Rehousing and Modifying Stills Lenses

[explosive]

Does anybody know any good places to do this, and/or relative difficulty and cost?

[Evin Grant]

Century optics does this. It's sufficiently hard that they charge $15,000 for $1000 still lens.

http://www.schneideroptics.com/ecommerce/CatalogItemDetail.aspx?CID=1102&IID=1218

[Mr. Paul White]

It's a steal no matter how much better is the rehousing. They're charging the box office, not the real cost of the task or its relative difficulty. It's a steal, IMHO.

[Stephen Williams]

It's a steal no matter how much better is the rehousing. They're charging the box office, not the real cost of the task or its relative difficulty. It's a steal, IMHO.

Hi,

It's a total redesign, several lenses get 'wasted' to produce 1 good one.

Stephen

[Gordon Prince]

Then, the price shouldn't be the 15x its original price! It's 1500%!! The only explanation is the box office. They want their share on it. And the independent film, far away from there, pays it anyway. That's why this Birger's mount seems a nice one. If it'll work, of course.

[Stephen Williams]

Then, the price shouldn't be the 15x its original price! It's 1500%!! The only explanation is the box office. They want their share on it. And the independent film, far away from there, pays it anyway. That's why this Birger's mount seems a nice one. If it'll work, of course.

Hi,

In the USA engineers earn a living wage, I think you underestimate how much R&D time goes into such a conversion.

Stephen

[Gordon Prince]

It's a waste of resources, I think. Money that we can spend on actors, décors, etc. It's not worthy of the money asked. At least, for some level of movie production.

[Michael Hastings]

This is the key to a lot of the problems we are having now with competing with China. Not only is the manual labor for molding, assembly, and packaging so cheap, but they can pay their product and mold designers so little as well. If a day laborer makes $6 a day then $25-50/day designer/engineer feels like he is rich. So if my mold takes 100 hours to design and I'm paying $60/hour I have $6000 into just design and then Chinese knockoff manufacturer has $400-$800 into it.

In the good old days they didn't have the education, cad tools, etc. now their engineers have the same tools (they may have a free copy of Mastercam - we pay $10K per seat - and their government doesn't protect the copyright) and may have as good or better education.


Hi,

In the USA engineers earn a living wage, I think you underestimate how much R&D time goes into such a conversion.

Stephen

[chuck colburn]

Hi,

In the USA engineers earn a living wage, I think you underestimate how much R&D time goes into such a conversion.

Stephen

What he said. I've been there.

[donatello b]

if you have century rehouse a lens - they are pricing it based on one lens ...
i would say that if you went to century with 50 lens ( same type lens - say 17-35mm) then i would say the price would drop allot ....

[laguun]

I think you underestimate how much R&D time goes into such a conversion.



i agree.

Stephen, i am curious - do you have a position or opinion regarding the birger mount?
We have been discussing that equipment quite a bit recently and are undecided what to think about it as of now.

[explosive]

Thanks for posting guys.

Re: the birger mount - it looks rather hopeful doesnt it. I rather like the built in follow focus and the ability to REMOTE FOCUS. Thats great.

I havent found anything, but will their mechanism in anyway effect (in a good manner) the breathing stills lenses produce?

[Stephen Williams]

i agree.

Stephen, i am curious - do you have a position or opinion regarding the birger mount?
We have been discussing that equipment quite a bit recently and are undecided what to think about it as of now.

Hi Jan,

If it does what it claims, why would you want to buy 'cine primes'?
Having shot lots of motion control combined with 3d, I know that 2 'identical' lenses from the same manufacture have different characteristics so individual lens calibration is possibly required..

Curious if one is at IBC, it could be the best new product at the show.

Stephen

[Martin Drew]

Erik said he may come to IBC but he is not exhibiting.

If the Birger mount performs acceptably I believe it will be quite a radical product, especially at that price point. Even though it is not sold by Red, I can see how it may help to sell cameras so it could be beneficial for Red to borrow one for IBC. It all depends how well it performs, how much stand space they have and how significant Red perceives it to be.

I am certainly not expecting to see it at IBC but it would be nice.

M