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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

kylemallory said:
That pretty much sums up my feelings on it as well. I already have the Nikon, and while I don't have PL glass of my own, getting my hands on some is trivial (as I've done it many, many times). I just like the idea of reusing my existing Canon glass (my wife shoots Canon SLR's), but I just don't know how much longer I can comfortably handle knowing that I've paid more than $1000 for a product which I may, realistically, never see in the life of my camera, and if I do see it, it may only last a number of months before I find my way into a Epic, at which point the Birger would either have to be retooled to work with Epic, or I'll have to buy REDs. If I can get my Birger in the next 2 weeks, I think it will be worth it to have it for the next year until Epic comes around. If not, then, it just doesn't make sense to let Erik earn interest on my money...
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You already have Nikon? So you want the birger mount because of your resource of canon glass? What Nikon lenses do you have? What do you think of it?

And does anyone know what is the Nikon equivalent for Canon's L glass? I guess I gotta brush up on Nikon lenses and threads.
 
Jason, I'll answer both your questions at once! I bought the nikon mount at a clients request, because they have a few Nikon Zeiss Primes (Nikon's L glass equiv). These are, supposedly, the best glass the Nikon has to offer, and according to a few people, who may be slightly biases, the same glass as Arri Digi-primes, but housed by Nikon. They are priced comparatively with Canon's L-series glass. As to how well they work? Well, they work. I'm not qualified to give any kind of real analysis of the differences between Nikon vs Canon vs Zeiss Super Speeds. But the images I've gotten from the Nikon so far, given the same light shaping tools used with PL glass, produces a similarly quality image. :innocent:

I actually have only a single 35mm-200mm Nikon lens I bought on eBay for about $40, just so I could have something to hang off the end of the mount when I didn't feel like making a trip to the local rental house.

There is also value in the built-in remote focus ability of Birger, as well as the wireless bluetooth. Given, the Viewfactor solution has been nagging me as well, as a solution that will work for both Nikon and PL glass. But, now, rather than $1000 for a Birger, I have to spend $4000 on quality Nikon glass, and another $3000 on VF motors and controllers.
 
Have to confess I've also been considering whether to do the same as you Jason.

Obtaining the tracking number and then being 12 days in the stage of "package data received by FedEx" with complete silence is a kind of worst mode a fully billed customer can be left. Such a move creates an impression of rather cynical customer service and forces to the customer to reluctantly suspect the reliability and the intentions of the other side.

So obviously, there has a been major failure in communication. Still hope the twists will straigthened soon and I'll see on FedEx webpage the next stage "package picked".
 
Lauri.. the mounts will be delivered... by hook or crook.. i got mine and so did many others. it is all a question of patience. you've held out for a year.. you can hold out for prolly a month more. and prolly another 6-7 months till the knobs come out. and then prolly another year for nikon birger mounts.

i'm speculating here.
 
Lauri Kettunen said:
Have to confess I've also been considering whether to do the same as you Jason.

Obtaining the tracking number and then being 12 days in the stage of "package data received by FedEx" with complete silence is a kind of worst mode a fully billed customer can be left. Such a move creates an impression of rather cynical customer service and forces to the customer to reluctantly suspect the reliability and the intentions of the other side.

So obviously, there has a been major failure in communication. Still hope the twists will straigthened soon and I'll see on FedEx webpage the next stage "package picked".
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ditto
 
Jason Ing said:
And does anyone know what is the Nikon equivalent for Canon's L glass? I guess I gotta brush up on Nikon lenses and threads.
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Nikon's "L" equivalent is "ED" (for "extra-low dispersion") or "Super ED."

I went with the Birger Canon mount because I have both Nikon glass (from my Redrock Micro setup) and Canon glass (from my SLR setup), and with a Canon mount and a little adapter you can use both. (My Nikons were mostly manual focus anyway.)

If you're changing gears from Canon to Nikon, are you looking to sell your lenses? I've got a Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF that's not as useful to me anymore.... maybe we could barter? PM me if you're interested.
 
Akube said:
Lauri.. the mounts will be delivered... by hook or crook.. i got mine and so did many others. it is all a question of patience. you've held out for a year.. you can hold out for prolly a month more. and prolly another 6-7 months till the knobs come out. and then prolly another year for nikon birger mounts.

i'm speculating here.
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Unfortunately, Akube, I suspect that your speculation may be correct. I can wait another month, tops, for the mount. And maybe, possibly, another month for the knob. In 6-7 months, the first of the new RED models will be hitting the streets, at which point, Eric's solution will rapidly depreciate in value. Also, given that its $1k, in this economy, with Christmas around the corner... That cash will go a long way with the wife and kids.
 
do you think red will have a wireless knob solution though kyle... plus they'd be already too busy with all those cameras man. accessories.. so much R&D
 
Akube said:
do you think red will have a wireless knob solution
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Good question Akube. I think in the near future the critical moment is when Andy comes out with his mount. He said that when he comes out that will be in volumes and we know he has both focus and iris. In addition the unit shows the aperture value as well. Whenever this happens, Birger will have competition. Who knows Red may co-operate with Andy?
 
hey guys. super crazy busy. shooting out here in Spain with Macgregor... He may be posting some crazy stuff we shot up in the Sierra Nevada mountains near the south of Spain.... on the Birger with the 70-300 and the 10-22
 
Jason Ing said:
I cancelled this morning.
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I think the canary just died inside the coal mine.

FWIW Jason, there is excellent nikon glass out there. I switched over from nikon to canon a couple years ago and got about 80% of what I paid at B&H selling all my used glass. If you buy used nikon glass, if you sell it you'll probably get close to 90% of the value back. I have a pretty big collection of canon L glass now, but also am getting back into nikons. There are some lenses that nikon makes that are better than the equivilant Ls and vice versa.

Also I bought a whole set of used AI-S lenses from Tico and while I bought them as my backup I find myself using them from time to time over my L glass for various reasons. I was going to sell them after I got the birger but now I think I'll just keep both. The older lenses flare quite a bit and since I tend to use flare quite a bit for effect, I am glad to have some lenses that flare very nicely.

Truly sorry to see you lose faith at this point having had your camera mostly on the shelf all year.
 
Kyle Mallory said:
Has anyone been in contact with Eric or Amy and heard of any updates in the last day or two?
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Kyle: I'm under NDA with RED and Birger so often not at liberty to mention any specifics, but I spoke to Erik yesterday and I think you will see some significant things happen in the next week in regards to shipping of the mounts given shipping notices AND some important new developments on the hardware side.
 
I just got off the phone with Curt at ViewFactor Studios... the Impero is just too well executed for me to consider coming out with a competing product. So, I am pleased to announce, Imperos for everybody. All of our reservation holders (active reservation as of 7PM EST today, not cancelled) will receive an Impero (with no radio, a single marking disk, and a rail mount) for the price of a knob. For those that qualify for a free remote control, we will provide a plug in radio for the Impero that will talk directly to our mount.

Curt already has the Impero working wired with the mount, and in production. We (Birger) are slated to start receiving Impero for development in the coming days/week, and for delivery to our customers in early december. The remaining tasks for Curt are some minor software development that we will support, and for Birger, packaging the Radio that we already use, to plug in to the Impero.

These Imperos will be upgradeable (through ViewFactor) to use their longer range radio and receiver, as well as to control their motors. (i.e. ZOOM! your SLR lenses).

A screen capture for the Mac application is attached. Note the distance readout... also Ken wants you all to know that the Mac app is better than the PC right now. The next version of the PC app will be released soon. Griffin PowerMate knobs offer a great control surface for use with either application. Full documentation of our comm protocol has been prepared, and will be released once a last few edits have been finished. This will allow for integration into custom moco systems. Version 18 of our lens library will be released at that time as well. All of this should be available for download from our website in the coming days.

The problems with collimation unfortunately require new mechanical parts, as it appears once all tolerances are accounted for, we are just slightly off acheiving collimation with about 10% of cameras. We have about 400 sets of mechanical parts running through the machine shop with the changes. We will start receiving these around 1 December.

Sticking pins, 85mm f/1.8 camera reboots, 85mm f/1.2 manual focus, are all either understood and incorporated into a manufacturing and test procedures, or accounted for in our latest library release.

Most mount deliveries will be delayed until the first week in december. We do expect to ship out more mounts over the next couple of days. If you have not received a shipping notice, you will not receive one until 3 December. If you have received a shipping notice, we are working hard to get your mount out in the next few days.

All those customers that already have mounts, or receive mounts this week, will receive a replacement camera adapter, that will fix the potential collimation problems, and have a few other enhancements.

There are some repairs that we need to get out the door, a few tracking numbers are attached to packages that aren't yet ready to go out the door. and some customer communication to get caught up on. We are working hard, and I hope from this post it is clear that we have accomplished some rather substantial feats these past few weeks.

The ViewFactor Impero really is a fantastic product. I am quite pleased that I will be able to focus on lens mounts, rather than trying to develop an accessory that might only be as good as something that is already on the market and very reasonably priced.

More details in the next few days.
 
This is crazy fantastic ! You may not write often but,
when you do, it's Christmas !
GREAT !
 
The Impero is a fantastic product and you can rest assured that it can only get better.

The VFS boys are enterprising geniuses and they certainly have their priorities right.

Good news all around! Approved!

:biggrin:
 
CVB said:
I'm not sure it will go both ways. It all depends on how much time Erik has to goof around with our protocol. We will publish the commands for talking to Impero so I suppose its possible.

As for the current control scheme... yes, wireless.
Click to expand...

Based on this comment, I thought that the Imperos were already working wirelessly with viewfactors radios. Why do we need a different plug in radio module?

Either way, If Curt is still watching this thread, any info on the upgrade price for the impero? I'd like to have it ready to go for both the Birger mount and inclino motors from the start.
 
Paris Remillard said:
Based on this comment, I thought that the Imperos were already working wirelessly with viewfactors radios. Why do we need a different plug in radio module?

Either way, If Curt is still watching this thread, any info on the upgrade price for the impero? I'd like to have it ready to go for both the Birger mount and inclino motors from the start.
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Eric is using bluetooth for his wireless conection.... we are using zigbee. Bluetooth gives a range of about 30 feet, zigbee is more like 350-400 feet. The zigbee radio in the Impero is an interchangeable card that you can pop out and replace with a bluetooth module that Erik will provide. the idea is that when you change out the module to bluetooth it will make the impero directly talk to the birger mount.

The upgrade on our side is the receiver unit (which normally comes with the impero),a zigbee transceiver (which will replace the bluetooth transceiver that will come with Eriks version), and a universal 0.8 Mod clamp on gear. We haven't worked out the price yet but it will be reasonable and will allow you to hook up an Inclino for zoom to work in conjunction with the Birger. I'll have more details on this early next week as we are staying up 20/7 trying to get the Imperos and Inclinos out this week.
 
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