Relay lens for 2/3" Scarlet

[Nicholaus James]

RED has been all about bringing professional tools in touch with filmmakers with small wallets.

The 2/3" Scarlet is going to be a huge hit. It is a great entry to investing in RED.

I have a set of Nikons that I want to use with it, but with a 2/3" chip, I'm going to have to use a 35mm adapter.

I hope RED will consider making a fast relay lens.
I know the S35 and the FF35 brains are a better choice for using 35mm glass.

But, as I see in there product line, they are "infiltrating" all markets: photographers, prosumer, professional, broadcast, studio, etc. etc.

So responding to us "prosumers" with our 35mm adapters and our 35mm lenses on our HDV cams, bringing a great relay lens out for the 2/3" brain would definitely be a hot seller.

And, it will make the migration path to the S35 and FF35 brains a lot easier.

I just don't want have to buy all these 2/3" lenses and have my nikons sitting, doing nothing, and then when I have the chance to get into a S35 or FF35 brain, I'm stuck with all this 2/3" stuff.

2/3" for me is just to get in the door. My eyes are on S35 and/or FF35, ultimately.

So, RED, when you release accessories and your new lenses, throw a relay lens in there too! And keep it under F/2.0 if at all possible, PLEASE!!!!

 

[Kyle Presley]

Check this out:
http://www.scarletuser.com/showthread.php?t=2691

 

[Joel Chu]

Do we still need all those crap relay/DOF adapter???? Get real people.

 

[Nicholaus James]

Not all of us have $5k plus to jump into RED. Sorry I asked!

 

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

Do we still need all those crap relay/DOF adapter???? Get real people.

If people want to get 35MM DOF and still have high fps recording then I'd say yes... These people still need it.

 

[Nicholaus James]

EXACTLY my point!

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Relay lens + field lens

Relay lens + field lens

So, RED, when you release accessories and your new lenses, throw a relay lens in there too! And keep it under F/2.0 if at all possible, PLEASE!!!!

You can build one of these yourself, do not use a ground glass, just use a field lens. You should make the field lens Achromatic and maybe need a set from 60mm to 25mm to cover all lenses, most SLR lenses are about 50mm from the film plane, so about a 50mm would work for most.

Because you are making the image smaller you can get faster f/ stops than the lens in front, so you would want a 25mm f/0.95 or 50mm f/0.95 (or even 50mm f/0.7) on the camera, a longer f/1.2 lens in front of it backwards and then you have your highspeed relay lens, then you put the field lens just behind the focal plane so that any dust on it is out of focus a little.

I've been thinking of making a film to digital converter magizine for our Konvas, you take a 200' Mag and gut it, then mount the optics in a tube that goes up to the gate and put a "C mount" on the outside end, that lets you screw a digital cinema camera on to get full digital conversion, but the follow focus, lens mount, matte box and everything else work as normal.

To use the converter mag you just inch the mirror shutter out of the way to shoot, and inch the mirror shutter back to use the optical finder to setup. If the camera would sync with a fast pull down, maybe at 72fps, you could use the optical finder and shoot digital at the same time, you just need an encoder on the shutter and a microcontroler to make sync signals for the digital cinema camera, SMPTE does not work at 72fps so Scarlet would need to support frame start pulse or something to sync. The other option would be to sync the camera's motor to the digital cinema camera's frame rate.

If you want to build one of these relay adapters feel free to PM or email me and I will try to help you with making drawings for your local machine shop, etc.

 

[Daniel Browning]

I hope RED will consider making a fast relay lens.

RED tries to uphold a certain standard of image quality, to the point of inconveniencing customers who *want* lower quality; namely, the lack of interlaced anything.

35mm adapters are the halfway house of non-monied photographers. I can't foresee RED doing anything to help those folks because it conflicts with their standards in the same way as interlace.

Those who are addicted to 35mm lenses, but cannot afford Scarlet S35, will have to continue going to the same third party street-corner DOF dealers for their fix.

Kind regards,

 

[Ryan Hamblin]

Well S35 really won't cater to the still lens market...its a slightly different coverage area and from my understanding renders a different FOV.

Really though, adapters are a ridiculous idea on the 2/3 scarlet, because after the purchase price of both...your in range of buying a s35. Save your pennies guys. If you want to look like 35 save up get the S35 it wont be alot more than what you invest in an adapter and scarlet 2/3.

The 2/3 will be great for B cam as well as giving you a very similar look to 16mm.

I come from the 35mm adapter world. I hand built the 2nd or 3rd redrock micro adapter that ever existed. I am not knocking it, but know its place, and move forward. If the budgets not there RED is not really the place to be. It is economical, and I love their product, but if your on a low budget have an substantially smaller crew than a normal setup would allow...go for the adapter world...outside of that learn to be money conscious and buy/rent the product that is appropriate for the given situation.

(r)yan

 

[Joel Chu]

Really though, adapters are a ridiculous idea on the 2/3 scarlet, because after the purchase price of both...your in range of buying a s35. Save your pennies guys. If you want to look like 35 save up get the S35 it wont be alot more than what you invest in an adapter and scarlet 2/3.

(r)yan

Check out how much the relay lens Letus is currently offering - plus you still need an adapter. put the two together you have enough money to buy a RED ONE.

I don't really understand WHY you want a relay lens; to get DOF to make it look a bit more film like? Check Recon and check out the lizzie footage! Hell I can get DOF on my HV30 without a damn DOF adapter (I personally have 4 different adapters! and now I am selling all of them)

Plus Scarlet is not even remotely gonna to release. Give Jim a bit more confidence - it's a CINEMA camera after all. And it state very clearly (in the FAQ) that Nikon / Canon / PL mount available.

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Cost vs. Cost

Cost vs. Cost

The 2/3 will be great for B cam as well as giving you a very similar look to 16mm.

I would hope that the 3K Scarlet will be better than a 35mm print, 16mm is far lower than 3K resolution at normal f/stops and fast films blown up.

the product that is appropriate for the given situation.
(r)yan

When someone makes a product you need to charge maybe 10x to 100x the cost of the parts to make a profit, that being the case it is cheeper to make a larger sensor than a complex relay optics system for ratail sale as a product.

If you were making a good relay system from surplus optics that you get for 1% of their new cost, then you might save on the total system costs being able to re-use the optics you now have on the smaller format.

The big issue with 2/3" sensor is that most older 16mm lenses are not sharp enough to get full 3K resolution at all stops. The few that come closer are very high priced and would cost more than purchasing the Scarlet with a larger sensor, at least as far as the best movie optics.

If you use machine vision super megapixel lenses on 2/3" you may get good results, but the lenses housings are not built for cinema use, the lack focus scales and have play in the helix. If you re-house megapixel lenses you have more cost than purchasing the larger sensor Scarlet in the first place, since cheep SLR lenses have more usable helix and scales.

Where you come out ahead is to make a small purchase for 2/3" camera etc. and use lower cost optics of whatever kind you have access to to get usable results.

If you do not need full f/range on the SLR lenses, a good relay system for PL/Nikon/M42/2 1/4 etc. could be made for maybe $500 and you could get results close to the limit of the sensor, such an adapter (without ground glass) could be used or not and you would still be able to use other 2/3" lenses as well. It would not make sence to sell such a converter for $5000 to $50000 since the cost of the larger sensor is less that much more.

You gain in using 2/3" because the lenses are smaller and lower in weight, like when SI-2K Mini was used in SDM, if you make your compact camera into something with a 12" tube in front it becomes a bigger thing to deal with than a Scarlet with a larger sensor...