C300: PL mount

I have a client that has one. When I end up shooting with one of their 300's, I like it when I get assigned the PL version, because they have a lot of nice PL glass. Usually the Canon 30-105 and Zeiss 70-200 go out with that camera.

As far as the price difference, the PL version was no where near as popular as the EF version, so probably just trying to move them. Just like why they kept cutting the price on the C500, no one was buying them.
 
I'd imagine the C300 PL is less expensive because they're trying to clear stock of a less popular model.


Could someone explain to me the advantages of PL mount?

EF locking mount is really quite rigid; I use the 30-105 and 15.5-47 EF without lens support and it feels plenty rigid with the Amira's EF locking mount. Plus with EF mount you can have things such as AF and IS. I also find PL mount (in my quite limited experience) to be more finicky and difficult to mount lenses to compared to EF mount.

So to me it seems the only advantage of PL mount is it offers a bit more rigidness over locking EF and a good amount more rigidness over non-locking EF mount. Though, PL mount still isn't all that rigid that you'd say want to mount an Arri 18-80 without lens support, so I'm not sure the little bit more rigidness over locking EF really has that much real world benefit. PL mount also benefits as a matter of circumstance of having more high end glass that is only available in PL, with that latter part only mattering if one uses higher end glass. Most mid-range cinema lenses (such as Canon, Zeiss, Schneider) are available in EF mount, and are often well matched in terms of budget with cameras such as the C300, Amira, Varicam LT, and Sony F55.
 
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Eric Coughlin said:
Could someone explain to me the advantages of PL mount?
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Back in the day of FILM cameras there were a number of lens mounts, and Arri's PL ended up being the dominant lens mount, with Nikon's F mount the alternative "low budget" option. 16mm also had a wide range of lens mounts, different from 35mm. Off the top of my head I can remember BNC, BNCR, CP, CA-1, Arri standard, Arri Bayonet, "C", Bolex bayonet, OCT 19, OCT-18, Aaton may have had their own- the Communist block also had their own unique lens mounts- which I can't remember. I'm sure I'm forgetting a few other "western" lens mounts. There were only a handful of cinema lens manufacturers- some had "universal" mounts where you could adapt lenses to different mounts- but the PL became an industry standard for 35mm and S16mm, though Panavision moved to their own PV mount. In other words it was a free for all with cinema lenses and film camera manufacturers- an industry standard was needed.

Cinema zooms are huge and heavy, so twisting a lock ring made much more sense than twisting the lens to engage. Manufacturers' still lens mounts simply did not have the strength to hang a cinema lens off of.

At least two technical reasons prevented EF lenses from being used on film cameras: 1. flange focal distance. most film cameras had spinning mirrors and required a fairly deep ffd to clear it- enter Nikon F. EF was too shallow. 2. electronic lens control. EF lenses require electronics to operate the iris, to say nothing of autofocus. Film cameras were by and large fully manual when it came to lens systems. Because Nikon didn't change their physical lens mount since what- the 1950's- there are millions of manual Nikon lenses floating around.

Digital cinema changed all that. There was also an acute shortage of "cinema" glass, so EF became the standard, as Nikon and Pentax lenses rotate the "wrong" way for focus (and mounting if you ask me- I was a Nikon guy.) Obviously electronics would no longer be an issue.

BTW old timers much preferred the BNCR mount (the Russian OCT-19 was a copy of that) over the new fangled PL mount because they said it was significantly stronger.

The locking ring EF mount is a variation of the cinema mount. A purpose built EF mount can also be build much stronger than the typical stills EF mount.

I think of upgrading the twist mount on my C300Mk2- but that's money spent that will not add to income and these cameras have a limited market relevancy, so I keep suppressing the thought. The expense would be ok for rental cameras I think. But most rental companies don't even address the twisting cold shoe mount on the monitor unit...

Then there were the video lens mounts...
 
New_Zealand said:
Does anyone know why is the C300 PL less cost than the C300?
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I've been watching these pricing trends for a while now, and is easy to explain, because in 2018 a C300mk1 PL is going to be massively less popular than a C300mk1 EF.

As someone who owns PL lenses (or can afford the rental budget for PL lenses!) is very unlikely to want to use the now rather old and underspecced C300mk1 for any of their shooting.
The low budget buyers of the C300mk1 today are massively more likely to instead have cheap cheap EF mount lenses instead.


And another of the downsides of the C300 is you are stuck with the mount, whatever you buy it with, that is what you'll have!!

Thus why we see the price imbalance on eBay of C300mk1 PL vs C300mk1 EF, no surprise at all.
 
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