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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

ON EBAY: P+S Technik Optical viewfinder for IMS mount

Sweet bit of engineering!
 
It is stated on the eBay page but may be missed by someone with a surge of enthusiasm to buy. ---- The P+S optical viewfinder is for B4-Mount lenses and offers up to the P+S IMS-Mount System only.

As far as I know, any possibility of IMS-Mount compatability was designed out of the Epic/Scarlet platform with the deeper setback of the sensor within the casework. At one point, RED were enquiring with future owners if they wanted optical viewfinding, so the deeper setback may have been to provide for an alternative front with optical viewfinder path. As things settled, interest in the optical finder was made subordinate by preference for improvements to electronic finders and display screens for the Epic/Scarlet platform which have come to pass.

Unless things have changed and I am not aware, you CANNOT fit this viewfinder to the Epic/Scarlet. You can have it with your RED One if you buy and install the P+S IMS-Mount kit. However, do that and you may be on your own as far as warranty is concerned. Things may have changed but last I knew, the original and revised P+S IMS-Mount kits for the RED One were not granted RED Corp's imprimateur as suitable and safe.

With all those cautions and caveats done and dusted, here is a clip of the viewfinder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TZUe1aSF2Y


We even tried two of them for 3D with SI2Ks rigged side-by-side.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjZQSmSLcFU


Those who are serious and professional stereographers may find this arrangement a bit amateur-hour. We just did it because we could, not necessarily because we should, at the time when two optical finders were handy. The 3D view was very real. The two eyepieces would need to be bridged together with adjustments to be useful as a stereo preview tool. About 700mm of camera interaxial separation adjustment appears to be available. It would remain no substitute for the necessary stereography tools available in DVR2/SI3D for harmonising the cameras.
 
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2K is indeed nice and so is an optical finder. I asked P+S a while back if they intended to do a PL-Mount optical viewfinder for the IMS system for SI2K and X-35. As with the Epic/Scarlet platform, it is not a matter of not being able to do it but the cost-benefit of doing it. In the long run would there be enough people prepared to buy it for it is not cheap to implement.
 
i recomment to switch to si-2k or ikonoskop ;-) this viewfinder is worth it.
you will love it! promise

btw: si-2k becomes an update soon.. maybe a new sensor, more dynamic range (i hope)
 
Alexander.


There has been a bit of discussion over on dvinfo.net on the son ( and/or daughter to be politically correct ) of SI2K here :-

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/silicon-imaging-si-2k/514834-s-i-interesting-things-ahead.html


I had better not say too much in praise of the SI2K system lest I be excommunicated, expurgated and exsanguinated by those who keep the true faith as they see it. In fairness, they have been very good to me here given that I look, covet but as of yet do not buy.

Those of us who still own and operate the system would like to have seen a 2K S35 Mini head upgrade, however the commercial and practical reality is that with so many players in the S35 digital cinema field now making a late start would be pointless. So I expect that the new cam or cams will be improved evolutions to service the existing POV and agile 3D niches that the system has staked claim to as its own.


As for the viewfinder/B4 optically correcting mount itself, with the IMS mount itself removed from the rear, the safe diameter of the casework is 61mm. This progresses rearwards with a thinner step for the IMS mount reaching back to about 16.5mm from focal plane. It progresses forwards to the optical arm at about 30mm from focal plane. The optical arm begin to taper rearwards at about 50mm from lens optical axis. The rear element of the assembly is about 7mm from focal plane. The rearwork is tapered from the rear element forward to 16.5mm from focal plane. Some of these dimensions are approximate. I am not going near sensitive optical glass with a stainless steel vernier.

The 19mm IMS flange to focal plane distance is arrived at by substracting the distance between a PL-Mount face and the IMS-Mount face from the PL-Mount flange distance. The P+S diagram for the SI2K IMS-Mount suggests 19mm+something I cannot recall "in air" as the flange to focal plane distance.

It would be theoretically doable it seems to make the viewfinder/B4 optically correcting mount fit to the Epic/Scarlett platform but it might require some additional machining of a channel in the upper front casework of the camera body to allow clearance of the optical arm and a custom bridgepiece where the four-screw mounts fit. There does not appear to be any critical internal components which would be affected as this area appears reserved for attachment of accessories. However, with the viewfiner installed, some if not all the overhead accessories which attach to or overhang the forward accessory attachment holes would no longer fit.

Given the past RED/ARRI acrimony which went to court, P+S Technik being comprised of ex-ARRI engineers and a previous history relating to the P+S IMS mount kits for the RED One, I don't see a solution being arrived at to allow fitment of a custom version of the P+S Technik viewfinder/mount just for 2K. I don't think P+S will be making a S35 PL-Mount optical viewfinder, although the design for the Evolution viewfinder for ARRI 35mm film cams has been done.
 
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