New mount...

[Jannard]

Here is the new adjustable PL mount for the RED ONE. It rocks pretty hard!

Jim

 

[Ivan G]

I must say it does!

 

[Gabriel C.]

Awesome!!!

 

[Finner]

I have to head to bed but I would love to wake up to see a pic showing the mechanics of how the mount adjust works. I assume the outside black collar with the 2 allen key bolts shown just covers and protects the actual precision mount adjustment mechanics under it and that those allen keys have nothing to do with the actual mount setting.

 

[dino g]

wow looks different than when i saw it a couple of weeks ago...good lookin.

 

[Jochen Schmidt-Hambrock]

So, to repeat an age old question of mine:

How practical is it to change lens mounts?

(I plan to use my Nikkors AND some Red lenses. Is that a practical plan?)

Jochen

 

[david farland]

I'm going for 4 adj. and 4 locking screws.
I'd also like to know how you adj the locking plate distance.

 

[Mike Zinner]

Looks rock solid - perfect!

 

[Jannard]

Loosen the two bolts you see, twist to establish back focus. Lock down. Done. It is solid as a rock when you are finished. The internal threads are fine so it is easy to find absolute zero (or 52mm). The internal mechanism is pretty ingenious.

Jim

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Looks rock solid - perfect!

Really? It looks glossy to me but I don't see how one could judge its build quality from a glamour shot. :gun:

 

[Casey Green]

f*****g sweet.

no additional cost? wow. unbelievable.

can't wait till I shoot with a RED, rented, owned or what have you.

 

[IAN SUN]

Well it certainly looks badass.

Jim, your commitment to quality amazes.

 

[Daniel Reichenbach]

I understand the back focus system, but what happens if the mount/lens is not exactly parallel to the sensor? Can we adjust that as well?

 

[Jannard]

The lens mount is exactly parallel to the sensor from the factory. If you get one that is not, we will replace or fix your camera. We have not had one instance of this happening. The sensor is hard fixed to the body/mount structure and I doubt you could bend the body out of shape.

Jim

 

[redicule]

f*****g sweet.

no additional cost? wow. unbelievable.

Umm, would I be a party pooper if I pointed out that it is a fix for part of the camera that wasn't working properly to start?

 

[Brook Willard]

The internal mechanism is pretty ingenious.

Jim

Will I ever get a look at it without disassembling it?

 

[Dongfang Hong]

Pardon my ignorance. Does an adjustable, shimless lens mount work like the back focus adjustment in a B4 mount TV lens? I thought we don't have to adjust back focus in a 35mm film camera with PL or BNCR mount.

Please educate me.

 

[Jannard]

Umm, would I be a party pooper if I pointed out that it is a fix for part of the camera that wasn't working properly to start?

I don't think that is a fair statement. The original mount works just like all film cameras... it was shim based. Every RED ONE out there with the old mount can be adjusted to be perfect. But all mounts need to be checked and adjusted for "feature film" perfection. And the shim based systems only allow trained professionals to do it. Add in the need for a complete set of shims for any technician to do it and you have a recipe for delays and disappointment.

Soderbergh's 1st AC checked the mount every single day while shooting two movies on RED prototypes. He never adjusted the mounts once (he did adjust all of them prior to the beginning of the shoot).

Our old mount was not flawed, although the setup of some of them was, which meant they had to be reset. I just did not like the concept of "it has always been done this way, so let's keep doing it that way. This mount is better. Much better. That speaks to the core philosophy of RED.

Jim

 

[Brook Willard]

Any word on the approximate rotation:depth ratio? If I turn the mount 180˚, am I getting a millimeter of travel or a thousandth of a millimeter of travel?

Also, is there a proper order to tightening down the mount screws? Will the play presumably introduced while tightening have any reasonable affect on the flange focal depth?

I'm super happy to see that you've routed out the inside of the mount a little. The old mount was too tight to interface with certain PL flanges... particularly on adapted lenses. We had to rout out the inside of one of our lens mounts to work with the 6mm fisheye Nikkor.

The stainless steel looks downright beefy. How's the collar threading and material? Will it still bind up like the old mount, or has the collar material been changed to stainless as well?

Have the eight screws that hold the mount to the body [not the ones that currently hide shims, but the actual mount screws underneath the decorative neck] been changed or otherwise beefed up to prevent them from loosening?

Is there some sort of friction interface between the body and mount [the contact point held together by the aforementioned eight screws on the current mount] to prevent the mount from shifting off-center when the PL collar binds to a lens?

You know me... one "holy crap!" post and then I remember to ask some questions.

 

[Jannard]

Any word on the approximate rotation:depth ratio? If I turn the mount 180˚, am I getting a millimeter of travel or a thousandth of a millimeter of travel?

The math really is not relevant. What matters is that the threads are fine enough, and the ring large enough, for you to very accurately find zero. It can IN NO WAY be compared to a B4 mount adjustment, which is really a "hope and a prayer".

Jim