Shane Hurlbut Puts Duclos to the Test

Duclos-new_sm-1Shane 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.

Canon Lightweight Zoom Universal Mount From Duclos Lenses

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Canon’s new 15.5-47mm with factory Canon EF mount.

Canon introduced their pair of lightweight zooms, 15.5-47mm and 30-105mm, about a year ago and they’ve had a bit of a rough start. They were introduced into an already saturated market where every other manufacturer had been making zoom lenses for decades. Canon is no newb when it comes to high-end cinema zooms. They had their line of S16 format zooms a few years back (remember 16mm film?) that were adapted from their long running and still successful video lens division. Everyone knows that Canon makes great lenses. Their L series is a perfect indication of high quality, professional glass. But in the recent past, there wasn’t really any professional cinema lens offerings from Canon. The new lightweight zooms were an excellent comeback! They had all the features I look for in a zoom lens. They are designed with simple, robust components throughout the lens. Plenty of focus marks on clean, simple barrels. Consistent T-stop of T2.8 throughout the zoom range. And just about every other feature of a professional cinema zoom lens. Continue reading “Canon Lightweight Zoom Universal Mount From Duclos Lenses”

Still Lens Mount Swapping

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.

Another angle of the Leica-R 35mm f/1.4 Summilux with Leitax Eos mount installed.

Continue reading “Still Lens Mount Swapping”