Advice from Optitek ProLock owners needed while Jacek is on holiday

[chuck colburn]

Hey Jacek,

What are the gear teeth on your mount adapter for? The part seems to be fixed from looking at your video.

cheers,

 

[Frank Weeks]

If someone in Sweden near him could get him a wide angle PL lens so he can just put the original PL on

As Jacek and Chuck point out.
If you can't go the PL mount, use the WIDEST Nikon Prime you have or can borrow. It has always been my understanding that the wider the better.

 

[chuck colburn]

I

As Jacek and Chuck point out.
If you can't go the PL mount, use the WIDEST Nikon Prime you have or can borrow. It has always been my understanding that the wider the better.

Wide is handy due to the shallow depth of focus (behind the lens) but any lens should get you in the ball park. And since Petri's zooms seem ok on his still camera body I think as Jacek says that something is wrong with the focus adjuster. I also take it that it's not possible to leave the intermediate spacer from the PL mount in there when you change to the Nikon mount.

 

[Jacek Zakowicz]

video not clear

video not clear

Hey Jacek,

What are the gear teeth on your mount adapter for? The part seems to be fixed from looking at your video.

cheers,

Hi Chuck,
The video needs more work I suppose...
The red gear is attached to the iris control ring for G series lenses(and F series as well) The iris control ring let's you control the iris on G lenses in a traditional way(iris ring) the ring has also engraved calibrated scale that is adjustable. the scale will let you monitor f stop on G lenses for DOF control purposes. The gear will allow you to control iris remotely on a crane, heli under water with a motor (FIZ unit) , flex gear shaft etc.
The intermediate ring for PL is so thick that the screws I supply won't reach so he'd have to remove it to install the mount.
This video will aid in checking BF:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo4Byk_rGDo

 

[Petri Teittinen]

I suspect that Petri could have disengaged the threads and needs to bring it back.

You lost me there, sorry Jacek. Which threads? "Bring it back", how?

If someone in Sweden near him could get him a wide angle PL lens so he can just put the original PL on, focus and swap mounts for PL that I think would be the easiest.

I don't think anyone is interested in shipping a PL lens from Sweden to Finland for this. It would be nice certainly, but nobody's that friendly, not even on this forum!

Otherwise you need a "hero" Nikon lens.

What's that? (I'm guessing something really expensive.)

 

[Petri Teittinen]

As Jacek and Chuck point out.
If you can't go the PL mount, use the WIDEST Nikon Prime you have or can borrow. It has always been my understanding that the wider the better.

Well, I don't know anyone I could borrow a PL lens from, and I can't afford to rent one, having been laid off a couple of weeks ago. Mortgage takes precedence, unfortunately.

Here's a list of my lenses:

• Sigma 8mm circular fisheye
• Nikon 10,5mm fisheye DX
• Nikon 50mm 1:1.4 D
• Nikon 80-200mm 1:2.8 D
• Nikon 28mm 1:2.8
• Nikon 18-70mm DX 1:3.5-4.5 G ED
• Nikon micro Nikkor 105mm VR 1:2.8 D G ED
• Nikon PCE 24mm 1:3.5 D
• Nikon 70-300mm VR 1:4.5-5.6 G
• Nikon 24-70mm 1:2.8 G

The 28mm 1:2.8 is complete rubbish, as is the 50mm one. I'm not really spoilt for choice when it comes to wide primes :/

 

[Petri Teittinen]

Wide is handy due to the shallow depth of focus (behind the lens) but any lens should get you in the ball park. And since Petri's zooms seem ok on his still camera body I think as Jacek says that something is wrong with the focus adjuster.

Yeah... I can't think of anything else except the incident when I loosened the screws all the way, causing the BF ring to wobble freely. But if the threads the ring is on are a fixed part of the camera body, and not something that moves in and out of the camera body when BF ring is used, I don't see how the loosening of screws could mess anything up.

I also take it that it's not possible to leave the intermediate spacer from the PL mount in there when you change to the Nikon mount.

It is possible, but it's not installed in my camera. The spacer would, if installed, certainly explain the BF issue I'm having. Too bad this is not that simple.

 

[Petri Teittinen]

By the way, the photo in post #3 is from my series of unboxing snaps and it shows the BF ring screws on the right side of the camera. You can also see the almost non-existent gap between camera body and BF ring. According to Brent, RED performs backfocusing before they ship the camera, so the photo shows the position of the BF ring when backfocused for the PL mount.

The gap is so narrow in the photo that I'd wager it can't be far from the end of its run. Maybe 180 degrees or so would do it.

 

[Jacek Zakowicz]

BF on Red

BF on Red

Petri,
Sorry for the location mistake- all the while I was sure you are in Sweden. Should have looked at the shipping label..
now to business:
Redone has a threaded focusing block up front.
If you loosen the locking bolts too much the outer split ring opens enough to disengage the threads and the inner threaded ring that the split ring moves in and out is now moving freely in and out until you tighten the bolts again. This is all hearsay since it never happened to me.. I always loosen it only enough to start rotating- no more. anyway I suspect that this is what happened in your case. The inner threaded ring came out too far and that's when you tightened the bolts. now you need the process reversed. You could loosen the bolts , unscrew the outer ring to have adequate gap (2mm give or take) and try to push the inner ring back in until the focus is correct (more or less)
This may or may not work- I strongly suggest have it done by a camera tech-
with all due respect- I've seen cameras suffer serious damage by being mishandled-when a non professional (camera tech) tries to do something with such a precise and delicate device they sometimes cause more damage in the process.
some definitions:
"bringing back" in this case meant reversing the process that caused the focusing to error
"Hero lens" not necesarily expensive but properly set up and verified lens that is stored properly and used exclusively to check and adjust camera-not for production work. Preferably wide and fast but can be old, with scratched elements or mechanically beat. Just has to be dead on with focus.
Alternatively you could use your wide zoom, just make sure on you nikon camera that it's close on back focus. wide open, the closer the better.
focus the best you can on your nikon camera pointed at a chart on the long end and zoom out. now try to refocus for the sharpes image. If you are close to the long end's focus the lens is good enough to set focus on your Redone.
now follow the procedure on the videoagain-sorry)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeEOnklv7Z8
Just disregard the sticker part.
good luck and let us all know Petri.

 

[Petri Teittinen]

Petri,
Sorry for the location mistake- all the while I was sure you are in Sweden.

Oh! I was wondering about that... no harm done, though!

Redone has a threaded focusing block up front. If you loosen the locking bolts too much the outer split ring opens enough to disengage the threads and the inner threaded ring that the split ring moves in and out is now moving freely in and out until you tighten the bolts again. This is all hearsay since it never happened to me..

It's definitely possible I've managed to move the BF ring when it was loose, which caused the BF ring to come to the end of its run prematurely. In other words, there is more adjustment room available, but I need to fully loosen the BF ring and move it outwards from camera body without turning it, then tighten the screws.

I'll take a careful look at that later today.