I call Hot Rod Cameras Bluff with a $10,000 Bet (for Sharpest PL RF for Komodo)

[Björn Benckert]

Graham I think you need to take a moment.

If your product isn’t able to be shimmed to each individual camera then you’re dead in the water.

The hyperbolic claims about Cooke lens shims and degrees of precision are just making this all seem comical.

You’re pitching a product in a market where you admit you’re new.

You appear to be making a fundamental design mistake claiming to be sharper out of the box, a meaningless marketing phrase that will not sell any units and only make you seem naive.

If your product does something that we don’t compute or understand then you’re not doing a very good job of explaining it.

After reading this thread I still do not understand what your reference to Cooke lenses shims even means.

You make a mount Adaptor ?

Can it be adjusted or shimmed ? If the answe is no then your product is a dud

If your answer is to shim the lens itself using Cooke lens shims then your product is a dud.

If I have that wrong then you’re not doing a good job of communicating or marketing.

JB

I might be completly off. But as I understand the Breaktrough RF/PL mount adapter is possible to shim using the standard cooke shims. But yes the 10k USD claim here is that Grahams says his mount is perfectly made to spec and made to so low mesurment tolerances so its the best one out there, as his CNC machines works with such small tollerances... Well as Jacek, Dan and others with good knowledge has pointed out here, that claim does not mean anything. As the cameras are not accurate and you are suposed to adjust the mount adapter to sort that / you need to collimate your mount adapter before going to war. So what ever it is set to when shipped does not mean much.

Best would probably be to deliver the mount adapter dissembled / screwed appart together with a good set of shims and a little instruction how to set it up right, then there would maybe be less komodos floating around with poor backfocus.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

No CNC machine can make parts that defy the physics of thermal coefficients. Even if you used a material that was immune to thermals, no single item in the mix can magically make all the other parts perfect and 100% thermally stable.

Having worked with 8mm lenses on DSMC2 bodies in the field, I can report that being able to adjust the sensor position to compensate for environmental factors is crucial. According to a lens tech I work with, @8mm WFO, a FFD discrepancy of 1/500th of an inch is enough to buzz focus. Try shimming that in the field...

Cheers - #19

 

[Michael N. Sutton]

Either way the Breakthrough drop in PL and EF mounts and filters are not available to anyone but influencers. Many of us have been on waiting list or have canceled orders. If the product can't get into users hands then shim or no shim means nothing.

Maybe instead of battling other manufacturers and making wagers Breakthrough should focus on getting these products to market. Then let the people judge.

98% of the people that ordered Breakthrough Drop ins are getting tired of waiting.

 

[Björn Benckert]

why do you need shims if the camera has sensor adjustment? does Komodo have sensor adjustment?

No that's the thing you need to adjust the mount adapter.

 

[GrahamClark]

It was a surprise to have a PL RF Hot Rod mount delivered to our facility, upon inspection it's pretty good with a "C" shim by Cooke, that should get it near spec, if it's shimmable.

But out of the box it's not close, outperformed by Metabones.

Which under examination the two use what looks to be identical hardware, flocking material, down to the anodize color.

Nothing wrong with that, just an observation.

I can understand the disbelief without evidence, I'm the same way.

The numbers presented in this video aren't to be taken as fact.

To make conclusions out of this I would take side-by-side sharpness images and correlate it with the data.

Much in the same way color neutrality and light transmission correlate with spectrometer.

 

[Tim Daust]

To make conclusions out of this I would take side-by-side sharpness images and correlate it with the data.

I was surprised too. Here was my very first test comparing it to the Vocas PL to the Breakthrough

Seeing is believing that is for sure right?

 

[BrendanLeahy]

Wouldn't it be funny if, right when these were released to the general public, RED announced the DSMC3 with a different mounting system?

 

[Bruce Allen]

I'm pages into this thread and I still don't understand.

What shims does the Breakthrough Filters adapter come preinstalled with?

If it doesn't have any, then you can only shim the mount in one direction (by adding shims), right?

What if you need to go the other direction?

There is no clear info on this. All I see is some kind of argumentative dick measuring contest instead of info.

I'm kinda going to give up and move on at this point.

Bruce Allen
www.bruceallen.tv

 

[Björn Benckert]

It was a surprise to have a PL RF Hot Rod mount delivered to our facility, upon inspection it's pretty good with a "C" shim by Cooke, that should get it near spec, if it's shimmable.

But out of the box it's not close, outperformed by Metabones.

Which under examination the two use what looks to be identical hardware, flocking material, down to the anodize color.

Nothing wrong with that, just an observation.

I can understand the disbelief without evidence, I'm the same way.

The numbers presented in this video aren't to be taken as fact.

To make conclusions out of this I would take side-by-side sharpness images and correlate it with the data.

Much in the same way color neutrality and light transmission correlate with spectrometer.

Graham, just drop it and go send those 10k to a good cause.

Why do you write ”if its chimable”? Are you not even capable to see if the hot rod mount is chimable after you mesured it and hold it in your hand?

And again mount adapters should be made to fit all cameras with the given mount standard. And as you wrote your self in this very thread Canon and the others stray from the spec. and so does komodos. So the only right way to make a RF to PL mount adapter is to make i shorter then the spec and sell it with shims, then it can be adapted to any rf camera out there. If making it to spec without shims then likly you made a mount that is not usable with quite a few RF cameras out there, komodos included.

Flocking, vanta black interor or what ever made to add better contrast was not part of your bet. The duel you set your self up for was best backfocus and in this thread you made more than clear that you don’t understand that a mount adapter that have perfect to spec backfocus out of the box without shims is actually shit compared with an adapter that is sold with a short backfocus distance but comes with / is chimable to reach the spec distance and more. Your mount is simply less than half as good compared to the hot rod adapter in that regard.

So wellcome to Reduser Graham. The fact that your first post cost 10k usd must feel a bit rough. But you have to look at the positive side of this. As the knowledge you now gathered here, the fact that you need to grind your mounts a bit shorter and make em shimable is likly worth more than 10k USD.

Just imagine if you would have sent all those mount out for delivery, when all your customers been waiting for so long, just to have something like half of them returned by buyers who cant reach proper back focus with them. So 10k to realise you need to correct your stuff is likly a small sum in the bigger perspective.

 

[Björn Benckert]

I was surprised too. Here was my very first test comparing it to the Vocas PL to the Breakthrough

Seeing is believing that is for sure right?

Cant see your images Tim, but no what this thread is about can't be seen in images taken from a single camera and what instrument did you use to check that your lens and camera was perfectly collimated?

But lets not side stray this thread which should be about what is a good out of the box none shimmed RF to PL mount adapter back focus distance. The 10k question is if it should be short or exactly to spec.

And the answer to that, which any professional lens, camera or mount manufacturer would give is that short and chimable is better. Graham lost the bet simply put.

 

[Robert Hofmeyr]

Graham, just drop it and go send those 10k to a good cause.

Why do you write ”if its chimable”? Are you not even capable to see if the hot rod mount is chimable after you mesured it and hold it in your hand?

And again mount adapters should be made to fit all cameras with the given mount standard. And as you wrote your self in this very thread Canon and the others stray from the spec. and so does komodos. So the only right way to make a RF to PL mount adapter is to make i shorter then the spec and sell it with shims, then it can be adapted to any rf camera out there. If making it to spec without shims then likly you made a mount that is not usable with quite a few RF cameras out there, komodos included.

Flocking, vanta black interor or what ever made to add better contrast was not part of your bet. The duel you set your self up for was best backfocus and in this thread you made more than clear that you don’t understand that a mount adapter that have perfect to spec backfocus out of the box without shims is actually shit compared with an adapter that is sold with a short backfocus distance but comes with / is chimable to reach the spec distance and more. Your mount is simply less than half as good compared to the hot rod adapter in that regard.

So wellcome to Reduser Graham. The fact that your first post cost 10k usd must feel a bit rough. But you have to look at the positive side of this. As the knowledge you now gathered here, the fact that you need to grind your mounts a bit shorter and make em shimable is likly worth more than 10k USD.

Just imagine if you would have sent all those mount out for delivery, when all your customers been waiting for so long, just to have something like half of them returned by buyers who cant reach proper back focus with them. So 10k to realise you need to correct your stuff is likly a small sum in the bigger perspective.

Hey Björn. Graham did respond to you earlier in this thread saying:

We use the same shim system so you can to +/- up or down, stainless steel as well.

This implies that his mount is shimmable and that shims can be removed if necessary.

 

[Björn Benckert]

Hey Björn. Graham did respond to you earlier in this thread saying:



This implies that his mount is shimmable and that shims can be removed if necessary.

Bjorn,

100% 316 shim set, just like Cooke's shim set.

We use the same shim system so you can to +/- up or down, stainless steel as well.

The crux of it is simple – our PL RF Komodo was designed to be critically sharp out of the box, no need to add shims if your PL glass is collimated to spec.

Basically it reduces 3 variables of the equation down to 1.

The result is the camera resolves sharper than you thought possible.

It's easier to see side-by-side comparisons of results from filmmakers than for me to say anything about what could be, I agree to that.

My last try. As no camera is the same... you need to check back focus when you add Grahams adapter into your setup just as you need to do for any other adapter as the chances are more likely that your RF camera, Komodo, Canon or what have you, will not have perfect back focus out of the box and especially not after some usage, and yes it also shifts due to temperature.

 

[Robert Hofmeyr]

My last try. As no camera is the same... you need to check back focus when you add Grahams adapter into your setup just as you need to do for any other adapter as the chances are more likely that your RF camera, Komodo, Canon or what have you, will not have perfect back focus out of the box and especially not after some usage, and yes it also shifts due to temperature.

Sure. I was just pointing out that you and others were telling Graham he must make his mounts shimmable, but it seems they are already shimmable. I could be wrong.

 

[Tim Daust]

Cant see your images Tim, but no what this thread is about can't be seen in images taken from a single camera and what instrument did you use to check that your lens and camera was perfectly collimated?

But lets not side stray this thread which should be about what is a good out of the box none shimmed RF to PL mount adapter back focus distance. The 10k question is if it should be short or exactly to spec.

And the answer to that, which any professional lens, camera or mount manufacturer would give is that short and chimable is better. Graham lost the bet simply put.

Yes, had some issues with my image hosting and have been on set working and couldn’t fix it. It’s fixed now..

Used my Tokina vista primes which are collimated by a local lens tech.

 

[Bob Gundu]

Wouldn't it be funny if, right when these were released to the general public, RED announced the DSMC3 with a different mounting system?

I guarantee the next RED cameras will not share the same system.

 

[Bruce Allen]

Sure. I was just pointing out that you and others were telling Graham he must make his mounts shimmable, but it seems they are already shimmable. I could be wrong.

It seems to be shimmable... but he is writing about how perfect his mount is out of the box?! So it's confusing because if it's perfect out of the box without shims, it means you can only add shims, not subtract, right? So your mount can only be corrected in one direction.

The other mounts are designed not to be "perfect", but to need shims. This is a good thing. Because you can add OR REMOVE shims to bring them into line in either direction. If you need to compensate if the camera is a little out of spec. Caused by things like temperature variation, paint thickness, normal use, etc...

If you start with a mount "perfect" without shims... you're kinda stuffed because you can't remove shims.

I don't understand the tests. They don't seem to be shot in good faith. I mean if you intentionally want to make the other mounts look bad, you can not shim. Is that what he is doing? If the other mounts are not properly shimmed, how is that an honest test?

It's like comparing between Alexa ProRes properly white balanced and RED with clip decode settings to 8000 Kelvin for everything. Huh?

I remain confused by this thread because there is no real info.

Asking again: what default shims does the Breakthrough mount come preinstalled with? None? If so, that's an issue.

Phil Holland - you're the guy testing the mount, you want to help clear this up? Seems like the first thing I would check if I were testing a mount. Maybe they have you in some weird NDA though?

Bruce Allen
www.bruceallen.tv

 

[John Brawley]

It seems to be shimmable...

So far I've seen mostly avoiding the question and then a single response, that somehow makes a vague reference to cooke shims. I'm not sure what that even means. Same in the video. I don't understand comparing to Cooke. When did they become the gold standard ?

but he is writing about how perfect his mount is out of the box?! So it's confusing because if it's perfect out of the box without shims, it means you can only add shims, not subtract, right? So your mount can only be corrected in one direction.

Agreed. Again, no clarification of how / if the mount is swimmable and what to me are constant pointless references to how perfect it is out of the box, when we all know that's irrelevant.

I don't understand the tests. They don't seem to be shot in good faith. I mean if you intentionally want to make the other mounts look bad, you can not shim. Is that what he is doing? If the other mounts are not properly shimmed, how is that an honest test?

It's a laughable to me. Theres no optics here. These are mechanical adaptors. So if a mount that's designed to be shimmed isn't shimmied to the INDIVIDUAL camera, then you're showing an un-adjusted mount ?

It's like saying you're going to shoot sharpness tests of a brand new lens out of the box at whatever the focus distance is set to out of the box and see how sharp it is at infinity. It's a pointless exercise isn't it ?

I remain confused by this thread because there is no real info.

Which is a red flag in my view. If you can't address those questions then you're avoiding them. That's a problem.

Asking again: what default shims does the Breakthrough mount come preinstalled with? None? If so, that's an issue.

I'd like to know this too because it's still unclear to me despite it being asked about by several in this thread.

JB

 

[Vance Colvig]

Another variable is temperature. The agreed upon "standard temperature" in the world of aviation is 15C degrees or 59F. How long will the reference/test Komodo be warmed up, if at all and what will the ambient temperature be during the test? What will the target sensor temperature be? How many hours will the test Komodo have and what conditions has the test camera been subjected to since leaving the factory and could these even be factors in sensor to flange distance variations? Sadly the RF mount on Komodo is spring tensioned and not positive lock which offers another variable, however is addressable with an awkward "chin" support.

 

[GrahamClark]

Graham I think you need to take a moment....

If I have that wrong then you’re not doing a good job of communicating or marketing.

JB

It's critically sharp out of the box, and you can shim it from there. That's it.

 

[GrahamClark]

Best would probably be to deliver the mount adapter dissembled / screwed appart together with a good set of shims and a little instruction how to set it up right, then there would maybe be less komodos floating around with poor backfocus.

I appreciate your thoughtful responses and suggestions.

In my opinion you're making something simple out to be quite complex.

Side-by-side results from filmmakers is where the rubber hits the road.