Why (formerly not) Canon EOS lenses?

[Mark B.]

I have a Sigma 70-210 F2.8 and it's awesome. I also have the 50mm and 105mm Sigma macros, and those are also very nice. I have a Sigma 17-35 F2.8-F4 zoom that hasn't impressed me quite as much, but it's also been one of my most-used lenses.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

Why not EOS adapter? AGAIN!!!

Why not EOS adapter? AGAIN!!!

Again the question "Why not EOS adapter?"

If we would use manual lens control only in the RED ONE like all film cameras than maybe with the RED ONE we could get also "simplified" EOS adapter like RedRock sells to their customers that we could for example attach a wide range of excellent MANUAL Canon FD, Hasselblad, Leica-R, Nikon F, M42, Contax-Yashica, Pentax 645 and Pentax 67 lenses...have a look at the picture below

Hope the RED team is listening to this request that was repeating here many times. To conclude to say no electronic just to screw adapters for many different lens mounts.

Imagine to attach Leica PC-Super-Angulon-R 28 mm f/2.8

http://www.leica-camera.us/photography/r_system/lenses/506.html

or

Hasselblad HC 4/210

http://www.hasselblad.com/products/h-system/lenses/hc-4210.aspx

 

[Mark B.]

I think a Canon EOS mount makes perfect sense, since affordable adapters are available to convert other manufacturer's lenses to the Canon mount. Here's just one of many sites selling the conversion mounts... http://www.fotodiox.com/shop/index.php?cPath=27

So people with Nikon, Leica, Hasselblad, Mamiya, Olympus or Rollei could all switch their lenses to the EOS mount. But it's a one-way deal because the EOS mount doesn't get coverted to any of those other lens mounts (shortest distance to film plane maybe?). So I'd suggest Red make the EOS mount available straight from the get go.

 

[Evin Grant]

There have been may reported problems with the less well made versions of these adapters. I feel there would just be too much slop in the double mount system for effective cinema use. Plus this adds a significant cost per lens if you were required to buy an additional adapter in order to use any still lens.
I think an EOS mount should be made, but it should be made to properly interface with EOS lenses. I also think a Leica R mount should be made. BTW you can get Hassy and Pentax 645 adapters for Nikon F mount.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

There have been may reported problems with the less well made versions of these adapters. I feel there would just be too much slop in the double mount system for effective cinema use. Plus this adds a significant cost per lens if you were required to buy an additional adapter in order to use any still lens.
I think an EOS mount should be made, but it should be made to properly interface with EOS lenses. I also think a Leica R mount should be made. BTW you can get Hassy and Pentax 645 adapters for Nikon F mount.

Of course that we expecting from the RED to make high quality accessories and optional lens adapter in the highest. BTW I've got Hassy for Nikon F mount.

 

[Michael Hastings]

Re: EF mount control.

Re: EF mount control.

I have a strong interest in this sort of thing for use in making the underwater housing for the RED. We have a compact board with an onboard micro controller that we use to do focus, iris, etc. through LAN C that I believe could be easily reprogrammed to send whatever RS232 commands the birger adapter needs. It seems to me that with what they have done already and if RED will give us the information on the front plate of the camera and flange distances to the sensor it wouldn't be that hard to do the physical part either. It seems like the RED team should be seriously considering the utility of the EF setup as it seems like the Iris is easier to do on the canon EF than the Nikon system. Also, it seems like the EF-S 10-22 would be a possibility since the sensor size is almost identical and it would provide the phenomenal wide angle zoom that I think a lot of us are looking for - but particular us underwater guys. We have a CNC machining center, so if RED is overloaded, with a little help we could do it here.

The Guys at Birger Engineering are looking into this. They have an intelligent adapter which allows control of EF mount lenses, but it currently requires a computer to be connected to it for communication with the lens. http://www.birger.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=ef232_home

There has been an amount of discussion about repurposing this technology to make a RedOne mount for EF lenses which would have a separate hardware controller, could be wired or wireless. This would allow for focus as well as iris control and it could be configured to act as a very effective follow focus. The mechanical action of the focus ring on the lens could be remapped to allow for much more effective manual control than could be executed with the focus ring. Parts of the focus range could be expanded, preset focus points could be assigned to buttons... lots of potentiol.

This is all exciting stuff, but still vapourware at the moment, however Birger have suggested that there may be an announcement coming up to NAB. I have attached a quote from a post by Erik at Birger which comes from the "Spike Black... First Prototype photos" sticky on the Red One forum.

Martin

 

[Erik Widding]

I have a strong interest in this sort of thing for use in making the underwater housing for the RED. We have a compact board with an onboard micro controller that we use to do focus, iris, etc. through LAN C that I believe could be easily reprogrammed to send whatever RS232 commands the birger adapter needs. It seems to me that with what they have done already and if RED will give us the information on the front plate of the camera and flange distances to the sensor it wouldn't be that hard to do the physical part either. It seems like the RED team should be seriously considering the utility of the EF setup as it seems like the Iris is easier to do on the canon EF than the Nikon system. Also, it seems like the EF-S 10-22 would be a possibility since the sensor size is almost identical and it would provide the phenomenal wide angle zoom that I think a lot of us are looking for - but particular us underwater guys. We have a CNC machining center, so if RED is overloaded, with a little help we could do it here.

[Aquavideo, I didn't see this post until after I responded to you in the Bubble Blowin thread... sorry for the redundancy...]

We will have a mechanical adapter and cable combination as a standard product for RED. We are just waiting for drawings from RED for the front plate of the camera, and the electrical spec of the port that we are going to suck power from. Supposed to be here shortly. We will provide a cable to get power from the camera and a mechanical adapter to the camera. Data for our unit will have to come (at least initially) from a source other than the camera. The scenario that you describe will be quite straightforward.

The lens you want to use works with our unit already. The compatibility list on our website is limited to those lenses that we have had in our hands here at our office. We currently have no known incompatibilities with the newest library. Problem with the known compatible list is that we just haven't had a need to test many lenses. Not on the list right now means it either hasn't been used, or it has never had any issues with customers, so we don't have a need to test it. I suppose we should simply add lenses that are reported as compatible by customers, and footnote that limitation. We just need to get our customers to email when we haven't done something wrong. Where would the fun be in that?

 

[Andrew M.]

What about Google?
... and result is
http://www.sigmaphoto.com/lenses/lenses_all.asp

Thanks!

 

[Jeremy Hughes]

http://red.com/pricelist.htm

Why is there a Canon 35mm mount listed here?

 

[Evin Grant]

It's for Canon FD manual focus lenses.

 

[Michael Hastings]

Re: Canon Lens control. also customer feedback.

Re: Canon Lens control. also customer feedback.

Erik: I just want to be clear, are you saying that we would supply the commands to move the iris and focus from our board (presumably via RS-232), then your board would actually provide the voltages to move the focus and iris gears?

Secondly, I agree - after 25 years of short run/custom manufacturing, it would be nice to get feedback when we haven't done something wrong.

I think when people start to catch on to what we are talking about, they are going to see that this is an incredibly potent solution.

Eventually I will contact you directly, I just have had a bunch of other things on my plate.


Thanks, Mike

[Aquavideo, I didn't see this post until after I responded to you in the Bubble Blowin thread... sorry for the redundancy...]

We will have a mechanical adapter and cable combination as a standard product for RED. We are just waiting for drawings from RED for the front plate of the camera, and the electrical spec of the port that we are going to suck power from. Supposed to be here shortly. We will provide a cable to get power from the camera and a mechanical adapter to the camera. Data for our unit will have to come (at least initially) from a source other than the camera. The scenario that you describe will be quite straightforward.

The lens you want to use works with our unit already. The compatibility list on our website is limited to those lenses that we have had in our hands here at our office. We currently have no known incompatibilities with the newest library. Problem with the known compatible list is that we just haven't had a need to test many lenses. Not on the list right now means it either hasn't been used, or it has never had any issues with customers, so we don't have a need to test it. I suppose we should simply add lenses that are reported as compatible by customers, and footnote that limitation. We just need to get our customers to email when we haven't done something wrong. Where would the fun be in that?

 

[Jeremy Hughes]

Okay. I see.

 

[David Nardini]

EOS lenses control

EOS lenses control

... the EF-S 10-22 would be a possibility since the sensor size is almost identical and it would provide the phenomenal wide angle zoom that I think a lot of us are looking for - but particular us underwater guys.

...We will have a mechanical adapter and cable combination as a standard product for RED. We are just waiting for drawings from RED for the front plate of the camera, and the electrical spec of the port that we are going to suck power from.

Hello AquaVideo & birgerEngineer,

Fantastic news that you are collaborating on this (enabling EOS lenses) !

Just for clarity at my end, how will the aperture control be enabled (I apologise in advance if I've missed the thread where you may have covered this) ?

I appreciate that the RED may/will power the RED EOS adapter, but is the aperture selected via buttons ? rotary control ? or ... ? (what do you mean by 'mechanical adapter and cable combination').
Just trying to envisage what control type I may have to make up for the housing :biggrin:

Birger : do you have plans to release more details soon ? NAB ?

Cheers,

 

[Erik Widding]

Erik: I just want to be clear, are you saying that we would supply the commands to move the iris and focus from our board (presumably via RS-232), then your board would actually provide the voltages to move the focus and iris gears?

This is correct.

I think when people start to catch on to what we are talking about, they are going to see that this is an incredibly potent solution.

I agree.

 

[Erik Widding]

Hello AquaVideo & birgerEngineer,

Fantastic news that you are collaborating on this (enabling EOS lenses) !

Just for clarity at my end, how will the aperture control be enabled (I apologise in advance if I've missed the thread where you may have covered this) ?

I appreciate that the RED may/will power the RED EOS adapter, but is the aperture selected via buttons ? rotary control ? or ... ? (what do you mean by 'mechanical adapter and cable combination').
Just trying to envisage what control type I may have to make up for the housing :biggrin:

On our control unit the aperture and focus will be controlled by knobs. But this is just a control unit that speaks rs232 to the mount. This will take the place of a PDA or computer that might otherwise be used to send commands to the mount. I am assuming Aquavideo has plans that may be different than those on dry land, so I will allow him to speak to this.

The mechanical adapter is needed to make up the difference between the front face of the camera and the back face of our unit. The cable would allow power, and possibly an rs232 port from the camera to be directed to the mount.

Birger : do you have plans to release more details soon ? NAB ?

We expect to be able to announce more details by NAB. To be clear, we will not be exhibiting at NAB. I will be attending. Further details will be made available through the forum at this time.

 

[planet e]

holy cow! that would be awesome. i have so many EF lenses from my XL2 days and also still photography.

imagine RED attached to this! the moonscape in 4K! the mind boggles.

http://ia300239.us.archive.org/2/items/Really_big_lens/biglens.JPG

 

[chuck colburn]

Whoa planet e you gotta make those files a bit smaller. That took my computer almost 30 sec. to down load.

 

[planet e]

yeah, i know. sorry about that. it's on my "to do" list, haha. right up there with cleaning the gutters...

worth it, though, wouldn't you say?

 

[Martin Drew]

Erik

You mentioned in another thread about Nikon lenses performing very well. I know it is early days yet but do you have a preference for Nikon or Canon lenses, from a control point of view? Is it your intention to bring out a mount for Canon and a mount for Nikon at the same time or would you expect the Canon solution to be out first?

M

 

[Michael Hastings]

Re: EOS lens controls

Re: EOS lens controls

ERIK: I am just as happy to use your controller. All we really want to be able to do is put a 12" or so cable so we can have the knobs from the outside located in a handy position. In other words one method would be to just unsolder your pots and attach a short wire and then attach the pot to the sealed shaft that penetrates the wall of the housing. Obviously a much nicer solution would to either install a connector ourselves to parallel the control knobs, or ideally to have you have a connector(s) (I assume they are just 3 leg pots, so a six pin or two three pin) on your control unit that allowed us just tap into or parallel the pots to our pots and knobs. (We have pots that we use with broadcast lenses, that come with 1/4" stainless steel long shafts that can be sealed directly with our standard control seal.) It seems to me this would be useful for anyone that wants to do remote from a jib or whatever. (I realize that situation may be handled by just moving the controller and having a longer RS232 cable - but it seems like the connector would be pretty cheap and even allow the possibility of alternative pots, rockers, splitting the iris and focus knobs apart for two handed use on a tripod or separate people having responsibility for focus and iris) The connector could parallel or just be switched back and forth if there is an electronic conflict.

Secondly, by making it so everyone uses your control it makes it useful for other things besides just the housing.

I will be at NAB and it would be great to meet with you sometime and see your unit.

On our control unit the aperture and focus will be controlled by knobs. But this is just a control unit that speaks rs232 to the mount. This will take the place of a PDA or computer that might otherwise be used to send commands to the mount. I am assuming Aquavideo has plans that may be different than those on dry land, so I will allow him to speak to this.