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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 :)

Laforet + EPIC + Canon Mount + 600mm

Jarred Land

Jarred Land

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Congrats Vincent! Amazing shots.
I cannot wait until my Epix-X ships and that mount comes out...
 
Awesome, at 2k would that make it equivalent to 2400mm?
 
Thanks for the kind words everyone! I'd love for someone to confirm my math w/ the lens conversion. I did mine w/ pCam - but given that I shot at 4K it gets a little complicated.

Here's what I'd love to share about the RED Canon EF mount:

I feel the same way about it as I did when I initially got my Epic: the hardest part is not sounding like a total fan boy... the mount is everything I could have asked for.

The build is fantastic. The rotating lens mechanism can support the EF lens mount/glass in the same way you'd expect a PL mount to perform.

What had me simply floored was the fact that there isn't a single cable / connector to deal with when swapping mounts. It's simply a brilliant design. If you had a Nascar crew with a TORX drill - you could literally swap the mounts out in under 10 seconds. Realistically I take about a minute to two to do it. You need to unscrew 4 TORX screws, pull the mount off, align the new one and put the four screws back. That's it. I've done it in the field a number of times - and as long as you're careful and take care not to drop one of the screws on the exposed aliasing filter - you're good to go. You'll of course want to watch for dust in the same manner you would with any lens swap of course. I travel w/ both mounts in my case and don't hesitate to swap them.

There is an obvious advantage to this mount for many of us: I own a crap load of Canon glass. While the wider angle lenses won't compete with the top cine glass - anything over a 85mm is going to be extremely competitive at least optically.

So is there a catch? Not on the RED side no. For those of us who have shot HDSRLs - it's going to feel extremely familiar: all the same challenges apply. While pulling focus w/ the EVF or LCD is done at a significantly higher resolution display then say a 5D MKII - the 5K resolution of the chip really makes you yearn for cine glass. The focus is incredibly critical. One example: I pointed at the ceiling of a room on one shot with a Zeiss ZE 35mm 1.4. I went 1:1 on the LCD and pointed the camera at a beam about 6 feet above. I was stunned to see that you could tell the difference between the bottom of the 1 foot beam being in focus and the top part... now THAT's CRITICAL focus and speaks to the incredible size and resolution of the sensor.

That being said: it's far from impossible. And I know many of us will love carrying around our tilt-shift lenses, our fisheyes, and our super-telephoto glass. The Zeiss 35mm 1.4 I played with was scary good. If I didn't need to pull focus on actors or hit marks...man... what an incredible lens/weight/size/max aperture lens!

The IS function is just wonderful. The mount I was using is now with another shooter - and I wish I had had more time to work with this function. I love the 24~290 2.6 Optimo as much as any other shooter in the world - but you need a crew to shoot with that beast. It's very realistic to shoot with a Canon 500mm to an 800mm solo in my opinion - although I'll never turn down the chance to work with a 1st AC no matter what I'm shooting with.... While focus is challenging - it's a lot better than I had expected. The real jewel is the IS however. When combined with a good fluid head (my O'Connor 1030HD handle the weigh nicely!) you look like a rock star. And I haven't seen too many cine lenses out there w/ IS ;)

RED also has digital aperture control of the IRIS on the Canon lenses - and even a nifty distance readout which is pretty impressive.

So people are going to love this mount. It's going to be indispensable for many - and I'd wager one of the top selling accessories RED sells.

As far as optical quality of the Canon glass vs Cine - I need to do more benchmark tests. I've found that both Cine glass performance and Canon glass performance can be a bit all over the place and I don't want to make any general statements just yet. The 5K sensor is so sharp is shows EVERY flaw of EVERY lens.

Then there's the implementation of AF and touch to focus etc. I didn't have enough time to play with this - but I will say I was impressed. The system performed much better than what I've seen on many other AF video systems.

I like you all - can't wait to get my hands on one of these mounts (again) ASAP!

Pretty amazing...
 
I haven't no other than on the trade show floor ... the new series is definitely a bit lighter...
 
Great news to see the Canon mount being tested out there in the wild! It's a pity you had only a short period of time with the mount. I would love to hear more about the AF and touch to focus implementations. You mentioned how critical focus is on the Epic 5k sensor and I was hoping for the AF system to help with that a lot of simple shots - if it indeed will work as advertised.

Thanks a lot for your detailed report, it was a very interesting read!
 
Yep.

Taking the time to be generous with your experiences also will save us all a lot of time and headaches.

I really appreciate your thoughful and considered opinion.

It helps the whole community.

David
 
Thanks a lot for sharing valuable info!

Much appreachiated

Makes me consider going not all PL...

I am a hard sell on that

But this sounds like fun!

:-)

Cheers

G
 
Thanks for sharing (love it)
 
Nice work RED for the mount and Vincent for the video.

Jarred, Now where is my Canon mount :-)
 
Vincent Laforet said:
I haven't no other than on the trade show floor ... the new series is definitely a bit lighter...
Click to expand...

Yes, re the new 600 f4 II-IS (coming Dec /11 apparently). It looks a bit shorter, too... but I just bought 5 Canon primes for less money, so it's not in the budget right now! Possibly a good rental next year, though.
 
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