Nikon D-5000 with real Cinema Lenses
Recently someone emailed me asking about creating an adaptor for mounting BNCR mount lenses to a DSLR. Since I now have a DSLR (a Nikon D-5000) I thought I would give it a try. I started with my camera on and in video mode. As soon as I took off the lens that came with the camera the camera shut itself off. But, with the lens still off I cycled the power switch and to my delight the camera came back on and switched into video mode when I pressed the video mode button. Of course when the switched the camera to video mode the shutter went up which allowed me to see the image sensor. Though not the size of a 35mm 8 perf neg it is certainly larger than the little chips in nearly all video cameras (which is one contributing factor the cameras ability to produce very selectable focus). So, I got out my CineKowa prime lens set. The video starts with me simply holding the 15mm lens directly in front of the camera. About midway through the video you can see that I set the 15mm lens down and replace it with a 32mm lens, The first thing you see when i place the 32mm lens in front of the camera is the 15mm lens on my little desk. There is some vignetting throughout the video but that is due to my not holding the lens correctly in front of the camera. You can actually tell as I am constantly repositioning the lens to get focus since I can not actually turn the focus ring while holding the lens and the camera in different hands. Let me reiterate that all I am doing is actually hand holding the lens in front of the camera body. There is not actual mechanical mount being used as the lenses are BNCR mount and the camera is Nikon mount. I am just experiment to see if this is even a feasible idea. One think I noticed is that while all of the lenses do cover the entire image senosr (that is good) and I can place the lenses far enough back into the camera body for the proper back focus (also good) the shutter hits the back of the lens if i switch back to still mode (not good) This means that camera will work with Kowa, Baltar, and any cine lens in Arri mount while in movie mode but not necessarily in still mode. Longer lenses will likely work but wide angle lenses will doubtlessly give problem with shutter clearance. But if the camera is turned on and switched into movie mode before the lens is mounted, and then the lens is taken off again before the camera is shut down or taken out of movie mode any lens should work. My thoughts about actually following through on mounting these lenses to my nikon is build a lens bridge (lens rail) system that both lens and the camera mount to and not actually worry about build a direct interface between the camera mount and the lens mount. Of course either the camera or the lens mounting system to the rails would have to allow for precise tilt and pan adjustment to collimate the lens properly. And the camera and lens would only need to be connected with some sort of bellows which could only need to be light tight and flexible to allow for collimation adjustment. The music is actually played on the custom modular synthesizer that you see first in the video. It was recorded with a little 1/4" reel to reel conference dictation recorder that is lying on the floor but hard to see in the video. The recorder is made by Grundig and its microphone and playback speaker are in the same hand-held wand. It is a weird but pretty cool little thing. I like it enough to have recorded the music for this video with.
Recently someone emailed me asking about creating an adaptor for mounting BNCR mount lenses to a DSLR. Since I now have a DSLR (a Nikon D-5000) I thought I would give it a try. I started with my camera on and in video mode. As soon as I took off the lens that came with the camera the camera shut itself off. But, with the lens still off I cycled the power switch and to my delight the camera came back on and switched into video mode when I pressed the video mode button. Of course when the switched the camera to video mode the shutter went up which allowed me to see the image sensor. Though not the size of a 35mm 8 perf neg it is certainly larger than the little chips in nearly all video cameras (which is one contributing factor the cameras ability to produce very selectable focus). So, I got out my CineKowa prime lens set. The video starts with me simply holding the 15mm lens directly in front of the camera. About midway through the video you can see that I set the 15mm lens down and replace it with a 32mm lens, The first thing you see when i place the 32mm lens in front of the camera is the 15mm lens on my little desk. There is some vignetting throughout the video but that is due to my not holding the lens correctly in front of the camera. You can actually tell as I am constantly repositioning the lens to get focus since I can not actually turn the focus ring while holding the lens and the camera in different hands. Let me reiterate that all I am doing is actually hand holding the lens in front of the camera body. There is not actual mechanical mount being used as the lenses are BNCR mount and the camera is Nikon mount. I am just experiment to see if this is even a feasible idea. One think I noticed is that while all of the lenses do cover the entire image senosr (that is good) and I can place the lenses far enough back into the camera body for the proper back focus (also good) the shutter hits the back of the lens if i switch back to still mode (not good) This means that camera will work with Kowa, Baltar, and any cine lens in Arri mount while in movie mode but not necessarily in still mode. Longer lenses will likely work but wide angle lenses will doubtlessly give problem with shutter clearance. But if the camera is turned on and switched into movie mode before the lens is mounted, and then the lens is taken off again before the camera is shut down or taken out of movie mode any lens should work. My thoughts about actually following through on mounting these lenses to my nikon is build a lens bridge (lens rail) system that both lens and the camera mount to and not actually worry about build a direct interface between the camera mount and the lens mount. Of course either the camera or the lens mounting system to the rails would have to allow for precise tilt and pan adjustment to collimate the lens properly. And the camera and lens would only need to be connected with some sort of bellows which could only need to be light tight and flexible to allow for collimation adjustment. The music is actually played on the custom modular synthesizer that you see first in the video. It was recorded with a little 1/4" reel to reel conference dictation recorder that is lying on the floor but hard to see in the video. The recorder is made by Grundig and its microphone and playback speaker are in the same hand-held wand. It is a weird but pretty cool little thing. I like it enough to have recorded the music for this video with.