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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

Will there be a way to avoid voiding the camera's warranty, when using the Birger mount?
 
Jarred Land said:
This really sounds much worse than it is... I am sure Erik will fix the issues and everything will be back on track in no time.
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Jarred, Stuart and I are sitting down together in OC on Tuesday to work through the issues. I just bought the ticket. I second Jarred's statement of confidence.
 
boy do i miss oc... i remember buying two sheep off an old lady that had em running around her house as pets... i didnt know where all the farms were.. i had to get me some to slaughter for eid.

so i got sandy and candy (sheeps' names) and slaughtered them in my tub.

I still remember how i laughed my ass off after i told the old lady ill take good care of her pets when i took em home.. i even remember how she yelled at me when i put em in the back of my 4x4 .. i had to get em out and put em on my leather seats. that pissed me off for a sec... i pulled off after the first street light and put em back. lol.

though... the meat was all chopped and given to charity.

that was my first happy eid in orange county
 
Akube said:
boy do i miss oc... i remember buying two sheep off an old lady that had em running around her house as pets... i didnt know where all the farms were.. i had to get me some to slaughter for eid.

so i got sandy and candy (sheeps' names) and slaughtered them in my tub.

I still remember how i laughed my ass off after i told the old lady ill take good care of her pets when i took em home.. i even remember how she yelled at me when i put em in the back of my 4x4 .. i had to get em out and put em on my leather seats. that pissed me off for a sec... i pulled off after the first street light and put em back. lol.

though... the meat was all chopped and given to charity.

that was my first happy eid in orange county
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That really sounded like a speech from a Tarantino movie, given by Akube while Erik is tied up in a bathtub. Akube is played by Samuel L. Jackson.
 
birgerEngineer said:
I just bought the ticket.
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Sort of tells us how near we are... :)

Oh, by the way Erik, since you've bought the ticket, go ahead and bring my mount along with you and I'll be happy to pick it up before, after, or during your meeting with Red. I'll even pay you the Fed Ex delivery charge.
 
more than 12 hours without a post.

more than 12 hours without a post.

more than 12 hours without a post - you rarely see the birger thread fall off the new posts list. Anyway, since we won't have any real news until Monday or tuesday I thought I would post a couple of observations that I had about the mount when I had it last week.

One, the backfocus adjustment system - similar in concept to what red did with the adjustable pl - is very slick, some very nice precision machining (which by the way - I am sure cost quite a bit more than the original setup - so I wouldn't be surprised if there is a price increase once initial orders are filled). Jorge from Cinematechnic - a longtime Arri/zeiss lens and camera tech - was very impressed with the build quality, and he is about as fussy as they come.

Two, I noticed there is quite a bit of adjustment capability in the positive direction - I am thinking that Erik left enough so that you could also backfocus a Nikon lens mount if the front portion of the birger unit had a nikon mount instead of a canon ef mount. Nikon Flange focal distance is 46.5 mm as opposed to 44 mm for Nikon F.

It also allows for something I - as an underwater shooter - was interested in. That is when you use dome ports it totally refocuses the image - as if you had a negative diopter on it. You can use a positive diopter - which is what we do with video lenses, but it does add some distortion. With the adjustment capability of the birger we can dial in about .060 of positive "shim" and correct for focus without adding a diopter.

This could also be used by other shooters for creating an extension tube effect for closeup photography.
 
AquaVideoRed206 said:
more than 12 hours without a post - you rarely see the birger thread fall off the new posts list.
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Probably because RED put the big chill on the Birger mount party. So it looks like everyone's on "wait and see" mode pending Erik, Stuart and Jarred's meeting come Tuesday.

It ought to get hot again soon thereafter.

I hope...

:wacko:
 
who wants to bet this thread reaching out to 200k views till the birger ships... wait let me set up a bookie...
 
What are the odds? and a copy from the other thread.

What are the odds? and a copy from the other thread.

Akube said:
who wants to bet this thread reaching out to 200k views till the birger ships... wait let me set up a bookie...
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What are the odds - I might take that bet!

Here is a copy from the other thread:

AquaVideoRed206 said:
I used to make underwater housings for Panasonic (i.e. we oem manufactured them with the Panasonic name on them, and they were sold by Panasonic dealers) for some of their camcorders. It was SEVERAL WEEKS of back and forth with their lawyers to get the exact Warranty Terms, End User Assembly Instructions and disclaimers worked out.

Warranty issues can get complex because you want to be fair but you can't leave yourself big open ended liabiities either. I think in the end this will be sorted out where everyone can feel comfortable, but this issue cropped up kind of suddenly, so I think everyone should give them a few days to think about it and sort it out before panicking.
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Originally Posted by Jarred Land:
This really sounds much worse than it is... I am sure Erik will fix the issues and everything will be back on track in no time.

Originally Posted by Erik:
Jarred, Stuart and I are sitting down together in OC on Tuesday to work through the issues. I just bought the ticket. I second Jarred's statement of confidence.
__________________
Erik Widding
www.birger.com

Mine was about post 47, but it seems like we are getting endless speculation anyway - with very little in the way of pictures or facts to go with it - so (with apologies for any inaccuracies I may put forth) I thought I would put some up.

First is a picture of the assembly of the birger mount (added note: picture is as I got it a week ago thursday - the plug to the 10 pin lens connector has now been changed to a 4 pin lemo on the mount with a cable to the 4 pin external dc output on the back of the camera). The second is the assembly of the Nikon mount.

While with birger you have to go to the "firewall" so to speak i.e where the PL mount is attached (and BTW I think this was the same as where you went to with the original RED pl mount but I could be mistaken as it has been a long time since I had my hands on gibby's #8. That is, the current and original birger mounts require removal to the same point as the RED PL mount did until the change in December) - but you do not have to remove the hard front of the camera - as was the case with the proposed P+S mount, up until P+S's recent announcement that they had figured out a way to avoid making a replacement hard front.

Doug Underdahl's video, and the second picture, and the following posts show that you still have to mess with the i/data cable even during the nikon mount installation - and if what I remember from briefly playing with Amund Lie's Nikon mount is correct - it might even be a little fussier of a process because there is less area to fit the cable and connector in there - I think there is actually more space behind the birger ef mount.

Evin Grant said:
.....
Changing mounts is a little daunting .....
The wiring harness is a bitch to get flush in the channel and I had to reattach the PL mount twice to get it back to flush but over all it worked out well. .....enjoy
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With birger you don't have or need that channel.

Douglas Underdahl said:
Hy ibloom -

You can see me put a Nikon mount on a RED on Youtube. Just go there and do a search on RED CAMERA LENS MOUNT, and make sure you watch both episodes.

You have to either A) stuff the connector into the camera's recess sideways, and carefully stuff/shove the excess wiring around it, or B) carefully shave the sides of the connector off, then push it back into the connector not sideways but lengthwise, and push the excess wire back into the camera at the point that it emerges. I did A and haven' tried B but I think B is probably bettery because this technique allows you to index the Nikon mount to any of 8 positions, putting the witness mark where you like it.

and from another post: Now as for swapping mounts, I think the "shave the connector and turn it sideways and stuff the cable at the other end back into the camera" is probably the best solution toward solving the problem of having the cable sticking out and making mount swapping more difficult. I'll check this out and if all goes well, I'll do an other video of this. I have to wait until my voice comes back though, as I have a nasty head cold. Kudos to whomever figured this out - I'll search and credit them in the video.
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Thor Wixom said:
Just a thought for the EPIC (too late for the Red One),

It would be great to have the back focus adjustment be able to accept IMS, Canon, Nikon, Birger, etc. Back focus ANY mount... ANY lens... NO VOIDED WARRANTY for removing that part of the camera. Anyone want to second the motion? -Thor
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Thor:

You really don't have room to make that possible. The reason dumb mounts for nikon, leica, etc. can only require removing the front portion of the RED adjustable mount is that they are basically just thin flanges to hold the lens mount.

The smart mount has to have the contacts for the canon lenses in the right place and then a circuit board for the electronics that mimic a Canon camera, then the three lemo connectors and (after numerous customer requests 3 buttons for on-mount setup plus adjustment of the iris up and down - rather than just through additional wired components or bluetooth.)

One of the reasons I have promoted being patient with Erik's delays is that having had both versions of his mount I realized how tough a challenge it was in terms of the electromechanics. While RED has done amazing things with the imaging hardware and software, electromechanically they could build the body anyway that wanted to fit around the circuit boards, imager, pl mount, connectors, etc. On the other hand, Erik has to build it to match the existing Canon connectors and hardware, as well as the RED hardware, all while jamming a computer, contacts, connectors, a backfocus adjustment mechanism, etc. into a small flange that fits within the 44mm from the RED sensor that Canon EF lenses require.

Anyway, as I have said before you have good engineers - and more importantly - fair minded people on both sides, that will work this out.

I am going to the Bahamas tomorrow to shoot underwater Monday on Ian Blooms movie, and Tuesday to shoot the shark dive at Stuart Cove's.

Be back on Wednesday and expect all of you to have this worked out by then!! LOL :biggrin:
 
So, today's the day when Erik and RED will sit down together and hopefully work out an arrangement regarding the camera warranty. I got to talk to Erik on the phone the other day and ended up feeling pretty good about the situation. He is clearly committed to delivering the high-quality product we all want to see, and as frustrated as we all are by these delays -- I guarantee Erik is even more so. I think RED will come up with a reasonable compromise that protects them from careless installations while allowing third-party lens mounts with short focal flange distances. (This much is obvious: if the Canon mount requires the warranty-breaking disassembly of the camera front, the P+S solution does as well.)

Fun fact: I've always been calling it "Birger" with a soft "g" (like Folgers, Germany, etc.), but I'm pretty sure Erik pronounced it with a hard "g" like "burger."
 
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