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Contax to Nikon or RED?

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cinemano

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Hello

Anyone know of a COntax adapter for the RED? or PL Mount?

How about Contax adapter for the Nikon Mount?

I know its been done but hard to find. Also know about the focal distance issue. Maybe some Russian company makes them?

thanks.. George
 
Not 100% sure but I don't think it's possible. The back focus distance on Nikon is 46.5mm and 45.5mm on the Contax (and 52mm on PL). You can only make an adapter for a lens to fit a camera body with a smaller back focus distance as the thickness of the mount adapter will move the lens to the correct distance. So for example you've always had adapters to put Nikon lenses on Aaton cameras (40mm back focus) but never Nikon to PL. No reason you couldn't make a RED mount to Contax though, just like the Nikon mount though you'd have to remove the PL and bolt the Contax mount on.
Steve
 
Funny coincident - I am just researching the same issue.

What I´ve come up with so far are these 3 solutions:

1.) The Birger Mount (due to ship any day [which it has been for a while]), which gives you a Canon EOS mount. There are plenty adapters available converting the Contax Mount to the Canon. Ebay is a friendn here ;)

2.) The P+S Technik Universal Mount adapter, which is currently tested in Munich. P+S offers a multitude of adapters for their Mount system, and Contax/Yashica is just one of the many.

3.) Wait for Birger, Red, or someone else to come up with a native Contax mount converter.

Bottom line: there is no shipping solution yet, but 2 of them are just around the corner. Since currently ordered Reds won´t ship before the end of the year, there is plenty of "next week" delays for the Birger and the P+S to hope that they will be available by then.
 
The RED Nikon front looks like a fairly simple metal adapter with holes in it for allen bolts, you might just be able to get a precision engineer (or ideally a camera engineer like Les Bosher or Mike Tapa) to machine one for you. This is the route I tend to go down when get mount adapter, support plates etc. as often there is nothing suitable off the shelf out there and if there is often it's pretty crap. These precision engineers tend to do a phenominal job.
Steve
 
Contax works fine on Birger. Also AquaVideo or Doug Underdahl to make C/Y mount

Contax works fine on Birger. Also AquaVideo or Doug Underdahl to make C/Y mount

cinemano said:
Hello

Anyone know of a COntax adapter for the RED? or PL Mount?

How about Contax adapter for the Nikon Mount?

I know its been done but hard to find. Also know about the focal distance issue. Maybe some Russian company makes them?

thanks.. George
Click to expand...

Contax works very well on the Birger Canon EOS mount with a $20 adapter. I got a prototype version of the Birger mount (which used the standard ef mount they have made for 6-7 years) and since you needed a computer or PDA to control the electronics I just used it as a dumb mount with my C/Y lenses. We shot the shuttle launch (STS-122) with a C/Y Zeiss 300mm and it worked very well. You can see the footage if you search for the STS122 thread. It is up on REDRELAY as raw footage as well. (copyrighted but ok to use for testing/sample footage.)

Also K9000 shot a three week feature using my RED 206 and C/Y lenses. I had the 50 f 1.4 Zeiss (which I suspect is just as sharp as a Cine lens). We were literally buying Zeiss C/Y lenses on ebay throughout the shoot and ended up with 25 2.8, 85 1.4 and a short zoom. All are excellent both optically and mechanically and I like them better than the nikons because they focus in the right direction and tend to have much longer focus throws. Focus throw on the 85 and 300 are almost 360 degrees.

I talked to Doug Underdahl at NAB about making direct C/Y mounts and it should be quite easy to do. I have a CNC so was going to make some blanks, but haven't finished yet. You might want to contact Doug first as he is both better at this and probably quicker.

I have a few extension tubes as well as an old camera body to steal mounts from but if anyone has a source for more let me know. We can use the adapters also but would be nice to have just the regular mount.
 
May be this helps. You can always prolong but naturally not shorten the backfocus.
This is the reason you can use a Nikon on an Birer Mount but not a Connon on the Red Nikon mount.
For details see the list:

PL 52.0mm

Hasselblad 74,9
Pentacon Six 74,1
Nikon 46,5
Olympus OM 46,0
Contarex 46,0 M42 45,5
Pentax K 45,5
Contax RTS 45,5
Petri 45,5
Ricoh 45,5
Yashica FR, FX 45,5
Voigtländer 44,7
Topcon 44,7
Ikarex BM 44,7
Exakta 44,7
Rollei 35 44,7
Canon EOS 44,0
Minolta MD 43,5
Minolta AF 44,5
Canon FD/FL 42,0
Konica Autoreflex 40,5
Alpa Bajonett 37,8
Miranda 31,5
Leica Schraub 28,8
Canon Schraub 28,8
Leica M 27,8
Leica R 47,0
 
Steve Phillipps said:
The RED Nikon front looks like a fairly simple metal adapter with holes in it for allen bolts, you might just be able to get a precision engineer (or ideally a camera engineer like Les Bosher or Mike Tapa) to machine one for you. This is the route I tend to go down when get mount adapter, support plates etc. as often there is nothing suitable off the shelf out there and if there is often it's pretty crap. These precision engineers tend to do a phenominal job.
Steve
Click to expand...
Les Bosher made our Nikon mount for us, as we couldn't wait for the Red version. As ever with Les' work, it is excellent quality, and was actually about £50 cheaper to boot!

No doubt he would be able to make a C/Y mount for the Red if asked...
 
Yeah, top man Les, I've known him a long time and his work is second to none. Only small hitch is that he tends to get pretty busy (very small company) so sometimes you need to allow a bit of time for the job.
Steve
 
Peter, I thought the Birger mount worked because it's got an optic in it. Once you start introducing optics the back focus distances become less relevant. BUT you're suffering quality loss, a tiny bit of light loss and a bit of image magnification.
Steve
 
Birger doesn't have an optic in it.

Birger doesn't have an optic in it.

Steve Phillipps said:
Peter, I thought the Birger mount worked because it's got an optic in it. Once you start introducing optics the back focus distances become less relevant. BUT you're suffering quality loss, a tiny bit of light loss and a bit of image magnification.
Steve
Click to expand...

Birger doesn't have an optic in it - and you don't need an optic for any of the lens types with longer ffd (flange focal distance) like Nikon, contax yashica, M42 (pentax, Leica, etc.) as I have used them all on my birger mount (as well as my canon 40D) just fine.

The Canon EOS EF mount is great as far as adapting because it has the shortest ffd (44mm) and is physically larger in diameter than almost everything so it is very easy to make a simple adapter ring to mount on the Canon EF mount and the birger is just a Canon EF mount with all of the electronics inside it but you can use it with totally manual lenses from all of the above with a $20 adapter you can get on ebay among other places.

The only common lens type that needs an optic is (ironically) the old Canon FD lenses which has only a 42mm ffd.
 
Conurus in Vancouver converts the Contax Zeiss N series to EOS. Bo Ming is the owner. They do great work and are totally dependable. They converted the 17-35, 24-85, and the 100 for me. All automatic/manual. If you go with the older manual lenses, as in the 28mm Distagon, an adapter can be purchased on ebay. Make sure they state infinity focus.
 
redsail said:
Conurus in Vancouver converts the Contax Zeiss N series to EOS. Bo Ming is the owner. They do great work and are totally dependable. They converted the 17-35, 24-85, and the 100 for me. All automatic/manual. If you go with the older manual lenses, as in the 28mm Distagon, an adapter can be purchased on ebay. Make sure they state infinity focus.
Click to expand...

Do you have a website address for them?
 
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