Rokinon/Samyang PL mount lenses

That is a deep rabbit hole to throw yourself down.

When the first response from the lens maker was "what do you mean by PL mount?" it became immediately clear that they are likely not the best candidate to make these lenses. Once they realize PL mount has a 52mm flange distance, they will hate life. Redesigning their lenses won't be easy or cheap for that matter.

It's more work than simply declicking an iris and putting lens gears on a lens. You can put lipstick on a pig...
 
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They were making cctv and industrial lenses up in till not to long ago and now they are making still lenses that are very well respected for their optical quality. Hell Phillip Bloom seems to chose their 85mm over all else at the moment.

I think they may have much to learn but there is no reason they couldn't make a good quality useful product. And they have already shown they are an adaptable company and they listen to their customers. So the prospect of them actuall doing something in the not to distant future is not unlikely.
 
Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
When the first response from the lens maker was "what do you mean by PL mount?" it became immediately clear that they are likely not the best candidate to make these lenses.
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The only thing that's clear from that is the person managing their Facebook account is not an actual lens maker. I'm pretty sure their engineers, the ones who made lenses that rival and surpass Nikon/Canon premium optics in many respects, know what a PL mount is.
 
and having a 52mm flange distance but being able to go deep into the camera's body is not such a big deal - actually, making a lens for the 5D2 may be a bigger mechanical constraint (there's a mirror, you can't get close to the sensor)
 
I'm with Ryan on this. I work directly with several lens manufacturers and know exactly what it takes to make such a thing happen. I don't doubt they could make PL mount lenses, just question whether if they will bother once they see the size of our tiny little market.
 
Samuel H said:
and having a 52mm flange distance but being able to go deep into the camera's body is not such a big deal - actually, making a lens for the 5D2 may be a bigger mechanical constraint (there's a mirror, you can't get close to the sensor)
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No no. I did not mean they cannot make a PL mount lens nor that it was more difficult (PL cine lenses do typically have different and more stringent standards, however). What I meant by my comment is that Rokinon likely do not yet know how difficult it would be to retrofit their lenses. Some will assume it will be as easy as changing the mount on the back, declicking the iris and putting geared rings on the barrel. That is not the case.

It is easier to make a lens that has a long flange distance go onto a camera with a short flange distance. You simply add space between the lens and camera until the distance requirements are met. This is why PL mount lenses can go on almost any photography camera. At 52mm, the lens has a deeper flange distance than almost any photography camera. It is doing the opposite way which is the hard part.

Rokinon/Samyang can't simply change the mount on their lenses. This is because the backfocus/flange distance of their lenses is much shallower. If they simply put a PL mount on the lens, the image would not properly focus onto the sensor plane but it would fall in front. Thus it would require them to actually re-design the lenses they already have with completely new optical assemblies to properly correct the back focus of the lens. The only saving grace to avoid this would be if their rear optical groupings were so small they could be fit within the PL mount and live within the 52mm flange depth, such as the Angie DP's utilize. This is highly unlikely.

My point was, once they realize that the PL mount flange distance was very deep and would require an optical re-design, it wouldn't even be an easy task to build a crappy set of PL lenses, no less a good one! I don't doubt anyone's ability to make a PL mount lens. I do doubt their willingness and dedication to it. Especially when the market is small (as mitch mentions) and PL lenses are typically held to a much greater standard, so nothing short of a home-run will likely be met with high critism. Anything less than RedPro Prime quality (which is middle ground, in my opinion) would be chastised by professionals. Look at those Sony F3 PL lenses, if you want a great example of what happens when you don't have the dedication to finish a job and when you compromise quality for price.

Look at Sony, a huge company. They attempted to make cheap PL mount lenses, and what did we get? Really cheaply made PL mount lenses. The worst mechanics I have ever experienced. Additionally, you can see their lack of passion and dedication to the lens line. When the F3 and these lenses debuted in 2010, they only offered three focal lengths. Every filmmaker knows that three lenses is not enough for a complete lens package. It may be enough for some situations, but certainly not most. Sony promised more were on the way... Well guess what? Sony is a company of great size and they make all their decisions based on the bottom line. The lens sales must not have been as good as they wanted because we've not seen one Sony PL prime since. You can bet the farm that PL mount lens series is dead and they have no problem with that. Too bad for those people who bought into the set expecting more primes down the line.

Sony got themselves into a mess with those lenses, in my opinion, and that should be a warning sign for any company looking to enter the PL mount Cinema lens with anything short of complete passion and dedication to making a complete lens set. It's a big commitment and endeavour. Much more than swapping out a mount.
 
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I think they'd have to do a mechanical redesign, which is not insignificant (it's not just swapping the mount) but not a huge deal either. If the back elements of a lens are too big to fit in any mechanical redesign compatible with PL, then it requires an optical redesign too, and THAT is expensive. But I don't think that will be an issue: on every lens I own except the very long ones, the back elements are moderately small. What would be more worrying for me is whether the current Samyang lineout makes a good cinema package, even when they fill the 50mm gap. I mean: these lenses are very, very different (the 35mm is as sharp as it gets, but has not-so-great bokeh, whereas the 85mm is not really that sharp, but has excellent bokeh). But if it wasn't a problem for Zeiss... http://timurcivan.blogspot.com.es/2011/07/examination-of-lenses-carl-zeiss.html
 
Well Duclos seems to be doing those just fine for Tokina 11-16mm lenses. Don't really see anything extreme stopping Samyang.
 
Wow it's a small world. The third guy to comment on that facebook thread (Thomas) is someone I talked indie filmmaking with 10+ years ago on a couple other boards, one of which I used to run. Haven't talked to him in a while. Interesting to see and same faces pop up here and there.
 
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