thisiswells
Retired
He was probably thinking of the Angenieux PL lenses to B4 cameras adapter. For some reason, it inverted the image, and the cameras had to be re-worked to compensate for it, hence the VariCam "F" update. Some DigiBeta cameras also have the menu option, so it is definitely considered a "high end" feature.Barry_Green said:He also said something I thought was quite confusing, which is that a B4 adapter would need the flilp. And I'm wondering -- why?
(update: CLA35HD is mentioned in an old CML thread here. It seems that it actually used a series of lenses to adapt a PL film lens to a B4 video camera (thereby "flipping" the image). It was because it used a series of lenses (instead of a ground glass and prism set) that makes this adapter unique in the area of lens adapters.
But, apparently, this adapter was a stop-gap solution for lensing an HD camera before there were HD lenses. Now that there are suitable lenses for HD, there isn't really any reason to use this adapter anymore.)
... For the XLH1 what keeps coming to mind is that Canon looked at the expensive broadcast cameras on the market, stripped away the expensive parts (2/3" chips, "real HD" recording format, manual lens) and categorically left in all the others that users don't really need (HD-SDI output connector, image flip for a lens adapter that never caught on...) Knuckleheads.