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Lens Tech question

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Finner

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So there are a few fairly high level Lens Techs floating around here. What I am wondering is if taking a set of leica, nikons, ziess or even cannon still lenses and remounting them to a PL mount is even possible. I am not talking about a complete lens re-housing just pulling off the still mount and placing on permanent PL mounts. This may be a stupid question because it may not even be physically possible. If it is though I could see the first company offering this standing a chance to do very well.
 
1 cents worth til somebody that actually knows something responds.

1 cents worth til somebody that actually knows something responds.

Finner said:
So there are a few fairly high level Lens Techs floating around here. What I am wondering is if taking a set of leica, nikons, ziess or even cannon still lenses and remounting them to a PL mount is even possible. I am not talking about a complete lens re-housing just pulling off the still mount and placing on permanent PL mounts. This may be a stupid question because it may not even be physically possible. If it is though I could see the first company offering this standing a chance to do very well.
Click to expand...

Here's my 1 cents worth til somebody that actually knows something responds.

I was testing some lenses with Jorge from Cinematechnic last week and wondered about that with the Yashica/contax mount 300mm Zeiss I have.

In briefly talking about it, I gather the issue is on many lenses is the iris mechanism has to be moved because the FFD on most still lenses is 44 to 47 mm and pl is 52. It seems like some of those long teles or zooms are pretty easy because you can just chop the end off and put a pl mount on it. I.E. on the teles you have a lot of tube before you get to the actual lens elements and iris mechanism. But it seems like a 50mm might be harder.

Again, just a teaser to think about til somebody that actually knows something responds.
 
What Aqua said.

It's not the mounts that are hard to replace, its the fact the iris would sit so buried it would practically need a rehousing to make it work. If it was possible don't you think some cheap bastard in the 80's would have done it?
 
Mike Prevette said:
don't you think some cheap bastard in the 80's would have done it?
Click to expand...

... and that cheap bastard might have been me...:biggrin:

Finner, I salute what you are trying to do - one of my fetishes is trying to figure a better, cheaper way to do things... that's why I LOVE the idea of the Birger mount (and hope the execution lives up to the concept) but I suspect you have a higher grade clientele that might be put out if you don't show up with PL glass.
 
what aqua said ...

not that i know better ... i talked to a very nice gentleman from dedo weigert two weeks ago, he did a lot of rehousing of long still lenses for nature / wildlife filmmakers and he explained, that is is less of a problem with longer lenses or zooms (Euro 3000,- to 5000,-).

if you have a short lens, you physically have to chop into the back part of the lens, that is one of the reasons you have to do a rehousing.

he would also do rehouse a short zoom, and he would consider BULK rehousing to make it chaper for red users - but he is not making an offer without judging the lens by eye first.

still searching ... regards,
martin
 
Chopping off the end of the lens changes the length at which the glass is closer to the sensor, or film depending on the case, then it connects to the camera, making the focus marks in feet or meters be off? I don't know if this is right though... Please correct me if I'm wrong, thanks.
 
Tenshredd7 said:
Chopping off the end of the lens changes the length at which the glass is closer to the sensor, or film depending on the case, then it connects to the camera, making the focus marks in feet or meters be off? I don't know if this is right though... Please correct me if I'm wrong, thanks.
Click to expand...

Not correct. Your making the depth proper for the mount system you are using. If you do that, then footage scales will correspond as they should.
 
I get this question all the time. The absolute minimum clearance needed to put a PL mount on the back of a lens is 54mm from the image plane, plus at least 0.1mm for shims. And that's really pushing it. You would need a custom mount.

Almost all of the still camera lenses have shorter flange focal distances than that. Nikon for example is 46.5mm. So you would have to "eat" away 8mm from the back of the lens. And that's where the iris drive is. No wonder no one has done it (except for long primes where the iris drive can be more readily relocated).

There are no cheap easy solutions (or it would already have been done).
 
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