Large format/field camera movements on Red

[Martin Konrad]

Has anyone tried using a Red on the back of a large format camera. The real interest here are the movements and tilt/shift features. I am shooting a lot of table top product stuff and my main lens is the fantastic 90mm Schneider pc-ts but if there would be a way to get the Red on the back of a Linhof, arca swissen, sinar or a modded Fuji GX680 I would have access to a full range of lenses and camera movements. Has anyone tried to go there or is anybody willing to share the experiment?
The Fuji cameras can be sourced for quite cheap with 3-5 lenses that are very sharp but large format slow...

 

[Nick Gardner]

Not sure I follow you. You want to use a large format camera as a swing tilt lens on a red? Why not just use a swing tilt lens on a red?

Nick

 

[Misha Engel]

Why not just use these ones for large format lenses

https://optitek.org/products/new-pentax-645-to-red-cameras-adapter-with-speed-booster/

https://optitek.org/products/new-hasselblad-to-red-cameras-adapter-with-speed-booster/

 

[Nick Gardner]

If you are looking for more movements than the standard TS lens, perhaps try the Clairmonts? I think maybe this is what you are after -

https://www.schneideroptics.com/century/broadcast/SwingShift/SwingShift.htm

Nick

 

[Tom Gleeson]

Martin,

Check out the Horseman TS-Pro Its primarily designed to allow shift and tilt fuctionality and it gives you the control of a field camera but not the large format. I have attached a link https://vimeo.com/35739188 of a test shoot I did with the TS Horseman and Hassleblad lenses. As this was 2010 we mainly shot with a RedOne and a few shots PU shots from the first Epic with beta FW in the country which of course crapped out and so we press ganged a Nikon DSLR to finish our day. Looking back the Red One still looks good but the DSLR shots look so bad.

 

[Martin Konrad]

The Schneider optics and Horseman solutions are what I try to do but at a few thousand $ per lens... The Fuji GX680 lenses on the other hand can be found for very little... and they have a very good reputation amongst photogaphers who used them with high resolution digital backs.

 

[Ulf Krentz]

Martin, with REDs lens mount system it should be quite easy to adapt the brain to a LF camera. The problem I see is that the sensor is small and located deep inside, both will be very limiting for the actual use. The lenses designed for medium format or large format are not available in small focal length and will probably disappoint in optical performance. The mechanical movements will be very limited due to the recessed position of the sensor. This is from my experience from working as a photographer with a LF camera and a digital back. Might be worth a try, though. Nice work btw! Cheers, Ulf

 

[Martin Konrad]

Hello Ulf, yes I am quite aware the smaller sensor and reduced distances will be limiting. I remember going from 4/5" film to one of the early Sinar backs (23 if I remember right) everything movement became quite difficult. Still seems like a fun project to try.

 

[Martin Konrad]

Where in Germany are you?

 

[Ulf Krentz]

Ha, funny. That was my first digital back, too. If you still have a LF camera lying around it would probably be the easiest way to just bolt a pice of aluminium sized for the lens mount of the brain onto a spare lens plate and use this as camera back. At leat you'll get an excellent live view ;-) Still afraid movement will be extremely limited. Keep us posted if it works! We're based in Aachen, about 2,5h Thalys train ride. We just had a H/MU Team return to Paris yesterday! Cheers!

 

[Martin Konrad]

I am from Münster originally and sometimes drive home via Aachen as a good friend of mine lives there. Funny small world.

 

[Björn Benckert]

The sensors on red cameras are mounted far into the camera body so a LF TS system would not be possible to put on much angle as the port hole would then create vignetting.
Also as mentioned here the focal lengths needs to be rather short compared to what you got for LF systems so you would be way more tele than what you most liklely normally want.
Then using even a super high grade a large format lens on such small sensor will normally render quite shitty result. They are possibly really good but not when you only use such a small fraction of them due to the small sensor. For comparison take your best LF snapshot, then crop that down to 1/5 and you got monstro sensor size... Usually most large format guys does not like to leave 4/5 of their canvas on the cutting room floor, picture then looks not so good any more. The lenses are simply not optimized for the smaller format always best to strive for an image circle that just covers then you get most sharpens. The smaller the sensor you use the more important that rule gets. Shooting super8 with a great FF35 mm lens would simply not come out as good as a decent super 8 lens.



Most bang for buck I think is to get a red FD mount and get the canon FD TS lenses. If money is not a problem get the arri /ziess swing shift kit or the Schnider mentioned above with is a PL rehouse version of the FD´s.