Steve Sherrick
Well-known member
How do clip on's handle small lens's such as Nikon SLR primes? Iv'e only ever used Matte boxes with rails. Im thinking smaller lenses would struggle am I right? So will this be upgradable with a rail attachment at some point?
Clamping on to a still lens directly is not a good idea as it does indeed stress out most of them. They're just not built for that kind of application. However, as Marc said, if you use a screw-in adapter which is what some of them are doing (I think Genus) then that helps to properly implement them. However, the safest route is to go with rails as that will take the weight off the lens. And if you don't do a lot of filter stacking, the best way to filter is screw-in. I add a 77mm sunshade and that works for a lot of situations. The problem is when you need to stack you can start to run into vignetting.
Also, with still lenses some of them telescope which makes using a mattebox even more difficult. Internal focusing is your best friend in those cases.