Generic Front for Epic/Scarlet to allow almost any lens mount

[Michael Hastings]

From another thread:

No plans for a Minolta mount anytime soon.. unless alot of people suddenly start raising their hands

Jarred: Could RED make us sort of a generic front with a face and a bolt pattern that would allow easy attachment of various mounts? Think of the add on mounts as something like the RED nikon mount but the generic front would be short enough to accommodate the various Flange focal lengths like the 44mm FD and EF mounts. Should be very easy to make this short enough to get 38mm which would cover almost all of the common slr formats and even four-thirds at 38.67.

Alternate lens mount adapters for any of these less common mounts would then be very easy to make for us that have CNC mills and lathes - and wouldn't require any dismantling of RED parts to attach. Seems like this piece could be like the standard rectangular front but without the electrical contacts and therefore wouldn't have any electrical interface issues/dangers.

The ideal, if possible, would be to make the generic front with the same bolt pattern and distance to the sensor as is on the REDONE (which looks to me to be about 19m) then anything made for the REDONE would work (maybe add a couple blind holes for locator pins). I know it sounds like I'm shilling for Birger but, besides that benefit for a couple hundred Birger users, it would mean we could also easily do all of the mounts all the way down to LeicaM and even micro four-thirds.

I'm particularly interested in this for the 645 version so we can use 645 lenses like Contax Zeiss or Hasselblad, Mamiya, Pentax etc. Besides shooting 9K Imax/medium format style motion and still pictures, I think RED may find that there are significant scientific, industrial, and military applications for something like this.

 

[Karl Gustav H.]

I was trying to describe something like this in the Birger thread.

I think that it's a fantastic idea; it keeps any mount electrically separate from the body, hopefully preventing any warranty concerns.

It would kinda be the ultimate evolution of the cheeseplate.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Jarred: Could RED make us sort of a generic front with a face and a bolt pattern that would allow easy attachment of various mounts? Think of the add on mounts as something like the RED nikon mount but the generic front would be short enough to accommodate the various Flange focal lengths like the 44mm FD and EF mounts. Should be very easy to make this short enough to get 38mm which would cover almost all of the common slr formats and even four-thirds at 38.67.

I think that's what they have done. The mounts look like they attach to the front of the camera via a flat, square plate and 4 bolts.

[/quote]I'm particularly interested in this for the 645 version so we can use 645 lenses like Contax Zeiss or Hasselblad, Mamiya, Pentax etc. Besides shooting 9K Imax/medium format style motion and still pictures, I think RED may find that there are significant scientific, industrial, and military applications for something like this.[/QUOTE]

Can't wait to get my hands on the 645... I've got a really nice set of Mamiya 645 AF lenses. Only one I'm missing is the 28mm... I should probably pick one up, but it's pretty expensive, I guess I'm holding out for a good deal on a used one... Never seems to happen.

 

[Michael Hastings]

Jeff:

I think that's what they have done. The mounts look like they attach to the front of the camera via a flat, square plate and 4 bolts

You would probably still need to remove the normal pl version from the camera to install a generic version for a lot of mounts, AND there is the electrical connection behind. Also there is probably a lip or some other protrusion on either the body, the frontplate or both to make a tighter fit, and, regardless of that, it is harder to make the rectangular piece. But it would be easy for RED to make an additional casting or machine part for the rectangular front as long they are setting up to do it for the PL mount anyway. I would think they could charge $500 - $1000 and make normal or better profit margins.

It is a LOT easier to just make a circular piece from holobar stock cut to approximate length and faced off, then put in the four holes and all you are really doing is adding the indent and screw holes for the actual mount. So for example we could make 50 "donuts" with the mount holes (and locator pin holes if used) approx 30mm long (if they used the R1 19mm spec) and you could make a mount for virtually any 35mm camera lens with the mount from an old camera or extension tube in an hour or two. Even for more popular mounts like FD or Contax/Yashica it would save time and money. When the time comes for 645 it would just be a longer donut.

We would be fine with making the front rectangular piece too because we can charge for it, but then we still have the warranty issue.

The main thing here is that, if RED makes that front, they are covering both the sensor (or OLPF, which may have to be in the front plate) and the electrical contacts so there is no real danger to the camera itself. At that point putting a different dumb mount on isn't really any different than mounting any other accessory.

This came up originally because someone asked about a mount for minolta lenses. Well there just isn't enough demand for someone to go through making a whole frontplate/mount for just a few of them. But Minolta did actually make some pretty good glass and it is practically free now on ebay and craigslist. With the donut concept it would be feasible to make even a one off part for just a few hundred dollars.

To me a part of the RED concept/philosophy was/is to allow us to use the highest quality (ie. cine PL) lenses when budget allows, but also to make it extremely affordable by making obsolescence obsolete AND by allowing the use of high quality, inexpensive still lenses like Canon FD, Nikon, etc.

I understand very well how the reality of the R1 made the trade up Epic-X program the better solution for the obsolescence equation AND I understand why they dropped the Canon FD mount and have been very hesitant to authorize other mounts that expose the i/cable. But something like what I am proposing would go a long way toward realizing the original philosophy and at the same time eliminating the liability/warranty issue.

Can't wait to get my hands on the 645... I've got a really nice set of Mamiya 645 AF lenses. Only one I'm missing is the 28mm... I should probably pick one up, but it's pretty expensive, I guess I'm holding out for a good deal on a used one... Never seems to happen.

What do you think of the Mamiya stuff. I have been extremely impressed with the quality of the C/Y 35mm lenses I bought so was looking at Contax Zeiss for 645 - but the widest Contax goes is a 35mm which is okay but not superwide. That 28 Mamiya would seem like a sexy beast for my underwater. The other question is do they have manual iris rings (the contax AF do) which is kind of critical because I doubt if we can count on anyone making a smart mount for them.