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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 :)

Birger Lens Mount Reservations

OT: I know this is a little off topic and has surely been discussed, but this thread has grown too large to sift through. I have been shooting stills using Canon glass for awhile and now have quite an investment in Canon lenses. I am not ready to step up to RED yet because my skill level is not there yet. But I am going to get either an HPX170 or an EX1 and will be putting a Letus Extreme on it. Is there any way to get a Birger Mount to work with a 35mm adapter? If so, what would I need to do for a power source? Thanks.
 
Anyone, is there a way to tell what place you are in line?

Even if shipping start next week, depending on where you are in line and how much mounts are put out per week, you could still be looking at weeks or months delivery.
 
AquaVideoRed206 said:
How long does it take to make your movie 2 weeks, 6 months 2 years?
Click to expand...

That's not a fair argument because the point is not that this thing has taken an extra year.

Orders were taken in November with a shipping date of Dec 15th. Hard dates. And that turned into "in 2 weeks" for the past 7 months.

People are rightfully annoyed because they think... "well we've been quoted two weeks so I'll plan on a month to be safe and I'll hold off on buying this other stuff." And then rent, beg, borrow and hold off 2 more weeks again. And 6 months later still have nothing.

That's the point.

So. Aperture adjustment. Does that even work or is the mount totally dumb right now?
 
Hoosier said:
OT: Is there any way to get a Birger Mount to work with a 35mm adapter? If so, what would I need to do for a power source? Thanks.
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Yes, Erik has already told me that the Birger mount will work with a 35mm adapter. He's tested it on a RedRock M2, so he knows it works. I guess your power source could be a battery's powerTap receptacle.
 
AquaVideoRed206 said:
It's not like doing a brake job where the labor time is known because they have done thousands.

Nobody ever made a RED camera and nobody ever made a Canon EF smart mount for it - so nobody knows how long it will take. It's true whether you are building birger mounts, red cameras, or B1 bombers, or apollo spacecraft or whatever.

How long does it take to make your movie 2 weeks, 6 months 2 years? If you are doing cutting edge effects and animation do you play safe and say 5 years (and probably never get funded) or a month (unrealistic) or your best guess 18 months and everybody with a knowledge of how that world works understands that realistically it could 24 or 30 months?
Click to expand...

Okay, let's play with this movie metaphor.

If I'd never made a movie before, well, I think I'd be pretty hesitant to give a timetable to my potential investors. As it turns out though, Erik has been making these movies — for years, in fact — and he did give a timetable. Look at the first post on this thread, dated 11/23/07, and you can still download the form that gave 12/15/07 as the delivery date (with Sigma/Nikon mounts and the Bluetooth remote coming a couple months later). So Erik's initial estimate was to build this thing in about three weeks!

Was that a "best guess" or just "unrealistic"?

If I were making a movie, though, and after months of production I still had a dozen or so scenes to reshoot, plus looping, with one of my actors missing, with the entire editing suite on the fritz, and the composer still hadn't delivered the score much less recorded it, and the distributor wasn't returning my calls.... I probably wouldn't tell the investors something like, "Don't worry, the reels will be delivered to theaters nationwide in a week or two!" Because that's not only unrealistic, but misleading.

That's what's been bugging us, Mike -- that Erik keeps giving the impression that volume shipping is just a few days away, "there's just this one tiny delay," and months later we find out about these major issues that a reasonable person should have recognized and identified as such when they were happening.
 
AquaVideoRed206 said:
... and nobody ever made a Canon EF smart mount for it - so nobody knows how long it will take ...
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hmmm ... cannot agree here. Birger have been making an EF mount for a while now (even if driving it requires a bespoke solution).

I cannot help but feel that specification will always be in a state of flux, and thus, I doubt it will ever get there ! (and I'm not even considering the plethora of additional 'wish list items' that get mentioned and constantly re-shape the 'product').

I go back to a request I made months (!) ago, why could we not have a simple mount (one that drives JUST the aperture) and we are left to power it however we choose.
The more sophisticated design can then be in development in parallel, and this mount can have all the bells and whistles (re-mapped focus, wireless, lens data, etc etc ...).

Very very disappointing ... (I'm speechless about the 'recently discovered' lack of power, PC only s/w that needs to be re-written for the Mac, hmmm ... some things are very clever and some things are just incredibly unplanned !)
 
I wonder how long Erik has been engaged? :whistling:

"We'll get married next summer, honey, I promise!"

Just kidding! Just kidding! :bleh:
 
AKABAKA said:
Erik's initial estimate was to build this thing in about three weeks!
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Actually what people seem to forget is that this mount was announced around NAB 2007. Initial shipping from that point was going to be August 2007. Why, because he'd already been making a mount to control Canon's for years. That date was missed hard so when November's reservations came around a lot of people rightfullly thought the thing was built and well tested.

Thankfully RED is not taking Scarlet reservations and probably will have NDA'd beta tests that keep a secret like the Aurora project. And then one day you'll be able to place an order and get one overnighted cause 5000 are sitting in a warehouse. That's the way to go.
 
AquaVideoRed206 said:
Absolutely, for any manual lens that has iris i.e. Nikon, Contax/Yashica, Leica R and M42 (pentax screw also) using a simple adapter. So you don't need another mount as a dumb backup, you just need a couple of manual lenses with a whatever it is to canon ef adapter available on ebay all the time for about $20.
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Aqua. thanks for the info, that's a great point. I already have a nikon F adapter and a couple nikon lenses.
 
AquaVideoRed206 said:
Absolutely, for any manual lens that has iris i.e. Nikon, Contax/Yashica, Leica R and M42 (pentax screw also) using a simple adapter. So you don't need another mount as a dumb backup, you just need a couple of manual lenses with a whatever it is to canon ef adapter available on ebay all the time for about $20.
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Could you elaborate on this? Is there a mount I can get cheap that I can put a cheap lens on just for testing? thanks
 
lotar1 said:
I feel like sending whoever said that last a bill for $3200 for how many times I've had to rent the RED 18-50. I'm out over $3000...
Click to expand...

Lotar1,

And then there are those of us (read me) who put $6500 into the Red 18-50 and will have to sell it for half that value when everyone sees that the Birger completely rocks!

Just the nature of the game.

Can't wait for that Birger... even though it means I'm losing money.

-Thor
 
Jason

What aqua is saying in regards to my original question about the birger mount as a dumb mount is that if the birger mount fails electronically in the middle of a shoot, in addition to being a dumb canon mount, you could slap a nikon adapter on there and use a nikon lens which does have a manual iris ring. So in effect, the birger smart canon mount can also be a dumb nikon mount.
 
Here's a question, Erik. Are you going to include a Canon body cap with the mount? It seems like a necessity.
 
parisrem said:
Here's a question, Erik. Are you going to include a Canon body cap with the mount? It seems like a necessity.
Click to expand...

if not the canon branded part is $6.95 at B&H and off brands are significantly cheaper. or .99 plus 1.00 shipping on ebay - there were dozens.
 
Thor Wixom said:
Lotar1,

And then there are those of us (read me) who put $6500 into the Red 18-50 and will have to sell it for half that value when everyone sees that the Birger completely rocks!

Just the nature of the game.

Can't wait for that Birger... even though it means I'm losing money.

-Thor
Click to expand...

Hey Thor,
then there are those of us actually working for the past 3-6 months not waiting for something that may or not appear. I guess it will appear, but in the mean time, been working and making lens payments and then some.
 
I'm quite sure Thor has been working, if memory serves I have seen some of his work and it's quite impressive.

I think it's helpful to take him point in the spirit in which it was intended.

jay
 
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