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Leica R lenses on RED

Sanjin Jukic

Sanjin Jukic

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Leica R lenses on RED

It was discussed before but should be repeated again:

Leica R lenses on RED

Bruce Allen, a member of this forum wrote at HD4Indies.com the following:
"Dalsa...They also had a beautiful set of non-anamorphic PL mount primes - mostly Leica glass, plus Canons for the extreme zooms. They feel that the Leica glass is superior to Zeiss and Cooke for 4k acquisition...

dalsa_leica_primes.jpg

dalsa_leica_primes, photo by bruce allen

How you could attach Leica R lenses on RED?

Very simple. Just attach Leica R lens adapter to Canon EOS on upcoming Birger EOS mount to RED.

canon_eos_adapters.jpg

Leica R lens adapter to Canon EOS on the right side.

Then you could use "Leica R high-performance lenses that are meticulously handcrafted of exclusive high-grade materials, and are designed for long life. The extensive range of R system lenses covers focal lengths from 15 mm to 800 mm, and, with the LEICA APO-EXTENDER-R 2x even up to 1,600 mm."
http://www.leica-camera.us/photography/r_system/lenses/

Also you could buy each lens separately. You don't have to buy set. Just choose what you need.
And they are all manual, primes and zooms/vario lenses.
 
Sanjin, we'll do some detective work to find out if those are actually re-housed Leica Rs... I think you are right though. They are available for rent and I know a guy who owns half a Red and will be renting through Dalsa, so I'll see if I can rent 'em and then we'll try to do some comparisons between your Birger-ized Canon mount Leicas and the Dalsa Leicas. I must admit they looked really, really nice sitting next to the Master Primes and Cookes. Also kinda compact.

I'll put the full res JPG up on my server in a few hours' time so you can scrutinize if you want. I am going on a component-buying expedition for my monitor now.

You would have appreciated their anamorphic 50mm 1.4 too. Nice bokeh. Little breathing. Just the ticket for a 2.35 feature.

Cheers

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Oooooooh! Makes me lusty!
 
Maximum speed on some of those wide and medium wide leica's was 2.8 which is not especially inspiring in a prime. Dalsa does have a set of Master Primes and a set of S4's so you can still be friends and buy them beers.

The reason they made these converted Leica R lens sets is because the origin sensor is BIG, active area 34x17.2mm lots of the cine primes did not cover or did not perform all that well at the extreme edges.

I'm sure we'll hear from Illya about this before too long.

Matt Uhry
www.mattuhry.com
 
Sanjin, I know you're excited about the Eos-Leica R/Nikon F adapters but I's still a bit concerned about thier sturdyness and stability. You are introducing a completely new set of connection points and possible manufacturing tollerance differences that may impact performace both mechanically and optically. We will have to test of course but I'm relatively sure that Red would make a Leica R mount for you if you asked. Also the flange focal distance of the R mount is 47mm, nikon F is 46.5mm, it should be fairly easy to adapt any Leica R lens to Nikon F mount thus giving you the benefit of both lens systems without adapters or switching mounts.
 
Okay, as promised, here are full res pics of the Dalsa Leicas:
http://www.boacinema.com/projects/misc_photos/dalsa_leicas_fullres_2.jpg

And a wide shot including their Canon zooms (DigiPrimes are above, a piece of a Master Prime is in the top-left corner)
http://www.boacinema.com/projects/misc_photos/dalsa_leica_and_canons_fullres_1.jpg

And a close-up of their Canon zooms (that's a Cooke next to them)
http://www.boacinema.com/projects/misc_photos/dalsa_canons_fullres_3.jpg

Again, I loved their anamorphic 1.4 and am very much looking forward to seeing how their 6-lens set turns out...

I seriously think Dalsa can be a friend to Red users. No reason why we can't shoot mostly on Red but rent their camera for a day or two if we hit a CMOS motion issue or some kind of latitude or sensitivity issue. Of course the Red may be superior in terms of latitude and sensitivity but who knows - it's nice having a backup right? I thought their footage looked really, really good. It's good having two 4K cameras, let's hope they don't go bankrupt.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Luis>>
As i know Leica M lenses only work with Leica M camera series analog or digital. Leica M lens flange focal distance is too short for any kind of adapter. Could be or could be not possible to make a special adapter for RED, I don't know. A lens engineer should be contacted.

Allen>>
Thanks for all Cinegear info and looking forward to your comparative tests. And a good luck with your monitor development.

Evin>>
Very good idea about Leica R to RED mount. Another good idea is that Jim could cooperate with Leica on a similar basis like Panasonic is doing. This cooperation could be named Leica on RED 4K cinematography lens division. Also I am not sure that anybody could make better 4K lenses than Leica did for 35mm still cameras. In general no Zeiss, Cooke, Panavision, Angeniux, Canon, Fuji, Nikon, Russians can compete with Leica picture quality.
 
Maybe you are right... but then again maybe you aren´t.
The differences are hardly noticeable, and for most applications irrelevant. Watch out for the Brand Fetish boys.
 
Leica is not really in line with the red revolution. As in bringing it to the people at affordable prices.
Lets face it Leica is candy for snobs and thats great, each his own.
But me thinks jannard has been looking at some of those highquality russian cine lenses instead and thought, hmmm... value for money. These might fit boris and natasha rather nicely...

not sure though...
 
Evin Grant said:
Sanjin, I know you're excited about the Eos-Leica R/Nikon F adapters but I's still a bit concerned about thier sturdyness and stability. You are introducing a completely new set of connection points and possible manufacturing tollerance differences that may impact performace both mechanically and optically. We will have to test of course but I'm relatively sure that Red would make a Leica R mount for you if you asked. Also the flange focal distance of the R mount is 47mm, nikon F is 46.5mm, it should be fairly easy to adapt any Leica R lens to Nikon F mount thus giving you the benefit of both lens systems without adapters or switching mounts.
Click to expand...

Good morning Evin,

I think the half a millimeter (appx. .020") difference between the Leica and the Nikon is not enough to allow the fabrication of an adapter. Not enough "meat" there.

Chuck
 
Matt Uhry said:
Maximum speed on some of those wide and medium wide leica's was 2.8 which is not especially inspiring in a prime. Dalsa does have a set of Master Primes and a set of S4's so you can still be friends and buy them beers.

The reason they made these converted Leica R lens sets is because the origin sensor is BIG, active area 34x17.2mm lots of the cine primes did not cover or did not perform all that well at the extreme edges.

I'm sure we'll hear from Illya about this before too long.

Matt Uhry
www.mattuhry.com
Click to expand...

In addition to Master, Ultra, Super Speeds, Angenieux 24-290 and 17-80 zooms, we actually have several sets of Cooke’s including both S4 and S4/i, and Cmotion systems.

Actually most lenses perform admirably, it's only the wider lenses that have issue with coverage/fall off. And that depends on the aspect ratio you're shooting. If you are shooting 2.40 you can go with wider 3rd party lenses than if you shoot full sensor 2:1.

That being said we had one client recently who chose to shoot with a 31mm extraction so they could use ANY lens on the camera. With an extraction, I think the net resolution is about 3.6K.

Just to put this in perspective, the Origin/EVO sensors are just slightly larger than 35mm academy. It's nothing like the Phantom 65 (which we'll have available as soon as it rolls of the factory floor) one of the issues with the P65 is choosing appropriate glass for that monster sensor- it's about 50mm diagonal.

Of course all our Dalsa 4K lenses are full coverage. Data sheets were released at Cine Gear and I'm sure the info will be migrating to our website soon. Our website also quotes some praise from Dave Stump recently. His exact quote is “These are absolutely stunning, beautiful lenses, and are on par with anything available in the cine realm,”

I.

www.dalsa.com/dc

P.S. Matt, did I understand that correctly... Beer is on you?
 
chuck colburn said:
Good morning Evin,

I think the half a millimeter (appx. .020") difference between the Leica and the Nikon is not enough to allow the fabrication of an adapter. Not enough "meat" there.

Chuck
Click to expand...

By adapt I mean permanently attach, I've seen Nikon mount Leica R lenses on Ebay a few times.
 
Evin Grant said:
By adapt I mean permanently attach, I've seen Nikon mount Leica R lenses on Ebay a few times.
Click to expand...

Yep, I can see that. The all metal build of the Leica lenses and the precision of their mechanics would be attractive. Even with the "relatively" slower stops.
 
i think these lenses are rehoused. The focus mark look different than the R lenses i have shot on, far more film style in size.
 
as far as leica being high end on the pricing scheme, you may want to keep this in mind. a top notch leica fixed focal length lens runs $2000 to $4000 usd. and that is in the same range as a red prime(5 for $19,000).
i have have shot both M and R glass on assignment and in my opinion it is the finest glass in the world excepting a few focal lengthes by canon, nikon and zeiss. in b&w it has no match.
anyway just another opinion. ray.
 
sorry correction the R lenses pictured on page 1 on this blog
 
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