"Cinematizing" Still lenses

[Jon Ellison]

I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but I haven't been able to find it. As lenses go, I'm starting from scratch for the RED. My plan is to buy a few still lenses, and have gotten some great recommendations from threads like this http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=24130&highlight=lens+RED .

What I'd like to know is where I can buy the lenses from, or send them to have gears installed and iris stops removed... or is this something I can do myself?

Will this prevent me from using them (and working properly) on my Nikon body?

thanks!

 

[David Rasberry]

Contact Matt Duclos
He sells the Zeiss ZF series with mods. He can also tell you which other lenses are suitable for cine mods.

http://www.ducloslenses.com/

 

[Jonathan Stevenson]

This thread has all the info you need...


http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=24733&highlight=duclos+zeiss

 

[Matthew Duclos]

Will this prevent me from using them (and working properly) on my Nikon body?

Just thought I should chime in here. I wouldn't want anyone buying our lenses without knowing all the details.
I have found one issue with using the ZF lenses on a Nikon camera after being modified.
You Nikon shooters should know what I'm talking about here.
There is a meter coupling lever that travels around the circumference of the cameras mount.
This butts up against a tab on the aperture ring of lenses to tell the camera what f-stop you are at.
The coupling lever is fairly heavily spring loaded.
The spring load of the coupling lever will push against the tab on the lenses.
Once the ZF lenses have been de-clicked, the aperture ring is much more free to move around.
We use a fairly heavy Zeiss grease to lubricate the aperture ring, but even the heaviest grease will creep over time.
I haven't found this to be much of a problem at the faster apertures.
But if you are at f22, it will creep back towards f2 very slowly.
Of course, this isn't an issue on the RED camera as there is no such part on the camera mount.
I hope this makes sense to you Nikon shooters. I can provide pictures of this whole process if anyone would like.

 

[Harry Clark]

And those of you familiar with the Cooke 20-100 know that this problem is not limited to converted still lenses... although the problem of iris creep on that lens can be fixed for a long while.
As an AC, I would have always taped off the stuff wherever practical (not always so on a small prime lens)
Also, with Red and other digital cameras, exposure change should be pretty obvious if everyone's paying attention.
I would not worry too much, though it is very nice and fair for Matthew to mention this.
Cheers,
Harry

 

[Matthew Duclos]

I dont think I was clear enough.
This iris creep WILL NOT HAPPEN on a RED camera.
This is ONLY an issue with modern Nikon SLR Cameras.