FS7: FS7 and PL mount - E-mount strong enough?

Excellent post, Mitch. I have personally seen focus issues around the edges of the image when I tried using heavy lenses with the FS7 that have worked fine with the F55 (not that is is my habit to shoot without support on the F55).
When in doubt, add support.
 
There's no way that Denz baseplate would work with my O'Connor or Sachtler quick release plates because the back edge would dig right into my shoulder during handheld. Notice there is no photo showing the Denz off the tripod while mated to the tripod QR plate. Am I missing something?
 
I like this one from Shape. I never found a lens it couldn't support and it is very quick to adjust.
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Hi Doug,
Seems pretty good ! Can Shape support be deployed high enough for FS7 mount ? (Ok.. I probably speak english like a dead french cow..)
Am I missing something ?
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I'm afraid not.
Just consider it on standard plates (not little QR ones) or like minimalist gear for shoulder mounted activities .
 
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I have that Shape lens support - along with Shape's lightweight plate for FS7. And mine does need the Allen wrench to adjust the support - so maybe it's newer? Wish I had your version Doug, but even having to keep a 5/32 allen in your pocket - it still allows for quick changeout.
 
Well, if you have to use an allen wrench to adjust the height, I withdraw my endorsement. Shape must have changed the design in the four years since I bought mine. Dumb, really dumb.
 
The problem with that SmallRig lens support and possibly the Shape one is that they are lens cradles, not rigid mounts. A proper lens support screws into a socket on the lens itself, making rigid, solid contact and holding the lens truly in place. A lens cradle only supports against gravity. But a bolted in support rigidises the lens to the rods. If you are handheld, on a car rig or otherwise in a vibration environment where torque force could be placed against the lens in various directions then the support absorbs the engr. instead of applying the force to the lens mount. Remember that the heaviest, largest glass elements of a lens are usually out in the very front, and a small amount of force out there translates to a much larger force back at the mount. That's why proper lens supports exist.

If you are using a lens that was never designed to accept a screw in lens support then a lens cradle is better than nothing. But if you are using a lens that has the socket for a proper lens support, use the correct tool for the job.

There is one other option for lenses that do not have a proper support socket. Zacuto makes a lens cradle that can also accept one of the company's zip gears to attach to the cradle and then wrap around the lens to hold it in place from all directions.
 
Thanks for your clarification, Mitch.
I never thought about this potential problem... Now, it's clear.

An interesting thing with the SmallRig support : the cradle can be unscrewed.
Then, it becomes a 1/4 fixing screw. A kind of "socket ready" function.
 
Yeah, I have the SmallRig one and I screw it into longer lenses for extra support. Highly recommended!
 
Hi Le Chat Errant,

I wrote it in the context of using PL mount lenses with adapter on FS7, as the PL mount adapter will have its own weight, also as mentioned by others PL lenses are often front heavy and massive in size.

Le Chat Errant said:
Thanks Nsoltz,

But doubt still exists, when Lucas Kao writes (not alone on internet) :

PZ 28-135 = 1,215 Kg.
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I have two PL Mounts with double 15mm support going into the 'overstock' bin. Send a PM if you need a deal on the best available ;-)
 
rx8pilot said:
I have two PL Mounts with double 15mm support going into the 'overstock' bin. Send a PM if you need a deal on the best available ;-)
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I will note that Carlos' SOLID CAMERA lens mount adapters are super strong, very well-designed and very well made. Far better than what you will find from some other outlets.
 
Mitch Gross said:
I will note that Carlos' SOLID CAMERA lens mount adapters are super strong, very well-designed and very well made. Far better than what you will find from some other outlets.
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Maybe, but at $900 per mount, they are also over-priced. That's 50% more than the competition.
I know, I know, "you get what you pay for" and "buy cheap, buy twice" and all those clichés, but there are limits to that way of seeing things as well.

I am quite sure that the mount from a certain Polish supplier are also quite good and much more reasonably priced.
 
Did you not read Carlos' post that said he had two left and he's willing to sell them cheap rather then throw them in the trash? He's not making this product anymore and he's looking to clear stock.

Think cheap you get cheap.
 
Mitch Gross said:
Did you not read Carlos' post that said he had two left and he's willing to sell them cheap rather then throw them in the trash? He's not making this product anymore and he's looking to clear stock.

Think cheap you get cheap.
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Nope didn't see that. My apologies.
But thanks for the new proverb.
I will do my best to live up to that. :evil:

But seriously, that's really the only kind of situation that is often doable, because I have found that buying things a couple of years after their debut makes more economic sense for me than the latest and greatest. I almost never buy anything when it's first released these days. Been burned too many times.
 
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Checking back into this thread to see if anyone has had any further experiences involving the stability of PL mount adapters on the FS7...

Has anyone given the Wooden Camera PL adapter with the top plate support a try?


thx
 
cuervo said:
This is the most appropriate post I've read to date on this subject. I come from a career of optical mount design, so, I have a little knowledge of this subject. It's enough to say, here, that every lens glass made, is precision ground to a shape that has to be controlled to a few angstroms of light wavelength. An angstrom is one 10 billionth of a meter. Any variation from the shape introduces distortions, depending on where the variation occurs. The time it takes to grind a lens to near perfection; and, the quality control necessary to measure the results, are one of the biggest drivers to cost of a lens. One reason quality lenses are in the tens of thousands of dollars.

A lens is designed to be perfectly aligned to the focal axis, as well. Any tilt to the lens mechanical axis, relative to the focal plane, will result in coma and chromatic aberration. Point being, if the lens mount flexes to allow tilt, or deforms to shift the focal point, aberration, CA, blur, coma and other errors are introduced in the image. Tilts on the order of angstroms, too small to even detect, are critical. So, you can imagine what kind of image errors are being introduced by mechanical displacements that you can see with your naked eye.

On my FS700, it's very easy to see tilt and shift in the lens, due to machining tolerances and flexing of the lens mount. These all add up cumulatively. We pay the price in theoretical lens performance by the practical limitations to lens engineering. Even a lens support that has been aggressively applied, will force a tilt to the lens worse than the sag from having no lens support. And if you think you can stabilize a lens with your hand on the focus ring, think again.

The e mount is inherently weak because it does not locate the lens mount surface to the camera mount surface in any predictable and repeatable way. One of the best lens mounting designs is shown by the Arri PL mount because it positively locates the lens against the camera body. Sony duplicated this idea with the FZ mount. Too bad they don't follow thru with this mounting concept on their less expensive cams and have devoted so much engineering to e mounts.
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Everything you both said is true and prudent advice. However, the reality is that many, many Fs7 owners are putting PL glass on their cameras, shooting the snot out of it, and making great images that are acceptable to clients. Yes, the e-mount was not engineered for such use. But the Canon 24-70mm wasn't engineered for shooting video or use with follow focus gears yet here we are.

Shifted focal points, aberration, coma, angstroms not where they are supposed to be angstromed- I get it. The truth is that wrongly or righty, and with unfortunate disrespect to the science of optical engineering, people just aren't that critical. People shoot broadcast tv on iPhones now. On iPhones with scuffed lenses. Very, very few Fs7 owners shoot anything that is for critical application. Owners ARE putting PL glass on the Fs7 without mount support. They just are. And often.

Best case scenario, use mount support. The Wooden Camera support would seem to be the most supportive since it does not rely on the rails and instead mounts to the camera body directly. Well, sorta directly. More directly than the rail support does. The rub with using mount support is that many of us are hot swapping between PL glass, EF glass, and E-mount glass. Using mount support means the hot swapping becomes more like luke warm swapping. It slows things down. That means missed action. WC is working on a mount support that will accommodate both PL and EF mount adapters.

A practical rule of thumb might be to use mount support for anything heavier than the Sony FE 28-135mm. In a perfect world you support any lens that isn't native e-mount. And in that same perfect world we never clean lens elements with our shirts, we all carefully store tripods in their padded cases when traveling between locations and Producers always give us a lunch break. :happy:
 
JPNola said:
In a perfect world you support any lens that isn't native e-mount. And in that same perfect world we never clean lens elements with our shirts, we all carefully store tripods in their padded cases when traveling between locations and Producers always give us a lunch break. :happy:
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Oh my god. You just encapsulated the entire video experience.
 
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