Canon broadcast ENG lens on a Scarlet?

[Cameron Dunlop]

I don't know much about broadcast ENG lens other than the fact they have a handy tight/wide button to zoom. I am more used to that way of zooming than the ring of a still or cinema lens. Just curious if the ENG lenses can be used on the Scarlet. A quick google made it sound like there may be an after market adaptor to adapt a Canon EF mount to an ENG lenses. Can anyone explain why this can or can not work with Scarlet? And if it can, what are the trade offs?

 

[Noah Yuan-Vogel]

It's definitely possible, and dumb EF to B4 adapters are readily available, but most ENG lenses are designed to cover 2/3" sensors, which means you will likely get hard vignetting even in 2K. The way around this is to get an ENG lens with a built in 2x extender, and if you use the 2x extender mode, the lens should cover 3K. But then there is the issue of powering the lens since the servo zoom function requires power, this may just require a special power cable or power supply/adapter to get it to power off d-tap or lemo or whatever power you have available on your rig.

I generally don't recommend ENG lenses, and find them to significantly sacrifice image quality for a long zoom range, but it depends on the lens I imagine some people will find it them useful. Remember the 2x extender will double the focal length and the f-stop.

There are also other adapter solutions like Abel's HDx35 which will allow ENG lenses to cover 4k, but those are designed for PL mount cameras and have a 2.5x extender built in (loses 3-stops). Remember you will never really get better performance on these lenses on S35 than you get with them on a 2/3" camera...

 

[Dave Blackham]

The HDx35 and Abekas 260 adaptors work well. Your best lens in my view is a HJ21 which faster than an HJ18, depending on the focal length needed.

There is also an HDx2 which projects a smaller image circle than a HDx35 but has less light loss. For some lenses the HDx2 may work suitably but its down to the image circle the B4 lens projects as the HDx2 just double's the size of the image circle so far as I recall. Beware though all of these adaptors loose light which may or may not be acceptable. Interestingly they hold up very well optically, theres no noticeable loss of resolution from the original lens from the rough tests we did with them.

With our HJ21 cine lens it resolves some where approaching 4k which is much better than we hoped.

You do need to set back focus up very well on the B4 mount in to the adaptor and also collumate the camera mount to get best results.

Also make sure the actual lens you use is a good example, Some are better than others. Longer lenses work much better than wide lenses. Wide lenses can be better catered for more easily with lenses designed for large sensor cameras. Its a good way of getting a lens with extended zoom range.

 

[Cameron Dunlop]

I thought it might go done a path like this. I might be better offer just getting a shoulder rig to free up my hands to zoom and focus.