PL to micro4/3 adapter

I would like to know also. I heard the Panasonic PL adaptor for the AF100 will cost $1.2K. Which will make this camera end up costing $6K. Any other adaptor - that are available now - that you know would work fine?
 
Luiz R said:
I would like to know also. I heard the Panasonic PL adaptor for the AF100 will cost $1.2K. Which will make this camera end up costing $6K. Any other adaptor - that are available now - that you know would work fine?
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Hi, We do not have a PL adapter at all. We have been showing it with the Hot Rod Camera PL mount. Illya monitors this website and can confirm the price on his PL mount.

Best,
Jan
 
I don't see how there could be much difference between two pieces of stainless steel, apart from the huge price difference... there are no mechanics in it, no electronics... it's just a piece of stainless steel. So one is selling his piece of stainless steel for better money than the other one :-)
 
You cant adjust the flange distance on the ebay PL mount from what I can see, but the hotrod is shimable... wish that feature was not coming at a $1.5K premium.
 
Oliver Rush said:
You cant adjust the flange distance on the ebay PL mount from what I can see, but the hotrod is shimable... wish that feature was not coming at a $1.5K premium.
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Does one really need to shim a lens if it is a prime? I don't see the need when shooting primes. Am I wrong on this?
 
Joe Media said:
The only time you need to shim primes is for adjusting the accuracy of the witness marks,
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So, since you are shooting with a video camera and can confirm focus with a monitor this becomes less important.
But if you are using a PL zoom lens you might have to shim to adjust back focus.
 
RieniO said:
I don't see how there could be much difference between two pieces of stainless steel, apart from the huge price difference... there are no mechanics in it, no electronics... it's just a piece of stainless steel. So one is selling his piece of stainless steel for better money than the other one :-)
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There is steel and there is steel. Then you have manufacturing tolerances. In the end a lot is about trust in long time reliability - broke just yesterday my expensive Titanium-frame reading glasses by just cleaning them.... faulty material....

Have rather good experiences with a set of old lenses (Nikon, Leica-M, Leica-R) and Novoflex-adaptors, have one Asian cheapo Nikon-to-mft Adapter on an old Zeiss Jena 180 that is clearly "off" and goes over infinity (not such a big problem, as I have control over monitor but sure one if I worked with a focus puller), the same with a cheapo M42 adaptor.

Hot Rod PL-mft worked fine and dandy so far, but we use the GH13 only as second & crash & test cam. Guess it depends on your budget and how much you are willing to spend on "reliability".
 
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Taylor Rudd said:
the ebay adapter will get the job done, in the most basic way.
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Are you talking about the short with Stephen, Timur, Barry, etc?

Do the "most basic way" Include 110% firm locking?
Do the rest of the crew share same opinion on 110% firm locking?
Have a nice third (fourth?) shooting day
Thanks
 
tipota said:
There is steel and there is steel.
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The MTF adapter (MTF is supposed to have a good reputation) is stainless steel.

The ebay one is made out of aluminum not stainless steel. That shouldn't be a problem for most lenses, unless you have some huge cine lens, but those should be supported anyway.

I would guess that 99% of the people will be using their existing Nikon-F and Canon FD lenses for quite awhile anyway. (No reason they shouldn't either. They should look great.) The cheep chinese m4/3 adapters seem to be sheet aluminum with brass fittings. I wouldn't want to hang a heavy lens on one.
 
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Hello All,

There's a lot of questions, so I'll do my best to quickly give some answers, it's late so I'm going to try to fly through this.


There's some pretty fundamental difference is the products that Hot Rod designs and builds compared to any one else.

The Hot Rod PL was designed from scratch as a purpose-built product. It is not adapted from any other mount. The Hot Rod PL pre-dates all other micro 4/3 to PL adapters, it is the first and the original.
Most of the people now copying the Hot Rod PL are adapting/repurposing another product that in an attempt to complete the task- as inexpensively as possible. I think that this is of course the wrong philosophy for a product built for the motion picture industry. I sorry to report that even with the lower prices from other manufacturers, they all have a larger profit % on their products than we do.

Building 100% in the USA is not cheap, raw materials from the USA are not cheap either. The core design and manufacturing team at Hot Rod Cameras has more than 40-years of combined experience from working in the field and designing and building equipment for companies like Panavision and DALSA. We are not out to make a quick buck. We design and build products for professional level work. We have a pretty good idea of what is and what isn't needed in a product. It's one of the reasons why Hot Rod Cameras equipment is found in more than 90% of the professional motion picture camera rental houses in Los Angeles; very few other companies can make that claim- and the ones that can are all much older and much larger corporations than Hot Rod.

As the President of Hot Rod Cameras, I'm very closely associated with the company, I'm not just a hired gun. It's very important to me that Hot Rod build the best product, and that means that unfortunately my manufacturing process can be far more costly.

If you mount any other company's PL mount on an AF100, GH1 or GH2, the first thing you'll notice is play, slop between the mount and the camera. This is a real problem when you are shooting moving images. The slop can result in image shift, split focal planes and other imaging problems. Put on the Hot Rod PL and it is isolated and locked into place when used with the correct support hardware, there is no unwanted play. I don't know if the ebay people are claiming this- but that "kluge" of a single screw does not immobilize the mount. The supported Hot Rod PL maintains 4-axis of immobilization.

The shimmable flange of the Hot Rod PL means that not only you can focus at infinity, and that your focus marks will line up, but that you also have the ability to SHARE your PL mount (and lenses) between other micro 4/3 cameras and they will also have accurate focus marks. This is key if you are in the rental business, or ever work with professional Cameras Assistants- a good AC will reject a lens that is off. If you don't think that having accurate marks is important, than you probably don't need to be shooting with PL mount lenses. If you are offended, you shouldn't be. That statement is not an insult. Accurate focus marks is one of the PRIMARY reasons that cinema lenses are designed and built they way they are. Panasonic (like all other manufacturers does not put the sensor in the same place in every camera (it's "close" but there is a variance) that means if you retape your PL mount lenses for a cheap adapter and then put it on another camera- sorry all your marks are wrong again. It could even be different enough that your "cheap" adapter will cause your expensive lenses to never reach infinity or close focus. The only way to be sure that you are getting all of that barrel rotation on your cinema lenses is to have accurate focus marks.

To be clear, you get a lot more than just the PL adapter in the Hot Rod PL "Tuner Kit" for the AF100. You also get the X-Baseplate which is purpose built for the AF100, but also has adjustments so that it can be used with any future or current cameras that have a similar body shape and size. I humbly believe that the X-Baseplate is the greatest baseplate system in existence for small form factor HD cameras. However, should you own another 15mm lightweight rod baseplate you can purchase the Hot Rod PL Mount and Support Chassis- a la carte. As long as the baseplate you own has 15mm (ARRI lightweight standard) rod holders (some claim to and don't), the appropriate optical height adjustment (some do) and clearance under the lens mount (some do for this as well), a Hot Rod PL will play nice with any other companies product.

If you are really on a budget and think that you will only work with very light PL lenses you can also buy the Hot Rod PL a la carte and use it unsupported; of course this isn't a recommended practice. Should you one day decided to deviate from this plan and try to use a lens that is too heavy you could damage the camera, the lens or both. This is not unique to using a Hot Rod PL mount unsupported, this will happen with any lens adapter used incorrectly. A lens with a heavy center of gravity too far from the camera mount, that experiences even momentary downward (or any directional) force in excesses of with the camera mount can handle, WILL cause significant damage. This is why all large PL mount lenses are intended to be used with what is often called a "low bridge" lens support.

For genuinely professional grade equipment, I don't think our prices are unreasonable. There are lot's of companies that claim to be for pros and aren't really, if you look at the ones that truly are, they are at least the same price range as Hot Rod or a lot more. A la carte, the Hot Rod PL is $835, $349 for the PL Support Chassis and $715 for the X-Baseplate, Purchasing the 3x components as the "Tuner Kit" saves $100 off the a la carte price.

I personally think it's lunacy to trust that expensive (or VERY expensive) lenses will be safe and secure on something that is sold for 1/2 of what we charge. And I bring this up because I'm not alone in that belief. Last week one prominent local rental house with a large number of PL mount lenses, told me that they won't rent their lenses to anyone for use on their own AF100 unless they own a Hot Rod PL or, rent one from the shop. All of the shops AF100s on order have a matching number of Tuner Kits on order from Hot Rod Cameras. There are all kinds of ways to cut corners in a production, but I don't think it's wise to skimp on the part that holds a $65,000 lens safely. It's kind of like buying a new BMW 7 series and and deciding that it's a good idea to save $400 by buying generic tires that when mounted are actually too small for the rims (this is a real phenomenon). You might have an extra $400, but you are not safer or smarter in that car.
 
Alvise Tedesco said:
Are you talking about the short with Stephen, Timur, Barry, etc?

Do the "most basic way" Include 110% firm locking?
Do the rest of the crew share same opinion on 110% firm locking?
Have a nice third (fourth?) shooting day
Thanks
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Yes, the western film.

The mount locks firmly
You'll have to ask them, but I've heard of no one having issues
Thanks!
You're welcome!
 
Wow so to get really good pictures out of this camera, you need prime lenses or CP lenses which are good but still cost $ 3500 plus an adapter $ 1700 + this + that oh nano flash $ 3000 422 at only 8 Bit seems to me a lot of add on's for a good picture! so the camera $ 4500 is only the tip of the cost. Not such a cheap camera for only 24bit AVCHD. Is it me or is just the King has new cloths
 
Andrew S said:
Wow so to get really good pictures out of this camera, you need prime lenses or CP lenses which are good but still cost $ 3500 plus an adapter $ 1700 + this + that oh nano flash $ 3000 422 at only 8 Bit seems to me a lot of add on's for a good picture! so the camera $ 4500 is only the tip of the cost. Not such a cheap camera for only 24bit AVCHD. Is it me or is just the King has new cloths
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No. You can get really good pictures out of this camera without prime lenses. But you get better pictures with them. Absolutely the same applies to every other camera (video or film) around since film-making was invented.

With this one you can decide if you want to work on an consumer, pro-sumer or a professional level. With this decision, you decide what equipment to add.

I will work with my lenses from the GH13 and at times with (rented) PL Zeiss we use for our bigger-budget projects.

So I think this "duke" has plenty of nice cloths to wear exactly because he does not pretend to be a king in the first place (but, as it is, some dukes are sometimes more kingly from heart... with the right horse and sword you can have royal results....).

If you need a king: F3, RED, ALEXA or whatever else strikes your fancy. They have so many, they sell you one if you want.
 
Andrew it's you and all of that within 13 posts? Believe you probably aren't the target for this but for so many of us it's the process as well as the outcome. I don't want a kitchen sink mentality to shooting and like the idea of a proper camera.


I for one really like the idea and functions of the Hot Red. I believe it makes the AF100 a very suitable and exciting option for higher end clients and that is a great package option and then I can rent whatever PL lens I want. I'll buy some lenses but for some shoots I'll be renting the PL lenses. I wouldn't trust an 80K lens to a 300 dollar flange with no supports and such.

This really seems like a great option for sure and would be nice if it got packaged with the AF100. Thanks for the support and for your comments upon this site. KUDOS and if you want to just get the mount and then buy the other stuff, seems like a decent price and I'll pay more for the made in the USA option.
 
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