Canon announced their CN-E Primes back in 2011 with only a 24, 50, and 85mm. They quickly added the 14, 35, and 135mm to the line-up providing cinematographers an set of six lenses from 14 through 135mm. The lenses are plenty sharp and built rather well. Duclos Lenses saw the potential of these primes and took action. In this post, we’re going to dive into what makes the Canon CN-E Primes such great lenses and why Duclos Lenses chose these particular lenses for modification to PL mount. Continue reading “Canon CN-E Primes – An In-Depth Look”
Tag: Eos
Canon Cinema EOS Captures Space In 4K For New IMAX® 3D Film
Canon is really making waves in the professional motion picture world. They have the manufacturing breadth and experience to produce some really high quality products. Professionals have been a bit slow to adopt the new system of cinema cameras and lenses – but it looks like things are picking up. …way up.
In a recent press release, Canon discusses their products being used on an upcoming IMAX film. Check out the press release below.
Continue reading “Canon Cinema EOS Captures Space In 4K For New IMAX® 3D Film”
Shane Hurlbut Puts Duclos to the Test
Shane Hurlbut recently took a set of the Canon Cinema Compact Zoom lenses, 15.5-47mm and 30-105mm, complete with Multi-Mount and Zoom Motor Bracket as well as the two flagship lenses, the 14.5-60mm and 30-300mm with our Carry Handle and Motor Bracket kits out for a spin on his newest project that you may have heard of – Need for Speed.
I love what Duclos has made. They are ergonomically made to flow with the lens and they also incorporate a Haden M26T motor bracket to engage the zoom focal lengths. They are built like a brick house,
Check out his full article on his blog here – Adapting Your Canon Arsenal with Duclos: A Way for Filmakers to Increase Speed and Convenience on Set.
Larry Thorpe’s take on Canon Cinema Lenses
Several months back, Canon held an event at their Hollywood HQ showcasing their complete line of Cinema Eos products, but focused on (pun intended) their cinema lenses. There were a couple of speakers; one ,who’s name escapes me at the time of writing this, coming from a new-age cinematographers point of view talking about the benefits of modern image sensor technology and compact, lightweight style shooting – and the other, Larry Thorpe. If you’re not familiar with Larry Thorpe, he’s basically a guru of all things image acquisition. He’s worked for RCA, Sony, and now Canon. One may jump to the conclusion that he loves Canon lenses so much simply because it’s his job being a marketing exec. at Canon… But Larry is truly passionate about his work and optics in particular and it shows.
Larry’s presentation at the Canon event revolved mainly around optics and discussed current and future technologies. Canon released a PDF which essentially mirrors Larry’s presentation at the event that I’ve linked here. Give it a read and see why Canon is making waves in the industry with their cinema optics. See the PDF below.
Canon Fills Out Nicely With a New 35mm Cine Prime
Canon wiggled their way into the professional cinema lens market with a few zooms and a trio of primes. Shortly after their initial line-up they added a wide and telephoto prime option to cap the end of their prime lens family. The line-up included a 14mm, 24mm, 50mm, 85mm, and 135mm. Not a bad set of primes, but the gap left between the 24mm and 50mm was painfully obvious. This week Canon has announced the development of a 35mm CN-E prime lens to add to their offering. Continue reading “Canon Fills Out Nicely With a New 35mm Cine Prime”
Duclos Lenses Introduces Rokinon•Raw Primes
Rokinon•Raw
Many productions call for the absolute best lenses possible and end up reaching for Zeiss Master Primes or Panavision Primos for a well corrected, clinical look. This is great if you want an absolutely clean slate to work with in post since it’s always easier to dial down sharpness and add a bit of grunge after the fact. But what if you want something with a little more character – a little bit of flare, in camera. Continue reading “Duclos Lenses Introduces Rokinon•Raw Primes”
Canon EF Mounts For All
This post is part of a series of upcoming reviews of camera-lens mounts and their pros and cons. Quite possibly the most common camera-lens mount on the market today is the Canon EF and EF-S mount. Introduced in 1987 and updated in 2003, the EF-S mount added several features that improved on the original FD Mount including focus motors placed inside the lens to enable auto-focus. Step forward 2.5 decades and the Canon EF and EF-S mount are the reigning champion of still photography and quickly gaining popularity in the world of cinema. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll simply refer to the Canon mount as EF instead of EF or EF-S. If you need more clarification on the difference between EF and EF-S, google it. 😉
More Lens Options Than Ever
In a recent post I declared that it’s better to invest in glass than in cameras since new cameras come out every few months. I wasn’t just saying that to get people to buy glass, I meant it. Just this year there have been at least half a dozen cameras released or announced, if not more. With more cameras there comes more choices for lenses. Wether it’s a BlackMagic camera with it’s mighty little crop sensor or the new 5DMk14B-R whatevermagig. Lenses will always be required for cinema and in todays economy it’s all about compromise. So where do you compromise and what lenses make the most sense for you? Continue reading “More Lens Options Than Ever”
Leica 100mm APO-Macro
Leica makes some great lenses. They always have. Even their defunct Leica R series lenses are still working hard all around the world. It would almost seem that Leica is incapable of making low quality products. I just finished our Cine-Mod on a Leica APO-Macro-Elmarit-R 1:2.8/100, or as I like to call it, a Leica 100mm Macro. This lens performs like a dream for motion picture applications. It’s close focus is 2.5′ from the film plane which puts objects about 1.8′ from the front of the lens. Keep in mind, this is 100mm. It’s not THAT close considering the Zeiss ZF.2 100mm f/2.0 cranks all the way down to 18″ from the film plane which is about 8″ in front of the lens. The only draw back, which both the Leica and the Zeiss exhibit, is the massive amount of telescoping from infinity to close focus. Both lenses go from a modest 5″ length to a maximum of about 7″ at close focus. Still, Leica made some amazing glass that still does it’s job quite well.
Still Lens Mount Swapping
The DSLR Revolution is in full swing at the moment and everyone is scrambling to get the glass they love on the camera they are stuck with. It doesn’t sound too difficult to simply change a piece of metal, but there are a lot of things to consider when attempting to change a mount. After-all, lenses are a precision tool, naturally. Lens and camera manufacturers all have their own mount system which specifies a flange depth, the distance from the mount flange to the film/sensor plane. When this number is accurate, the image that the lens produces falls on the sensor in perfect focus. Move it forward or backward by the smallest amount (.0005″) and your collimation will be completely off, throwing out your focus marks and destroying the accuracy of a lens, especially a zoom lens. All of the different SLR camera manufacturers had a similar theory and design, but just slightly different numbers for the flange depth. Wouldn’t it be great if they all agreed on a standardized mount that would allow any lens to be used on any camera? Yeah, it would be great. But that’s not how it works.
Universal Mount – Canon Eos, But Wait…
Before you get too excited, a “universal mount” in the motion picture industry is not universal. The universal mount is what is used on lenses such as the Cooke 20-100mm or 25-250mm, and more recently on the Angenieux 24-290mm. It’s simply a sub-mount with a threaded rear that allows several different mounts to be attached, most commonly a PL or Panavision mount. These were fairly common on professional zoom lenses in the 80s, 90s, and 00s. Now, wouldn’t it be awesome if you could put a classic Cooke 25-250mm on a Canon 7D? Yes. Yes it would be awesome. Please observe the awesomeness:
