Lenses?

[Hans von Sonntag]

Hans

The Cooke 20-100 looks like an excellent second hand buy and there seem to be a few of them around. I thought it might be a bit too heavy for much "on the shoulder" work, but great on a tripod.

M

Martin,

In 1989 I shot the breakdown of the Berlin Wall (Betacam, ENG of course). The first guy I met from the other side of the wall was a cameraman of the DEFA, the former communist national filmboard. He was shooting with an Arri 35 BL3 and a 25-250 Angenieux Zoom from his shoulder. This is heavy. He told me was doing this all the day. He actually used a wooden stick from the bottom of the camera to a special designed belt.

The 20-100 is 4.5 Kilos, another 0.5 for a LMB2 mattebox and followfocus and 5 Kilos for RED & media, battery. I end up with 10 -11 kilos. Heavy but not too heavy. Especially if you consider the balance options like moving the EVF to the front. For sure not an 10 hour ENG hand held configuration but usable for frequent hand held operation like you have in EFP, commercials or drama.

[Hans von Sonntag]

Do they sell wide angle adapter for this?
20 is bit to narrow, especially for 2K shooting.

Not as far I know (150mm diameter of the front lens). There are very nice Cooke 16mm lenses used on the market for windowed 2k and the great Canon 8-64 mentioned in this thread. And some where I came across a 20-100 / 18-100 redesigned for S16. I remember it has T 1.6 after conversion. Probably the best ever build S16 zoom... massive for this format though.

Hans

[Hans von Sonntag]

LOL...once you've had steak it's hard to go back to hamburger!

Anything I can shoot with RED One using S35mm and 35mm still lenses, that the field workflow enables and justifies, I'll shoot that way. That said, many RED One adopters have already invested in B4 2/3" HD ENG zooms, and they work heavily in genres of production that call for a powered servo zoom, and no follow focus, matte box, etc. For them, when working in genres that call for those set up configurations, B4 2/3" HD ENG zoom use on RED One makes real good sense. Those genres of projects are delivered in 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 576i, and 480i.

With older B4 2/3" HD ENG zooms on RED One, the footage will probably be good, but with some of the newer B4 2/3" HD ENG zooms, I think the footage will be exceptional. The new ones are very expensive, so like I say, that's a logical option for those who already have them for their f900's and Varicams, but are now adopting RED One.

IMO the Canon 8-64 is an excellent lens. That said, I wouldn't buy any lenses between now and NAB. I would definitely wait until after NAB to make a lens buying decision...

Never try steak then... LOL

You're absolutely right concerning all the folks who have already invested in expensive 2/3 gear. No doubt about it. For all the others who don't have a F900 in their garage and have to build up from the scratch i would not recommend B4 lenses. They are made for prism 3CCD systems and the B4 adaptor will probably not reach the quality the lenses have on a say Sony F 900. Also I never saw some one using adapted B4 lenses on S16 cameras.
I almost purchased a Sony F 750P HDCAM 1 years ago and I am glad I did not. If I would have done I certainly would sell it now. With lens.

Latest at NAB the price for decent used S35 optics will increase significantly.

Hans

[David Limpus]

What I was hoping for is a zoom servo with a rocker switch as an option for the RED 18-85mm f2.4 lense. Then to see where PL lense mounts go compared to B4 for EFP/ENG on REDone.

David

[Walter R]

As noted above, I think we may be disappointed in the reduced field of view (FOV) we get when using the adapter and shooting windowed 2K. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the windowed 2K frame on the Red sensor is actually a little smaller than the frame size of S16. Since the multiplication of the adapter (Abakus at least) is something like 1.32 x focal length, my Fujinon HD 20x7.5 lens go to almost 10mm on the wide end. And unless the optical widening of the coverage of the Red B4 adapter is less than the Abakus adapter I'll actually be widening the coverage more than necessary which, given the reduced frame size of 2K (vs. true S16), might even translate to the field of view I would get with something arond a 11mm lens on a true S16 frame.

I'm really hoping I'm wrong about this. But since I really rely on the wide end of the lens for a lot of ENG work, I think I'll have to go to S16 zooms, with the unfortunate consequence of not having nearly as much reach on the long end due to the range of S16 zooms. And of course I'll miss the built in servo zoom. I'm not complaining, but just want to plan accordingly since I'm not anxious to spend money on a B4 adapter if it will cost my some of the wide end of the FOV.

Am I missing something? Can someone on the Red team tell us more about their B4 adapter?

[Martin Drew]

This should only be the case if you are using the B4 adapter and capturing 1080p windowed. If you capture 2K windowed you should have pretty much the same FOV. Although the wide end of your lens will be 9.9mm you will get a greater FOV for than FL than you would have got at 1080p windowed.

M

[Steve Gibby]

An HD-quality zoom through wide converter, or partial zoom wide adapter (if full zoom not needed) would widen out shots even more. Most converters are .8x, with adapters being .7x and .8x - Schneider (Century), etc.

[Martin Drew]

Martin,

In 1989 I shot the breakdown of the Berlin Wall (Betacam, ENG of course). The first guy I met from the other side of the wall was a cameraman of the DEFA, the former communist national filmboard. He was shooting with an Arri 35 BL3 and a 25-250 Angenieux Zoom from his shoulder. This is heavy. He told me was doing this all the day. He actually used a wooden stick from the bottom of the camera to a special designed belt.

Wow! I now feel like a bit of a wimp.

M

[Damien Molineaux]

I'll be shooting with a Zeiss 12-120mm T2.4. I think it offers a good range, not too heavy. I hope it'll resolve 2k. Of course it is manual zoom, we'll have to see what the options are to add a motor.

Cheers,
Damien

[steevo435]

As noted above, I think we may be disappointed in the reduced field of view (FOV) we get when using the adapter and shooting windowed 2K. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the windowed 2K frame on the Red sensor is actually a little smaller than the frame size of S16. Since the multiplication of the adapter (Abakus at least) is something like 1.32 x focal length, my Fujinon HD 20x7.5 lens go to almost 10mm on the wide end. And unless the optical widening of the coverage of the Red B4 adapter is less than the Abakus adapter I'll actually be widening the coverage more than necessary which, given the reduced frame size of 2K (vs. true S16), might even translate to the field of view I would get with something arond a 11mm lens on a true S16 frame.

I'm really hoping I'm wrong about this. But since I really rely on the wide end of the lens for a lot of ENG work, I think I'll have to go to S16 zooms, with the unfortunate consequence of not having nearly as much reach on the long end due to the range of S16 zooms. And of course I'll miss the built in servo zoom. I'm not complaining, but just want to plan accordingly since I'm not anxious to spend money on a B4 adapter if it will cost my some of the wide end of the FOV.

Am I missing something? Can someone on the Red team tell us more about their B4 adapter?

I hope you are wrong too. I don't think (not sure) that there are any B4 mounted cameras that don't use a 2/3" sensor. I would assume Red's windowed sensor is designed to mimic 2/3" size. You will be able to use your abakus on the Red, like you said though you will lose the wide end. At the same time, would you buy another $3500 adapter that doesn't magnify to cover S16? It doesn't seem logical to me that they would build an adapter that you couldn't use onS16 as well.
It will be interesting to see where this goes...