c-mount lenses!

[Barry_Green]

Just read an Australian brochure for the HD100E, and they mentioned something I haven't seen anywhere else: they're planning on having a c-mount adapter for the HD100.

http://www.jvcpro-australia.com/JVCPROstores/PRODUCTS/294/ATTRFILE_File1/GY-HD100E%20BR-HD50E%20PALcatalog%20June%202005.pdf

A c-mount adapter means you can use a wide variety of older lenses, from some really awful 16mm movie camera lenses to some not-too-bad professional videocamera lenses (such as for security cameras). And there are some pretty decent little c-mount lenses too, such as the Switars. Most of 'em are quite cheap, but don't expect a lot of quality.

But, also, c-mount was fairly universal, and you can find adapters for almost any kind of lens to c-mount, so using the c-mount adapter you'll be able to add Pentax Screwmount still-camera lenses, plus I believe there's c-mount adapters for Nikon, Canon, and probably many other types of lenses too.

I have an old 16mm camera here with some genuine Zeiss c-mount lenses I was planning on selling on ebay... I might just hang onto it now for a while, to see how these lenses perform on the little JVC... :thumbsup:

[Don Tucci]

Hay Barry what about using arri lenses.Don

[thisiswells]

Arri's that I have seen are either modern PL (positive locking) mount or the older... "arri bayonet" mount, I believe. These lenses are incompatible on the JVC HD100 for various reasons, most notibly the rear flange distance, I suspect.

The C-mount lenses to scope out deals on are the P.Angenieux models which are quite nice, made in France, and are much cheaper than the Switars or Vario-Switars. (swhy-a-tars) While they are NOT widescreen S16 compatible, they are great R16 lenses.

Because the 1/3" CCD's in the JVC are smaller even than a R16 frame, I imagine most R16 lenses would work fine on the widescreen JVC. The Angenieux lenses are very fast primes for (usually) around $50 - $100 each.

[Bill__Turner]

interesting, I found the reference to a "c" mount adapter. Because the distance from the mounting flange to the image has an "in air equivalent" of over 1.2" and standard "c" mount is .690 " the lens would have to go down inside the mount approx one half inch and typically one runs into the i.r. cut filter or other obstructions before that.

I would therefore be suprised if a mechanical adapter is possible, but time will tell.

Bill Turner
Schneider Optics
Century Division

[Barry_Green]

Wells is correct, Arri lenses come in typically either Arri S-mount, Arri Bayonet-mount (which is backwards-compatible with S-mount) or the modern PL mount. Lenses designed for Bayonet or S-mount are likely to be much, much older; modern lenses are frequently, if not always, PL mount.

I believe that someone did engineer a PL mount for the XL1. Presuming that the HD100 meets with market success, it would seem reasonable to expect that someone will engineer a PL mount for the HD100 as well.

As to how well a 16mm lens will work on the HD100, well, as always, that remains to be seen. A 1/3" 16:9 CCD has about 1/6 the surface area of a Super16 frame of film. Meaning, to deliver comparable sharpness, the lens would have to be capable of resolving 6x more detail than would be necessary for Super16! Seems unlikely; although maybe the very most modern lenses could do so.

I haven't been too impressed with the older Angenieux lenses; I had a 9.5-57, the ubiquitous 12-120, and 10mm and 25mm primes; none of 'em seem comparable to the best glass. The newest Angenieux lenses are definitely a million times better than the old "coke bottle" 12-120.

And, agreed, any 16mm lens will cover the JVC frame, whether R16 or S16. In fact, any Super 8 lens should easily cover the HD100 frame...

[Don Tucci]

Thanks i just have a arri s 16 with schnider primes .Just love the old schnider lenses fast and sharp.oh what about the "coke bottle" 12-120. just shoot some people shotts then tell me how bad it is yup i also shoot 16 and love it.Don

[Ruff_Futtidge]

Here in the uk , JVC offered to test and report on any 3ccd prof cam. - I took my dvx100a along. There were two Japanese chaps over from the factory with a bunch of test charts and 'scopes, and Nigel Cliff- the 'Pro Video Sales Manager' ( what a nice chap ! ).
The new HD beauty was there on a tripod , pointing out of the window, for me to have a quick play with - totally manual lens ! - fantastic !! - Japanese guy said the thing would be out in uk next month for about £3700 -
DVX tested aok and had f6.8 measured as sensitivity. Thanks JVC - what a good 1/2 hour , and all for free !!

[mezelf27]

I really don't get those guys milking about getting a XL-lens on the HD100. Why the hell would you want that?

Besides, there's no grip included on those lenses, in contrast to all available 1/3 inch pro lenses that obviously have a grip incorporated....

[Ralph Oshiro]

. . . DVX tested aok and had f/6.8 measured as sensitivity.Interesting. Yes, I know, Barry, you had mentioned information to the contrary, but that DVX100 f/6.8 (@ 2,000 lux, I presume) sounds about right (I KNEW that darn camera was SLOW)! My DVX100 seems awfully slow compared to modern f/11 @ 2,000 lux 2/3" cameras such as Sony's D-, DSR-, SX- and XDCAM-series cameras.

[thisiswells]

"My DVX100 seems awfully slow compared to modern f/11 @ 2,000 lux 2/3" cameras such as Sony's D-, DSR-, SX- and XDCAM-series cameras."

Panasonic, not Barry, published the F11 @ 2000 lux specification for the DVX cameras.
So did Sony with the PD170... It's all one big conspiracy!!

[Ralph Oshiro]

Yes, Wells, it's all conspiracy! Well, admittedly, my VX2000 (PD170 wannabe) is pretty darn fast (albeit with a lot of noise). That camera "sees" quite a bit! But throw my DVX100 into progressive mode and, voila! You lose another stop!

[Joe Walker]

Visual Products (www.visualproducts.com) has a c-mount to PL adapter. So, theoretically, you could install the C-Mount adapter, and then install the PL to C-Mount adapter, and then you could use Arri PL lenses, right? Or is that too many adapters?

[Barry_Green]

No, that would work fine, presuming that a c-mount adapter will work at all. Bill Turner's comments have tempered my initial optimism about it. I mean, it's probably possible, or JVC's brochure wouldn't have mentioned it (or, perhaps JVC's marketing department got ahead of their engineers... that used to happen in videogame programming all the time, marketing would decide they needed a feature and they'd advertise it without listening to us engineers telling 'em "it can't be done"...)

So hopefully there will be a c-mount adapter. Even if it can't be done directly mechanically, it could maybe be implemented with some sort of optical element in the path maybe...

If you get a c-mount adapter, that opens up M42, Nikon, Canon, and PL lenses, at least. Probably many more.

Mounting will be difficult though. C-mount is a little tiny 1" screw-in mount, designed to hold little tiny lenses. Big lenses = a lot of strain on those little threads. Not necessarily a good idea. So for little lenses like the Switars c-mount is adequate, but if you want to mount a 300mm still-camera lens, you'll probably need a rails system with tripod mount for the lens.

[dop16mm]

There are c-mount adapters for a lot of different cameras, I have an arri-s and nikon for use with my eclair 16mm. A lot has been said about 35mm lenses being too long for 1/3" video, but what about macro/ table-top work, a 50mm nikon can focus down to about an inch. also the beautiful zoom lenses made for beaulieu super-8 cameras are c-mount and should work.

[Barry_Green]

That was a question I had -- the Beaulieu Schneiders weren't actually c-mount, were they? The 6008 & 7008 had c-mount capability, but I seem to remember that the sweet Angenieux and Schneider lenses were some different type of mount that fit over the c-mount.

If those lenses could work, that would be pretty cool... they had a 15x 6-90 Angenieux 1.4, but now that I think about it, that's almost exactly the same focal range as the stock JVC lens, so... may not help much...

[intro2trig]

Here is a pretty sweet C-mount lens. Reminds me of some the ultra-fast, ultra-rare, Carl Zeiss NASA / Kubrick lenses. This would be pretty killer on the HD100U, just needs some work...
Fujinon 50mm f/0.7 C-Mount lens on eBay (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7532366482&category=3319&ssPageName=WDVW&rd=1)

-intro

[Postmaster]

I just scored a Tarcus C-Mount 0,95/50mm lens on Ebay.

1:0,95 :D ! that`s very close to the NASA/Kubrick lens (by the way he used a Zeiss lens).

I´m looking for a adapter that adapts that C-mount lens to a Nikon or M42 Camera.

Any ideas?

Thanks, Frank

[Barry_Green]

That's not gonna happen. C-mount lenses only project an image large enough to cover the 16mm frame. A c-mount lens mounted to Nikon or M42 cameras would result in a black frame with a little circle of illumination in the center.

[Capt Quirk]

So, what is the type of mount that the JVC uses, and who else uses it? Yeah, I'm clueless.

[Barry_Green]

JVC uses a 1/3" bayonet mount, and currently they're the only manufacturer who uses it. Panasonic offered it previously on some SD interchangeable-lens camcorder. I believe that other manufacturers may offer it; Sony's talking about a 1/3" or 1/4" interchangeable-lens camera that would probably use the same mount.

The 1/3" mount is more "standard" than the Canon XL mount, for example (only Canon uses the Canon XL mount) but nobody else is offering 1/3" interchangeable at the moment.