Using SLR lenses on Red Camera

Floris Liesker

Floris Liesker

New member
Do SLR lenses actually fit on the Red camera?
I see lots of people talk about SLR lenses on the Red in several forums, but in the Red brochure only PL mount and B4 mount is mentioned.
 
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The camera comes with a PL mount, but they are going to make optional mounts as well. Nikon being a strong favorite.
 
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=636562&postcount=5

Jannard said:
There will be other mounts in addition to PL. Nikon is one of them. The EOS lenses are fine optically, but there is no manual aperture control. And we will NOT have controlling electronics for these type of lenses. I agree with Jarred on the older Nikon lenses. But older Canon manual lenses will do well also.

We have shot footage using a Canon lens, a Nikon lens, a Zeiss lens and a Cooke S4. There is a difference. You just have to decide your pain threshold to your wallet.

And remember, there are RED lenses coming. Even though our 300mm is not your typical "1st lens", it is wicked sharp, and Cine quality. Truly a great buy at less than $5k. Our zoom will be announced sometime soon.

Jim
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http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=637691&postcount=37

Jannard said:
Over time we expect to offer many lens mounts. But in the beginning, expect PL, Nikon and Canon manual. We are fully supportive of 3rd parties beating us to the punch in offering other mounts. By the fall of 2007, our hope is that there will be a mount for almost any lens that makes sense.
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Or still from Jim's own words (last October 2nd):

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=73014

«The RED ONE ships with a PL mount. Others will become available at an additional cost. We will try to keep lens mounts priced to enable our customers to afford to shoot the lenses they have»

Here is what this affordable concept means!
 
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Please have RED reservation holders, order their lense mount prior to shipment. I would like mine with a Nikon mount until the red zoom ships.

Also, I hope it is possible for us owners to switch mounts without having to return the camera to red. Thanks. Will this be possible - quick switches in say 5 minutes or are the tolerances to close - will we need backfocus? or will there be backfocus problems?
 
As one of the early reservation holders (yes, I don't expect much sympathy) I am very curious about the lag time between the release of the camera (which I realize is a moving target) and the availablility of nikon/canon mounts. Since I don't own any PL mount lenses I would hate to get the RedOne and have it be a doorstop until the Red lenses ship. I am also not interested in blowing a bunch of coin on a PL mount Cine lens when I have plenty of Nikkor and Canon glass on the shelf in my studio. Some projects will have the budget to rent a nice set of Cine primes, many won't. More importantly, as soon as I get the camera I want to go and shoot with it, you know - make friends.

While we're talking lenses: Gibby and others have pimped for a solution that supports high end ENG style lenses which many of us are quite proficient with. I would understand if the Red Team has enough to occupy them without including that piece at this stage of the development. Anybody out there interested in jumping into this niche? If anyone stepped to Jim and the gang with a plan and some bona fides as lens interface engineers my bet is they would offer them an NDA and enough info about the design that they could get rolling. Maybe I'm making a few too many assumptions but it is a seductive path. Modern ENG lens designs offer great real world ergonomics for shooting docs and live events. After all, from an operators perspective, the critical relationship to the tool in your hand is the lens barrel - not the camera body. The camera head is either a liability or its not, it is either easy to set up and adjust without drilling through menus or its not, it either counterbalances the the lens (and battery) well or it doesn't. It matters at the end of the day how nice of an image the camera head can produce, but during the shoot its the lens that matters.

Blair S. Paulsen
RedOne #19
 
alacritymedia said:
More importantly, as soon as I get the camera I want to go and shoot with it, you know - make friends.

Blair S. Paulsen
RedOne #19
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I laughed so hard at this, it's so true! Thanks Blair!:beer:
 
Here is my question. Everybody says that a good alternative to cinema lenses are the Nikon and Canon manual focus still lenses. I want zoom capability, so can anybody reccommend paticular Nikon or Canon zooms I should be looking at and where to buy them. I am kind of new to the whole lens buying thing since I normally shoot with cameras that come with a fixed lens. BTW: I already looked through that 30+ page thread talking about possible lenses and came away more confused than ever. I just need a simple list of possible Nikon or Canon zooms with possible vendors. Anybody?
 
i know you're looking for still lens - find one near zoom range of cine lens ... i remember some still ranges 28-70/35-70 F2.8 ... then there were some wider ones 15-35, 17-? ? those should work good - also primes 14mm to 135mm ... nikor 200mm f2 is one of my favorites
in general for cine lens .. 18-100 range is workhorse ( and quite large lens), the cooke 20-60 is smaller and works very good ( interiors ) - sometimes you may need a little longer then 60mm - i usally find i top out around 85mm for interiors ... for hand held i prefer primes and the still 15-35 lens would work good too for hand held ( use as prime not as zoom lens) ... so perhaps a still zoom lens in the 18-135mm range ?? make sure it zooms by turning ring and not a push/pull type zoom if you plan to zoom during a shot..

when i use to use a Aaton 35mm or 16mm camera i liked the 80-200 f2.8 nikon for outdoors ( used as prime as it was a push/pull type zoom) ...
 
You know Deadzone, I asked a very similar question a while ago and I didn't get much help but everything was answered for me eventually. So, to make up for my annoying experience, I'm going to help you out right off the bat! :)

The best thread I've seen is this thread:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=66640

Mr. Blonde and Evinsky make some great general suggestion lists on what you should aim for. The zoom Evinsky mentions is the one I'm primarily looking at as my basic lens once I get my RED.

Hope this helps you out!
 
Jack_Felis said:
You know Deadzone, I asked a very similar question a while ago and I didn't get much help but everything was answered for me eventually. So, to make up for my annoying experience, I'm going to help you out right off the bat! :)

The best thread I've seen is this thread:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=66640

Mr. Blonde and Evinsky make some great general suggestion lists on what you should aim for. The zoom Evinsky mentions is the one I'm primarily looking at as my basic lens once I get my RED.

Hope this helps you out!
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That does help me out. Thanks. So I found this lens for sale on buydig.com for around $1400. This seems to be the going price. If anybody knows, could they point out why this particular lens costs so much compared to some of the other Nikons at the $1200 or $1000 price range. Is it just superior optics?
 
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It goes for a better rate second hand. I've seen some good prices on ebay.

I think you are paying for the quality optics! A lot of reviews compare it favourably with prime in the same range.

A low cost alternative in a similar range may be the Nikon AF Nikkor 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5D ED IF. Not as fast as the 17-35 f2.8. Review is here:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/1835.htm
 
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The review mentions loss in sharpness and more distortion on the Nikon AF 18-35mm. However, it says the sharpness loss is in the corner, but the distortion might be bad. It'd be interesting when Red comes out and people do their tests.
 
remember these still lens are covering a 36x24 area .. RED is not larger then 24x16 so when the reviews says soft in corners that is in the corners of 36x24 ...
 
Good point Donatello. RED Mysterium S35 sensor = 24.4mm x 13.7mm, smaller than the 36mm x 24mm coverage area of 35mm still photo frame, thus softness in the corners at certain focal lengths on the Nikon 18-35mm may not be a factor in use on RED One. Some testing with the Nikon 18-35mm on RED should answer that...
 
nikon lenses and DSLRs

nikon lenses and DSLRs

The Nikon DSLR cameras have a sensor size similar to RED. For example, the Nikon DSLRs with "DX" format sensor eg. D80, D2X, D1, D200 etc. all have sensors approx. 24 x 16 mm. So any lens review using those cameras should be informative for RED users also. In addition, the D2X at 12.4M effective pixels has nearly the resolution of RED . See also: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond2x/ and http://www.naturfotograf.com/lens_surv.html
 
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I have most of the clasic prime Nikon manual lenses, use them with my m2 and plan to start with them with red one. I recently bought the 17-55 / 2.8 to use with an dslr. Wow! this is a sweet lens, much sharper and faster than the 18-35.
Aloha
-A
 
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