New mount...

[Eryc Tramonn]

I don't think that is a fair statement. The original mount works just like all film cameras... it was shim based. Every RED ONE out there with the old mount can be adjusted to be perfect. But all mounts need to be checked and adjusted for "feature film" perfection. And the shim based systems only allow trained professionals to do it. Add in the need for a complete set of shims for any technician to do it and you have a recipe for delays and disappointment.

Soderbergh's 1st AC checked the mount every single day while shooting two movies on RED prototypes. He never adjusted the mounts once (he did adjust all of them prior to the beginning of the shoot).

Our old mount was not flawed, although the setup of some of them was, which meant they had to be reset. I just did not like the concept of "it has always been done this way, so let's keep doing it that way. This mount is better. Much better. That speaks to the core philosophy of RED.

Jim

Jim's spittin' fiyahhhh. Hahahaha. Nice.

 

[Ketch Rossi]

And looks as sexy as ever!

Ciao,

KETCH ROSSI
www.KETCHFRAME.com

Here is the new adjustable PL mount for the RED ONE. It rocks pretty hard!

Jim

 

[Jaime Vallés]

hey dont be knocking the glamour shots

Trust me.. i spent alot of time trying to break the new mount, its pretty tough..

Great shot, Jarred! But, what's up with the jagged edges in the photo? It looks like it was shot with a Sony camera! :bleh:

 

[Jarred Land]

dont know what happened there... Something happened when Jim uploaded it.. try this one.

 

[Craig Bowman]

Smmmooooooth!

 

[Jaime Vallés]

dont know what happened there... Something happened when Jim uploaded it.. try this one.

Now we're talkin'! Very nice, Jarred. :sorcerer:

 

[Rainer Fritz]

so what we found at shooting was, that the ring of the mount to tighten had no end point. so when no lens is on the mount the ring was going through... is that now the same on the new mount ????

regards
rainer

 

[Casey Green]

dont know what happened there... Something happened when Jim uploaded it.. try this one.

Looks great, Jarred. Out of curiosity, what is the difference between making the mount with a glossy finish as opposed to a flat or textured one? - or was this just for aesthetics?

(BTW, I do like the glossy finish).

 

[chuck colburn]

All the flat black rattle cans got used up spraying graffiti on the walls over at Sony.

 

[Babu Kantamneni]

I am very exited about all this.. I do not have a complete understanding of it all yet, but very excited.

Jay

Ditto

 

[Mitch Gross]

For SURE.

Please take your camera to a PROFESSIONAL RENTAL HOUSE.

This is a PROFESSIONAL camera - not a point and shoot camcorder.

Put it on a collimator bench. Check it. Adjust it if need be. Lock it down.

Don't fiddle. Please don't fiddle.

Don't adjust "in the field" - unless you HAVE to - (you shouldn't) and you have a field collimator (Red should make one) -

I don't want to start a pissin' contest or call anything a bad design, but please oh please heed Mark's advice. Just because it is physically easier to do it now doesn't mean that it is something you should do yourself. Setting correct depth is something measured in microns and with a very tight tolerance. At RED's request, Abel helped out a few local RED owners who needed their mounts shimmed. It took a lot of time and we had to use some fairly sophisticated equipment with trained technicians to get it just right. With the new mount we could get it just right in a much quicker time, so that makes the service fairly inexpensive and I applaud RED for this. But if you choose to do this in the field yourself it is a recipe for disaster and you're likely to end up with lots of soft, unusable images.

You don't have to go to Abel and I'm not trying to drum up business. There are plenty of rental houses who could do this work with little difficulty and at little expense to you. But it is a mistake to take it on yourself, at least in my humble opinion.

Just because it is easier to do it yourself now doesn't mean you're any more properly prepared to do it yourself. We any of you planning on getting a set of shims from RED and resetting the old mount anytime?

Mitch Gross
Technical Director of Rentals
Abel Cine Tech

 

[Irri]

If this mount is as good as the ones in Arri/Aaton/PV cameras I’ll be very happy because I’ve never had a problem with one. They seem to hold their accuracy for ages. I can’t remember ever finding one off enough to have to go into service.

I didn’t get on too well with the port of the Phantom. It took me a whole minute to get the lock to work on an Ultra Prime, though the Cookes seemed to show less resistance. It also wasn’t shimmed quite right which was okay when we were on a 135mm, but was 2 metres out on a 50mm! (subject was 7 metres from gate, estimating from an HD monitor I set the lens to 5 metres). To be fair to the Phantom, the 1000fps stuff looks nice.

 

[Kyle Mallory]

I might find myself dodging flaming darts with this one, but I'm going to suggest that, while proper back-focus is important, that in the RED's case, the nature of performing back-focus calibrations is not as "professional" as it might be for a film camera. Why?

Because unlike in a film camera, the imaging plane is the same for the recorded image as for the viewing plane (since no video tap, no ground glass, etc). In other words, with a careful eye, an accurate test chart/lens, and monitoring a 1-to-1 magnified image on an external monitor, you should be able to get the back-focus, visually, as good as any 'professional' could do.

I won't discount the notion that its not important.. that its not critically important even, just the notion that with a little bit of patience, the proper tools, and the new RED mount, anyone slightly more skilled than a camera monkey should be able to do it, perhaps even in the field.

 

[Babu Kantamneni]

Here is the new adjustable PL mount for the RED ONE. It rocks pretty hard!

Jim

Does this mean you are letting the babies on the racks out quickly.Lot of guys should be happy thia holiday season

 

[Cloudchaser]

PL Conversions

PL Conversions

On my S16 camera I've seen problems before with lenses that were converted to PL mount. At least one company made the adapters a hair thicker than factory PL mounts, and a "properly" set up camera wouldn't be able to rotate the PL mount to close. Some rental houses adjusted the PL mounts on their cameras to match the adapters, but I was never clear on whether that meant the mount was less secure for factory PL lenses.

Keep in mind this is a totally different issue than the 52mm flange focal depth, which was the same on the lenses with the thicker mount adapters.

David

Hi
Don't want to dwell on the old, but quite interested in this. I was involved in trying to prefect one of the mounts and managed to get to a stage where it was 'perfect' enough for most modern 35mm lens sets, but we couldn't get PL adapted lenses or 16mm lens to work with the same mount, which tells me that the mount wasn't able to accomodate all lens sets.

Also, with the new mount, if I adjust to one set of lenses, will it not neccessarily work with another set? (or individuals??) If this is the case, it would be more like having backfocus on a video camera, except the adjustment is moved to the camera rather than being on the lens. And will we potentially have to check or fine tune the port on each lens change?

My understanding with a film camera is once the lens port it is correctly callibrated it will work with all lenses that fit that port. If it is out, it isn't callibrated to a particular lense or lens set, but to a measurent for that port type as such (I haven't actually seen it being done, so don't know how best to describe)

 

[Dalibor Fencl]

Nikon mount is instead of PL, with luck it will be as adjustable as the PL. Bear in mind that Nikon lenses are not collimated in the first place so it probably is not important as you will need to focus by eye.

SW

What do you mean? You mean I've been overkilling myself micro-collimating my Brevis35 Nikon mount?

It's just mean the feet (meters) scale on DSRL lenses doesn't need to be exact.

 

[vincelucero]

just keeps getting better...

 

[brandon herman]

forgive me if this is a stupid question; I've never worked with PL mount lens set ups before (well, once, but...)

It seems like once you get a good lens properly set up, other properly calibrated lenses should work fine. So a set of primes might all work the same.

But when you are mixing and matching lenses, like on an indie film, each lens might need to be set up individually due to slightly different characteristics (a fraction of a millimeter off in mount thickness, etc....)

Is there a way to have markings (or to make a mark) on the new mount, so that I can test a batch of mismatched lenses prior to shooting and then know that one lens needs to be set to one mark, another lens needs to be set to another mark, etc....?

Or might it still not work because, a week later, the lens characteristics are different? (due to heat expansion, etc....)

 

[Tonaci Tran]

That wouldn't happen to be RED #102 in this shot would it? hehe sorry couldn't resist.
Anxious,
T

dont know what happened there... Something happened when Jim uploaded it.. try this one.

 

[Greg M]

I dont know, it sure looks like Red #0083X