F3 mount?

V

vanvideo

Veteran
So what is an F3 mount? That's what the camera has under the supplied PL mount. Are there lenses that fit directly to an F3 mount?
Speaking of lenses, would it make sense to get a good PL zoom lens instead of the prime set offered by Sony? Would a zoom lens have more all around uselfullness? Perhaps it'd be a cheaper alternative for the base camera?
 
vanvideo said:
So what is an F3 mount? That's what the camera has under the supplied PL mount. Are there lenses that fit directly to an F3 mount?
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The F3 mount will likely be what they use to develop a lens that has a motorized zoom. The PL mount doesn't have motor contacts and such, but the F3 mount likely does.

Speaking of lenses, would it make sense to get a good PL zoom lens instead of the prime set offered by Sony? Would a zoom lens have more all around uselfullness? Perhaps it'd be a cheaper alternative for the base camera?
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There are many reasons camcorders have zoom lenses instead of primes. And there are many reasons that in cinema shooting you rarely ever see anyone using a zoom...

Cinema zooms are huge, heavy, and typically slow, and quite short-range. A Canon XHA1 has a 20x zoom lens, but a 35mm cinema lens is rarely more than 5x, and even then they're huge. Crazy huge. And expensive. The market for PL glass exploded when the Red One came out; I bought a cheap $3,000 Cooke 20-100 5:1 zoom, and sold it two months later for over $9,000 as Red Ones started hitting the market.

The Red Pro 18-85 is a 4.5x zoom and is one of the least-expensive PL-mount zoom lenses you'll find. And it's $10,000. And T3.

There are some cheap zooms that are made by DigiOptics that cost about the same, combined, as the three prime lens set. Seeing as the Sony primes don't have witness marks, I would imagine the DigiOptics wouldn't be at a disadvantage, so then it becomes a case of variable focal lengths in two lenses total, vs. three fixed focal lengths at 1 1/4 stop faster. Only time (and reviews) will tell.
 
I'm always amazed when you scale down chips, the camera companies can make these incredible lenses for them.

Like with the DVX you get a 10ishx zoom, at f1.7! with rocker controls and Image stabilization. That's with a 1/3 inch chip.

But if you wanted the same lens on a s35mm sized chip it would cost like a billion dollars, and weigh a couple of hundred pounds.

I'm sure my data isn't exact here :) but it's generally what happens.

Man, why do our eyes have to like s35mm images so much?? - we could have the most incredible lenses!!


Asides from that, I'm hoping that along with the F3 some lovely third party adapters come out that will allow use of lenses that cover s35. Not expecting any fast miracles in the Canon EF control department, but some sort of rough mounts would be nice to start.
 
vagarob said:
Could that not change though, Sony has been saying these are pre-production lenses.
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Anything could change, sure, but something as fundamental as that seems unlikely to change... That's a reflection o fhow they're built and all, and the price is half what the cheapest cine lens with witness marks costs, so ... I don't think the Sony lenses were built for quality, they were built to hit an unbelievably low price point, and I would bet that one of the compromises on the way was that aspect of construction. I wouldn't be surprised if these lenses are made by the same DigiOptics guys.
 
Barry_Green said:
Anything could change, sure, but something as fundamental as that seems unlikely to change... That's a reflection o fhow they're built and all, and the price is half what the cheapest cine lens with witness marks costs, so ... I don't think the Sony lenses were built for quality, they were built to hit an unbelievably low price point, and I would bet that one of the compromises on the way was that aspect of construction. I wouldn't be surprised if these lenses are made by the same DigiOptics guys.
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Sony has an in-house lens design and manufacturing capability, largely remnants of Minolta when they acquired them, so its probably not DigiOptical guys.

For a PL these Sony lenses are suspiciously cheap, however, as a lens they really aren't. For prime lenses projecting a relatively small image circle, a couple thousand per lens is in reality fairly expensive. What justifies PL lens prices is the the fact they are low volume. In many ways, PL prime lenses in this range are significantly less complex and simpler then many dSLR lenses.

But there are several factors that impact cost, and where Sony could cut corners, for fun let's look at them:

1) The glass; superior lenses will have ground aspherical as standard, cheaper lenses use molded aspherical elements (PGM).
2) aperture blade setup; having more aperture blades will produce a more geometrically rounded, more desirable, bokeh/off-focus characteristic to the lens.
3) external construction; material, marking, bulid, etc. Not going to impact optical performance, especially for a simple prime, but will change the look and feel.
4) ED (Extra-low Dispersion) coating; coating minimizes chromatic aberration. The more elements that are ED coated the higher the cost

*->If you're talking about zoom lenses, if you have non-rotating front element, it'll cost more, AF lenses have to think about the size and type of motor it uses, there is image-stabilization which has a moving internal optical element, nano crystal coating, etc. All of which are irrelevant to these primes.

My guess would these lenses will be designed for a specific MTF (Modulation Transfer Function) chart characteristic, based on the target resolution of the F3 rather then film. Lack of proper markings is also indicative of build quality. I'll give Sony the benefit of the doubt and say its probably ground aspherical glass given the price of the lens and the fact that its lower volume means its not worth PGM.

In practice, even the most ardent pixel-peeper probably won't be able to tell the difference between video shot with these primes versus expensive PL on an F3. However, I certainly wouldn't use these primes on film.
 
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I keep reading that the F3 come with a PL "adapter."

Does this mean that maybe there's an E-Mount under the PL?
 
heres an idea
someone out there could build a f3 to m4/3 lens with motors, contects etc.. and a servo zoom handle that connects to this. the servo zoom handle can then be screwed in to the af100 replacing the old one
 
dcloud said:
heres an idea
someone out there could build a f3 to m4/3 lens with motors, contects etc.. and a servo zoom handle that connects to this. the servo zoom handle can then be screwed in to the af100 replacing the old one
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I was thinking the same thing until I noticed how close the F3 mount is to the sensor, as well size on to F3 mount is also much wider than the M4/3 mount. I would not be surprised if Sony engineered the F3 zoom so that they will not fit any other camera than the F3.
 
Yak said:
I was thinking the same thing until I noticed how close the F3 mount is to the sensor, as well size on to F3 mount is also much wider than the M4/3 mount. I would not be surprised if Sony engineered the F3 zoom so that they will not fit any other camera than the F3.
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The F3 mount seems to be fairly similar to the EX mount. I don't know how short the FFD is, but if its less then 20mm it can mount a m4/3 lens. Though, if you are using a m4/3rds lens an AF100 would be more ideal, not to mention that the projected image circle for those lenses are smaller. So expect some vignetting.


...As far as the new zoom lens go, its suppose to be an F3 mount Zoom, not a PL mount so it will not fit other PL cameras. And it makes a lot of sense not to make PL zooms.

The major issue with PL zoom lenses is that cine lens require floating elements(fle) to minimize breathing. A particular importance for cine zooms since such optical distortions are more pronounced. Worse, the relatively long focal flange distance of PL mount means that these lenses need to rely on retrofocal design, compounding the size and weight of the lens. Which is why these PL zooms are so damn large.

By having the FFD short it can ditch the retrofocus design which affords a lot more flexibility in reducing the size of subsequent lens elements. These lenses should be smaller, lighter, cheaper to build, and produce better images.

The downside is that it'll be an F3 mount. I'm actually hoping that the FFD of these lenses is a little larger then 18-20mm of the E/m43rds mount so it can be adapted for mirrorless mounts.
 
vanvideo said:
Another question - is there a difference between Super 16 and 35mm PL mount lenses? Can either fit on the F3?
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PL is PL, so either will fit. However, Super16 would be pretty much useless on an F3. The F3's frame size is about, what, 3x to 4x larger than the S16 frame, so S16 lenses would only project a small image on the sensor, surrounded by a massive black vignette.
 
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