on their Red cameras, I would hope for something similarly basic and inexpensive.

The knob on the Foxi is a little stiffer than I'd like (better too stiff than too loose, though) and I wish the knob was shaped a little differently and rubberized -- more like the Arri or Petroff designs. The iris controls are also touchy and hard to use.

[Evin Grant]

Primarily the problem with the Foxi is the HVX200 and it's limited focusing range, but the knob should be more traditional with a slight bevel like the the Arri LFF1. I would almost prefer an Iris wheel to the dial the foxi has. The Preston (Which the Foxi copied in this respect) Iris slider is cool for iris ramping, maybe it's a good design but the foxi implementation wasn't so good. I guess the wired unit should have an iris dial and the wireless a slider.

[Mark A. Beal]

Yes, beveled. That's it. And rather than a slider, what I would like to see is an iris ring similar to what you would find on a manual lens, but situated around the focus knob.

[Evin Grant]

interesting idea, but a little too easy to move accidentally I think.

[Mark A. Beal]

What if you had an aperature ring but it was only exposed in a the area where your thumb came in contact with it? This would be close to what the Foxi has now, only smoother.

[Fergus Meiklejohn]

Will the Birger EOS mount be able to send basic data to the RED camera evf? Simply: what is the current f-stop and focus distance? It would be very useful for docos and solo operator filming, when you can't take your eye from the viewfinder.:turned:

[Hugh]

So this will work with EFS lenses as well?

Although do be aware (I'm sure you are already...) that EF-S lenses are designed to work with a crop-frame sensor - on a full-frame sensor, you may find some serious vingetting, softness and distortion around the edges of the image...

[Justin K Phillips]

The crop-frame sensors EF-S lenses are designed for are very similar in size to RED's sensor.
20D: 22.5 x 15.0
RED: 24.4 x 13.7 (in S35mm mode)
RED: 22.2 x 12.6 (in 35mm mode)

EF-S lenses will certainly work with 35mm mode and probably with S35mm mode, too.

[Hugh]

Oops - my apologies then....

I had assumed (bad idea!) that the 35mm mode used a 35mm-sized chunk of the sensor...

As a stills photographer who shoots on a 5D, I really appreciate the full-frame capabilities....

That said, a crop-frame-sensor RED is still far better than anything else!

[ColinSmith]

The Red's sensor is the same size as that used in a 35mm movie camera, it is just that those both have smaller frames than that of a 35mm stills camera.

It's explained better in the FAQ (http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1487)

[Justin K Phillips]

Well, technically, it is full frame--a full motion picture frame, which is ~1/3 the size of a full 135 still frame.

[Hugh]

Oh... shit... of course - I did know that....

Working in film post production, I should have remembered, although it's usually just pixels by the time it makes it to us.... The only image aquisition that I'm involved in is the stills photography side....

[Clint Johnson]

Yup, the film is run horizontally through the still camera and vertically through the motion picture camera. The limit on frame size is the width of the film strip itself so when it is going horizontally through the camera it can be 24 mm tall where in a motion camera it can be 24 mm wide. The camera's construction and lens will define the other axis.

The old VistaVision film cameras ran the film horizontally and they captured a negative that was eight perforations wide (36mm x24mm) like 35mm stills.

[Hugh]

Yup - I did know about that....

Incidentally, I worked on one film about 3 years ago where they shot some shots on VistaVision.... This was specifically so that we in VFX had a larger plate to play with and could therefore reframe the shot in post (useful, as we were adding a large creature into the shot, and the camera operator wouldn't necessarily know where the top of the creature would be...)

[A. Bastaki]

When is this birger ef mount going to come out?
any idea?
________
Gm ultra engine history (http://www.chevy-wiki.com/wiki/GM_Ultra_Engine)

[Vicente Nogueira]

Since we will have the Birger mount and consequently Canon EOS lenses will be a great alternative, I suggest that this tread sticker "why not Canon EOS lenses" be removed since it is no longer the case.

I, for example, am very happy with the quality of my Canon 24-70 2.8L and my 70-200 2.8L IS in my 5D, and think they will produce great images with Red and the Birger mount.

[Michael Hastings]

When is this birger ef mount going to come out?
any idea?

You should be able to get one with your camera. I think they will have some prototypes ready at the end of the month and final units shortly after.

[Evin Grant]

I suggest that this tread sticker "why not Canon EOS lenses" be removed since it is no longer the case.

Still a good thread. I just changed the name and updated the first post to reflect the Birger mount's existance.

[Emanuel A.]

I've also been a Nikonist but I'd say now with the Birger's mount plus the wider 10-22mm, there will be a lot of them there preferring the Canon route, I believe. Although I think the Nikkor to Canon adapter can help on the use of both glass resources, maybe zoom on the Canon side + a few Nikon primes.

This will probably be my Birger's setup on the Canon side beyond the ZF option or one or another Nikkor glass from my personal inventory (to mount in-camera via an adapter but since there ain't no zoom there it looks as though I can be safe):

Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM
Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM

Are there any other similar choices out there?

[Simon Blackledge]

Are we sure the Canon mount will allow EF-S lenses? Such as the 10-22 which is meant for the 30D etc and not FF such as 1Ds etc... ?


thanks

Si

[Lauri Kettunen]

Just one detail about the image stabilization of Canon EF-lenses; I have not sorted out the technical details, but the years of experience I have with using the XL-series camcorders with the EF-adapter seem to suggest the type of image stabilizer of EF-lenses is not the same as that in Canon video lenses.

In practice, if the IS of the XL lenses is set on, then indeed the effect is noticeable and it does make hand held shots more stable. However, the IS of EF-series lenses does not seem to stabilize the same way, and over the years there has been only one occasion when I've found the IS of EF-lenses to be useful. Once I did shoot with the EF 600mm lens sitting on the fluid tripod in a gust of wind. Since the lense is tall, the wind made the lens to vibrate/oscillate with a rather high frequency, and in this case one of the EF-series IS modes did eliminate quite a lot of the shake. Still, afterwards felt the shots were not stable enough to be used. Perhaps should add, in fact, never managed to take any shot with an IS yielding a footage stable enough to been shown publicly. Thus, I always use a support and switch the IS (as well as auto focus) off.

My quick and dirty analysis has been, that an IS system for stills is probably quite different than the one optimized to video. The first one tries to make single shots as sharp as possible while the other tries to eliminate the movement of the camera body from a sequence of frames - and this time single frames are and should not be biased. Still, from my side this is guessing based just on the observations made on the field.

[Martin Drew]

Are we sure the Canon mount will allow EF-S lenses? Such as the 10-22 which is meant for the 30D etc and not FF such as 1Ds etc... ?


thanks

Si

Hi Si

The 10-22 was specifically mentioned here:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=13477&postcount=27 (http://www.reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=13477&postcount=27)

M

[Michael Hastings]

I, for example, am very happy with the quality of my Canon 24-70 2.8L and my 70-200 2.8L IS in my 5D, and think they will produce great images with Red and the Birger mount.


I've also been a Nikonist but I'd say now with the Birger's mount plus the wider 10-22mm, there will be a lot of them there preferring the Canon route, I believe. Although I think the Nikkor to Canon adapter can help on the use of both glass resources, maybe zoom on the Canon side + a few Nikon primes.

Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM
Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM

Are there any other similar choices out there?

I have been thinking along the lines of the Birger mount for months and the lenses you have listed will be my main lens set as well. If there are any issues with the 10-22 re: low light I will also add the
new EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM.

BTW Every review I have read on the 24-70 has been very good and several went out of their way to call it an "exceptional" lens even among high end still lenses.

Since I sold my EOS20D, I will round it out with a rebel xti or the new EOS 40D which have the same sensor size as red, and use it as a light meter and directors viewfinder, as well as for previz still shots.


\However, the IS of EF-series lenses does not seem to stabilize the same way, and over the years there has been only one occasion when I've found the IS of EF-lenses to be useful.

Well, that's kind of a bummer!

[paul engstrom]

I'm thinking along same lines for Canon lenses, but am considering the EF-S IS 17-55 2.8 instead of the 24-70. Like the 10-22, it's not technically an L series lens (no EF-S lenses are), but it has the same glass and is very well built.

The 17-55 is smaller, lighter and cheaper than the 24-70; it should be an incredible handheld lens and ideal on the steadicam. Here's the kicker--the reviews I've seen say its sharper (!) than the very highly regarded 24-70.

[Gordon Prince]

the reviews I've seen say its sharper (!) than the very highly regarded 24-70.The reviews, where?

[paul engstrom]

www.the-digital-picture.com
www.photozone.de
various users at fred miranda

If the Image Stabilization works on the Red I think this might be a good option.

I'm interested in the 24-70L and 16-35L II too.

[J. Bernard Vallon]

I think this has been stated before: image stabilization and vibration reduction could only work on a single frame based on how they mechanically work. I don't know if that is still true, maybe someone could double check

[Erik Widding]

I think this has been stated before: image stabilization and vibration reduction could only work on a single frame based on how they mechanically work. I don't know if that is still true, maybe someone could double check

This is not a correct statement. i.e. IS/VR give noticable improvement through the viewfinder of an SLR when engaged during preview (half-shutter button). THis is effectively a motion image.

[Lauri Kettunen]

i.e. IS/VR give noticable improvement through the viewfinder of an SLR when engaged during preview (half-shutter button). THis is effectively a motion image.

Yes, I second what Erik says. For example, in case of Canon EF lenses and XL series camcorders the stabilizer does function as Erik describes. But it's another issue how useful the IS is in practice. In my previous post I tried to say that perhaps one should not expect too much of it.

[Rob Martin]

I do still wildlife.
Interested in attaching lenses such as:-

600/4 IS
500/4 IS
300/2.8 IS
70-200/2.8 IS
24-70/2.8
135/2
85/2

etc etc

Am interested in the focus causing images to change size.

This is all new to me. Will read on with interest.