Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

  • 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

I second this!

I second this!

I also am grateful for the birger mount. As lauri said, it has been a bumpy road, but I am definitely grateful that Erik had a vision for it and has stuck through this whole process and continues to support it. I think some thanks are in order to Jarred, Erik, Curt and everyone else who takes our venting and doesn't show up on our doorstep holding a crowbar. I live in fear that one day Jim is going to post:

"I quit, sort it out yourselves, you ungrateful prats."

so, thanks guys for taking our crap and making things for us that let's us be creative. Without you, there is no us.

Thanks from me also, like I said earlier, if it wasn't for the Birger mount I would not own a RED camera. I'm sure there are many more just like us.

Best to all,
Frazier
 
Me too. A Canon EF mount was the deal maker for my Red cameras!
 
never ask for any special treatment.

never ask for any special treatment.

Thanks for the reply on my email. I used the forum because it works. And i wanted to know if any had a working system.

I never ask for any special treatment. But when i order the mount i got told that i would have my mount in 3 weeks. But month went by. So i finaly wrote you that i would like to cancel my order so i could go for another system. And suddenly you had a mount for me.
The controller same story. 3 weeks delivery time..but month went by...and so on. So please dont start talking about special treatment.
It was birger that did not keeping the promises.

And now after a year i still dont have a system that works.

I love the idea of the system. And understand the problems that been in the process. And is not only Erik there is to blaime for it. I still belive it will end up being a great system. So i will stay with it since i all ready bought lenses.

BO




Bo, your Impero is broken. Please send it back for repair.

We appear to have filed away your single email from 2 October on the topic of the troubles you were having with your Impero, without responding first. In this day and age with such large volumes of spam, it would be a good idea to send a second email or pick up the phone, if you feel you are being neglected. By the way, the subject line of that email "RE: Credit Memo from Birger Engineering" and the first five lines of text "Dear Amy and erik Thanks." I can see how we overlooked the rest of the email. At the same time, I am sorry that we were not more careful.

We helped you out by sending a new lens mount out in advance of returning your old one for its free upgrade, because you plead hardship. We honored this request, going above and beyond our published warranty and upgrade policy.

The big lesson I have learned, from our experiences with this product, is those that ask for special treatment, if given it, generally come back and complain about how badly they have been treated. Thanks.
 
Impero issues.

Impero issues.

Okay, so Bo and I have had a couple of emails back and forth. And with the help of DJ's lens, we have been able to greatly narrow down what is going on with the Imperos and some particular lenses, such as the 70-200/2.8 (old) and the 200/2.8, as well as some of the other zooms.

First, if your Impero drifts, the magnet in the encoder is out of alignment, and it need to come back for repair. Problem also known as "my lens keeps diving for zero (infinity) and I never even touched the knob" or "my impero doesn't repeatably hit marks".

Second, if your Impero exhibits any of the above issues, it needs to come back. Stop reading here.

Third, if you are not seeing any drift, and your impero reliably hits marks, and you are seeing the "the lens stops, and then suddenly catches up with the knob" please try 19X lens mount firmware, and quantify for me if the situation gets better with each of your problem lenses.

In 19y release notes say "Improved focusing for problem lenses". Law of unintended consequences... I see better (but not perfect) behavior with 19x, and want to make sure that this is not limited to my test lens that exhibits this problem.

I must admit, I have been so frustrated with Curt, that I lumped these two problems together, and they are actually two distinct problems. We first got a lens that allowed us to replicate the problem yesterday.
 
Will try and get some tests back to you with the different builds and lenses by Monday.

Thanks for sorting these behaviors out.
 
Third, if you are not seeing any drift, and your impero reliably hits marks, and you are seeing the "the lens stops, and then suddenly catches up with the knob" please try 19X lens mount firmware, and quantify for me if the situation gets better with each of your problem lenses.

In 19y release notes say "Improved focusing for problem lenses". Law of unintended consequences... I see better (but not perfect) behavior with 19x, and want to make sure that this is not limited to my test lens that exhibits this problem.

On build 20.1.3 lens mount firmware 19x, impero 1.8, the stop and catch up behavior on the 70-200 non IS seems to happen less then on 20a. It's difficult to judge seeing as it's a random behavior but I would say on a medium focus pull in build 20a it would happen 50% of the time, whereas on 19x it was more like 10% of the time.

the 17-55 didn't seem much better either way.

On the other hand I may have observer bias.

I have the lens data off and no 3rd party protocol support
 
Erik. I have been sending emails to your company with no reply. Apparently you are not accepting any messages via redusers. Where is my refund? You have had my money for over a year now. What is going on? Francis Kenny, ASC

have you sent it to the company email at birger.com?
 
Alternative Epic/Birger Interface.

Forgive me if what follows is complete nonsense.

As Epic has a moving sensor block for collimation, would it be possible to mount the smart half of the Birger on a PL ring? The Birger would end up being flush with the front of the PL locking ring. Obviously, the tube would need to be black anodised or felted on the inside.

The idea being that the PL ring (and existing mount) would hold the Birger in place, while the moveable block makes up the FFD difference. I admit that this is dependant on the range of motion within the Epic.

This should provide a Birger/Epic solution without having to touch any RED product, with only the loss of i/data recording.


Sorry if that was a bunch of rubbish.
 
Alternative Epic/Birger Interface.

Forgive me if what follows is complete nonsense.

As Epic has a moving sensor block for collimation, would it be possible to mount the smart half of the Birger on a PL ring? The Birger would end up being flush with the front of the PL locking ring. Obviously, the tube would need to be black anodised or felted on the inside.

The idea being that the PL ring (and existing mount) would hold the Birger in place, while the moveable block makes up the FFD difference. I admit that this is dependant on the range of motion within the Epic.

This should provide a Birger/Epic solution without having to touch any RED product, with only the loss of i/data recording.


Sorry if that was a bunch of rubbish.

Let me preface by saying this involves total speculation/best guess by looking at the epic photos and renders.

Couple things.

1) I suspect the moveable block is only a millimeter or two of movement.

2) PL is 52mm - EF is 44 so it would have to move forward 8mm plus the thickness of the Birger since remember the Birger removes all of the current PL mount to work.

3) First, there was nothing very difficult about the RED1 to mount any kind of alternative mount. It is basically just a flat surface with four bolt holes. The OLPF was inset from the flat surface and the sensor was well behind the OLPF in its own (sealed?) recess. It doesn't get much easier than that - a little bit of care to avoid scratching the OLPF and tuck away the idata cable and that's it. Anybody that has had both the Nikon mount and the Birger mounts knows it was probably a little harder to do the Nikon because of tucking the idata cable into the narrow channel. But neither was very hard.

Epic looks even easier because the entire front plate appears to be designed to be removable, which could mean that it might be possible to inset part of the mount if necessary - which in turn could mean that no change to the current Birger would be necessary - just an appropriate mating front. From there it would be a matter of deciding whether to implement the contacts for i/data which would be the part that presumably would need more investigation by RED to approve. But it looks like the electrical connections on the epic brain are contacts rather than a cable that goes inside.

Even though we would all like it to set it up before hand, I'm not sure that is necessary. I think there will be a reasonable amount of time between the first small batch of epics and full scale delivery which should give sufficient time to get the interface figured out.
 
Had a chance today to check how long Impero runs with rechargeable batteries. Since I don't have a Mac, still have the old firmware in Impero -it works only with the BT connection. Nevertheless, with Philips AAA-size R03NM rechargeable NI-Mh batteries Impero ran about 6 hours when shooting from a hide. In the same time needed almost four Red bricks to power R1.
 
Help with Drop Frames, maybe because the Si4???

Help with Drop Frames, maybe because the Si4???

Can the si4 and/or the Canon 70-200 create drop frames? I apologize if this has been discussed before, but, with this endless thread, it is impossible to search for an answer.

Today it happened something very strange. I was using my Birger mount, (Build 20) and don't remember the Birger and impero Build. (But the impero sometimes was connected and sometimes wasn't, so I don't think it was the issue)

The issue happened when I started getting like 28 drop frames in the middle of the take. I was using the hardrive, on tripod, and no movement. Then I switched to the memory cards and the same. Some takes where fine, and some were very bad.

I noticed that I would lose lens data connection suddenly. I am pretty sure that only happened with my Canon 70-200 2.8. When I changed to another lens I am pretty positive that I didn't get drop frames. I tried also switching si4 off, and I think when it was off it worked fine, but can't confirm.

Also a very strange thing is that when I changed a memory card, it wouldn't mount, I tried 2 and they wouldn't mount, then I realized that lens data had disappeared, when I went into the menu and tried to switch it off, lens data came back before i reached the si4 menu, so I exit the menu, and then the memory card had mounted.

It is very strange, and it really freaks me out. The lens data is very nice, but it is not worth risking a take. Tomorrow I am shooting just with the 24 1.4, 35 1.4 and 50 1.2 So I will see if there are some drop frames.
 
"Can the si4 and/or the Canon 70-200 create drop frames? I apologize if this has been discussed before, but, with this endless thread, it is impossible to search for an answer."

Hello Ivan,

Dropped frames with a 70-200 have been encountered. I think a discussion starts on page 592 (post 5919) of this thread, more on page 596 (post 5955).

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=5985&page=592
 
Thanks a lot, Michael

Now I feel better, knowing the cause of dropped frames and to avoid it. Thanks alot.

Now another question, how do you search, or are able to know in which page this info is? Do you have a special way of searching? becuase that would be very usufull to know as well. I can never find anything in Reduser, with the search advance tool.

Thanks again,

Ivan

"Can the si4 and/or the Canon 70-200 create drop frames? I apologize if this has been discussed before, but, with this endless thread, it is impossible to search for an answer."

Hello Ivan,

Dropped frames with a 70-200 have been encountered. I think a discussion starts on page 592 (post 5919) of this thread, more on page 596 (post 5955).

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=5985&page=592
 
For people that are losing lens data on lens replacement, it looks like the next release from RED will eliminate the need to reboot the camera to get the data back (as per Stuart's post):
http://reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=492901&postcount=11

Ken has a clear understanding of the 17-55/2.8 and the 200/2.8 "focus sticks and later catches up" issue. We should have a new software release in a couple of days to deal with this.
 
Ken has a clear understanding of the 17-55/2.8 and the 200/2.8 "focus sticks and later catches up" issue. We should have a new software release in a couple of days to deal with this.

THANK YOU ... Ken ... :emote_happyhappy:
 
For people that are losing lens data on lens replacement, it looks like the next release from RED will eliminate the need to reboot the camera to get the data back (as per Stuart's post):
http://reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=492901&postcount=11

Ken has a clear understanding of the 17-55/2.8 and the 200/2.8 "focus sticks and later catches up" issue. We should have a new software release in a couple of days to deal with this.

wonderful. thank you ken.
 
Hi Ivan,

I've also often have a difficult time finding specific information with the search engine. Using "70-200" or "dropped frames" would have probably produced reams of posts. "Dropped frames" searched for in only the Birger threads might have worked.

In this case I remembered that there had been a discussion.

All the Best,

Michael

Thanks a lot, Michael

Now I feel better, knowing the cause of dropped frames and to avoid it. Thanks alot.

Now another question, how do you search, or are able to know in which page this info is? Do you have a special way of searching? becuase that would be very usufull to know as well. I can never find anything in Reduser, with the search advance tool.

Thanks again,

Ivan
 
Good news.

P
 
Back
Top