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Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera c-mount lens compatibility list


Julian
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Just got my BMPCC a couple of days ago, and was excited to try out some cheap C-mount lenses I got on e-Bay.... quickly got deflated :(

 

The Cosmicar 25mm TV lens F/1.4, which I picked up on Ebay for $15 odd dollars, DOES NOT VIGNETTE, BUT... only focuses really up close. I don't know how easy this would be to fix, but I'm not real handy and don't have tools, dremmels, etc. :(  nor the know-how.  I'll do a little research to see if this is salvageable, 'cos at F1/4 and 25mm it's pretty good and light... much better than my Minolta 28mm.

 

I also bought a Cosmicar TV lens 16mm F/1:6, but that turned out not to be a C-mount :(

 

Bummer!

 

On the plus side, my Minolta lenses worked great, and even my 55mm F/1.7 got me a nice CU of my wife at 5 or 6 feet away. Not as bad as I thought.

 

The 28mm F/2.5 was much wider, although not super wide, or course. But I could probably get a MCU from the same 6 feet away. Still doable.

 

I'm still gunning for the 12.5mm Cosmicar F/1.4 that someone recommended to me on another forum!

 

As an aside, and I've only tested it once (last night), but the Toshiba Exceria Type 2 card didn't fare too well on the BMPCC... I'm going to run more tests and make sure it's formatted as exFAT. I got dropped frames in ProRes AND RAW both :(

 

I'll post some updates as I have time.

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Update.... the Toshiba Exceria Type 2 64GB card did not work. I got dropped frames on ProRes and RAW both. I tried formatting with different cluster sizes and using the latest SD Formatter utility... nothing worked. Kept getting dropped frames even on ProRes, between the 3-4 second mark :(

 

I posted a more through report on this list:

http://rubenkremer.nl/2013/09/03/bmpcc-sd-card-compatibility-list/

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  • 2 weeks later...

Happy to report that the Wollensak Revere 1" F2.5 lens covers the whole sensor of the BMPCC. This is a 25mm lens.

 

This is a parfocal lens, so no focus ring, and if you screw it all the way in, it only starts to focus about 6ft in front of the lens (everything else is in focus), but the more you unscrew it, the closer the focus gets. I'm probably going to buy some sort of a spacer. It's fine for steadycam work, or Establishing shots where you don't need shallow depth of field. Paid $26 on eBay for it.

 

Here is photo proof - it was late at night and almost no light in the room, so ISO was 1600 and it looks real grainy.

 

post-33761-0-05955700-1387516122_thumb.j

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I've tried to google for this lens and I can't find anything on it. The listing says it is a C-mount, and although the picture does make it look like a C-mount (as opposed to a d mount), the barrel of the lens looks too dang long. My worries are that it doesn't have a focus ring, and whether the 1/2" mark on the barrel means that it's meant to cover a 1/2" sensor, and is no the length of the lens.

 

The person selling it told me this lens is 3" long, and that one of the rings says "feet from film"? Anybody know what that means?

 

Any ideas?

 

post-33761-0-27240300-1387553715_thumb.j

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My worries are that it doesn't have a focus ring, and whether the 1/2" mark on the barrel means that it's meant to cover a 1/2" sensor, and is no the length of the lens.
The person selling it told me this lens is 3" long, and that one of the rings says "feet from film"? Anybody know what that means?
 Any ideas?

I'm 90/95% certain it's a Wollensak 1/2" Cine Raptor designed back in the 1940's for standard 16mm film. And yes it's almost certainly a C mount lens.
Despite it's 3" length the 1/2" refers to it's focal length (so appx 12.5mm in decimal currency...) whether that will cover the PCC sensor without vignetting I don't know. (On a PCC that would make it somewhere between a standard and a wide angle lens)

It does have a focus ring, in your picture, it's the middle of the 3 knurled rings.

"Feet from Film" means the focussing distance form the subject to the film plane. The film plane is marked on cameras by Ø but with the line horizontal (soz, don't have the right symbol on my iPad)
Annoyingly the PCC doesn't have the sensor plane marked on the body.

Hope that helps
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The Cosmicar 25mm TV lens F/1.4, which I picked up on Ebay for $15 odd dollars, DOES NOT VIGNETTE, BUT... only focuses really up close. I don't know how easy this would be to fix.

Just a quicky on this.
If it only focuses up close and not at the distances marked on the lens then the lens itself is mounted too far from the cameras sensor.
Now that might be because the lens has been taken apart and not put back together properly and the lens elements aren't seated correctly or it could be as simple as it's not screwed on to the adapter far enough or maybe even that the adapter itself is too thick/ out of alignment and sitting the lens too far away.
To test the adapter, find a lens that works on the same adapter and set the focus barrel to 1 foot or meter or whatever distance is easily measurable. Then put the camera at roughly that distance from an object and move the camera (not the focus ring) until the object is in focus. Now measure from the object to the back of the 1/4" hole on the top of the PCC (that's roughly the sensor plane)
If the lens is sat too far forward then the measured distance will be less than the barrel mark.
Hope that helps narrow down the problem
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Apologies, this is slightly off topic but I thought it might be useful to PCC owners/future owners

I've found a cheap battery and God knows the PCC chews through them quickly.
They're available on Ebay in The UK for £10 inc shipping and I get them from photogear2010.
They are easily recognisable by the Lion paw print and they are 1300mAh compared to most after market batteries which are 1020mAh so they last longer. (Blackmagic supply the camera with an 840mAh battery)

I have 8 of them and they are the only ones I use now. Most important of all is they seem well made.
I bought a few different make when I bought a Nikon 1 and after a few charges they start to bow and distort
Which means they get stuck in the camera! See the second image.

post-29446-0-15859500-1387629403_thumb.j

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Thanks for all the replies and help. I bought the 1/2" lens and I'm hoping to have it before New Year's. I'll post an update then.

 

I'll have to try some of those batteries, but I've had good luck with Wasabi batteries from Amazon. You can get 2 batteries and a charger for $24, which is a great price (especially compared to the original Nikons).

 

With regard to the Cosmicar lens, yeah, I think the problem is that it might be a CS mount, so it is designed to be about 5mm closer to the sensor than the regular C-mount. People are milling the backs of those lenses to make them fit. I love that the iris doesn't have any hard stops, so you can smoothly change the aperture without it being too noticeable, and you can put it somewhere in the middle of an F-stop and dial in exactly what you need/want. However, since I don't own the gear and am not mechanically inclined, I'm afraid I'll have to pass this lens on to someone else who can. :(

 

FYI, I picked up the lens for $15 on ebay, including shipping. So, to spend $100 on a modified one seems a bit excessive to me.

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Very happy to report that my Wollensak Raptar 17mm wide angle f2.7 works great on my BMPCC. The lens is tiny which makes operation more challenging, and the it's not the fastest thing on wheels, but it's decently wide and hence camera shake is greatly minimized making handheld footage completely usable.

 

I'll have to post some footage when I have time (lens just arrived this morning), but at first glance it looked great!

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  • 3 months later...

Hello,

 

This is my very first post on EOSHD (although I’ve been following this blog for several years).

I’m Antoine, I live in Paris and I’m 21 years old!

(I would like to apologize for my pretty weak English, which is far from being perfect..)

 

I decided to join your community to contribute to the list of compatible BMPCC- C-Mount Lenses.

 

To introduce myself, here are some pictures of my actual BMPCC Rig

(with Contineo Cage – Ginirig / follow focus – homemade external battery adapter to V-lock battery – Small HD DP4 – Speedbooster (Chinese version) + 20-40mm Sigma etc...)

 

I also have some C-Mount lenses (otherwise It would be off topic :P ) :

13819166735_66f0d49b56.jpg

 

  • 10mm retrofocus Angenieux - f1.8 (That have already been discussed a lot here, a pretty weak lens as anyone must already know)

 

  • Kowa Ultra Wide Angle TV Lens -  6.5mm – f1.8 Doesn’t vignette, pretty soft on the edge at every apertures, strong distortion, but has a lot of charm (according to me) – Flares are absolutely incredible!

13852887615_e537060faa.jpg
 
 
13852895805_9ea8972413.jpg
 

13852927563_d94c8a522d.jpg
 
 
  • Angenieux - 15mm - f1.3 One of my favorite lens, sharp at fast aperture, beautiful bokeh and flares.

 

13852891465_991565175a.jpg
 

 
13853312793_4821fca3aa.jpg
 

  • Angenieux – 25mm – f0.95 A beautiful lens, although I’ve always preferred wide angles lenses… But that’s personal. I find it a bit chirurgical… But the fast aperture and the color rendition make it a beast in some shooting scenarios!

 

13853526494_66cf796d9d.jpg
 
 

  • Angenieux – 50mm – f1.5 – Type S5  Worths A LOT (of money) but imho, It doesn’t look terrific, but, once again – I’m not fond of telephoto lenses… And as is, It’s a very wonderful piece of glass! J

 

 
13853999794_4d2dc2c345.jpg
 
 

That’s all for my C-mount contribution, But if ever you have the opportunity to grab one of them, at a fair price, don’t hesitate, they all have lots of personality, and as an object, they are just beautiful as hell, the aperture mechanism is astonishing (but don’t forget to declick them !) the iris blades seem to dances with each other when you stop the lens down… So much more attractive than a Canon 50mm 1.8…

 

Nevertheless, I confess, I do have some modern lenses, and I do recommend 2 relatively cheap Sigmas (you can grab them for less than 100 dollars on the Bay…)

 

  • The 28mm f1.8 and the 20-40mm f2.8… I own both of these (manual aperture models) and I DO recommend them, combined with a Chinese copy of the Speedbooster, It makes a pretty efficient combo, very polyvalent, you can easily mod them with a custom focus ring (with a 0.8 gear) and here you go, with your BMPCC Rig, you’re going to rock hard on small projects. 


13853399083_3a40d3d2b9.jpg
 

A bit further than the original subject, here are a screenshot made with the Hypergonar Hifi x2 from Henri Chrétien, father of the Cinemascope !(That's me on the picture ! :))

 

13853079395_e28f51e022.jpg
"Hey all !"

 

I’ve been following Anamorphic indie threads for like 2 years, without having enough funds to join the party, the Hifi 2 makes some really cool stuff, It’s pretty fun to use too.. But only once in your life time, It’s really too heavy, even when used with an “already heavy†rig (such as Alexa XT + Master Prime)…

That’s why, I’m really after some small anamorphic adapters (such as the century one, the optex one or … my choice of heart… the Yashica one ! I believe I’m looking for this last one so much, since I’ve won an auction on Ebay, and finally, for god sake, It appeared that  someone made an higher bid than mine, after the ending time… Sometimes I really can’t stand Ebay…)

Anyway, If ever you’re planning to sell some small anamorphic adapters that suits my needs, don’t hesitate to send me a PM ! J

 

Well, have a pleasant day, and see you soon.

 

Antoine from France !

 
 
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  • 2 months later...

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