Smart assistants are now everywhere
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Location trackers for your important items
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AR & VR headsets are now becoming mainstream
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Headphones with smart assistants are now available too
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What new tech gadgets are you buying this year?
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Development of DSMC 2 B4 Mount adapter with a 1.1x expansion.
This is a development of a new B4 lens mount designed for RED DSMC 2.
The mount is based upon the Blackmagic Design URSA Mini Pro B4 Mount, providing a DIY conversion and also a fully assembled option for mounting B4 lenses onto the RED DSMC 2 System.
B4 Lenses a very brief overview..
Before I get into this I want to quickly cover some aspects of why the B4 mount and lenses are unique.
B4 lenses are typically designed for a 3-chip, 2/3-inch size sensor, this sensor is relatively small compared to other sensor formats, such as full-frame or APS-C.
But the smaller sensor size is completely intentional as it allows for the design of lenses with shorter focal lengths, whilst still achieving a wide field of view. This is a key factor that enables B4 lenses to offer substantial zoom capabilities in a compact form factor.
B4 lenses are designed specifically for use on three-chip cameras. These cameras are unique in that they are equipped with three separate sensors. Each is responsible for capturing one of the primary colours (red, green, and blue). The light from the lens is split to each sensor via an optical prism that's positioned separately to the lens within the lens mount of the camera itself.
B4 lenses are optically designed and optimised for this prism setup, this means that a B4 lens won't perform well on a single-chip camera.
With the move to modern digital cinema cameras, B4 lenses are mostly used on dedicated camera systems developed for broadcast and live event use.
How to use on large sensor cinema camera.
B4 to PL Mount adapters do exist that provide compatibility on a S35 single chip camera, but they come with some huge caveats.
Downside of Exsisting adapters
- Cost
The cheapest off the shelf B4 to PL mount adapter with S35 coverage is the MTF B4 To ARRI PL Adapter costing $1600 / £1400.
Higher quality adapters from companies like IBE cost up to £4000 / $5000 with either S16 or S35 coverage.
All IBE Optics converters do not just deliver the mechanical fit onto the digital cameras, they all correct the different spectral alignments between three-chip prism block sensors.
- Light Loss
The major downside of these adapters is that they are essentially stretching out the small 2/3 image circle the lens produces and stretches it to fill the Super 35 sensor.
This means that you lose approximately 2.6 stops of light as the adapter optically expands the image to cover the sensor in a similar way to a teleconverter. Therefore light is lost as a trade off.
- Capture Resolutions too high
The final issue is that as these lenses don’t resolve anywhere near to 6K or 8K, you are best not shooting in RAW with these adapters and downsampling in camera to a 4K or 1080P ProRes file.
This works well enough for a lot of cases and these adapters makes sense as they cover a wide range of cameras so offer a lot of options.
- What this adapter overcomes
The great thing about the DSMC 2 cameras is that they have extensive crop modes that allow you to window the sensor resolution from the largest resolution down to 1080P in .5K increments.
Pairing the Blackmagic Design URSA Mini Pro B4 Mount to the RED DSMC 2 Cameras gives you some very exciting shooting options in RAW at high FPS with a perfect 1x FOV at 3K resolution on Helium, a Xx FOV on Dragon & Monstro and a slight over-projection on Gemini.
This adapter also only loses a small amount of light in comparison to the IBE adapter.
With this setup a T2.0 lens would be T2.2 and with the IBE Optics HDx35 MK III B4-PL Adapter a T2.0 lens would end up being T4.0!
What coverage will this provide on DSMC 2 Cameras
Caveat on Gemini
The DSMC 2 RED Gemini is arguably one of the best cameras to use this adapter on due to its low noise images. This maintains the image intergrity when cropping into the sensor.
The only problem is that the 1080p windowed mode on Gemini is ever so slightly larger than a B4 lens would technically project with the 1.1x adapter .
But this isn’t a huge flaw, as many lenses do over-project.
Testing with the Zeiss Digizoom 6-24 @ T1.9 the image projected easily. It safely covers the 1080p crop of the Gemini Sensor at close and far focus with room to spare!
If you have ever wanted to shoot wide angle and/or RAW slow motion shots, this could be one of the best setups available.
About the Blackmagic B4 Adapter
The Blackmagic Design URSA Mini Pro B4 Mount is an optical adapter that is ruggedly built and designed to take the weight and length of most B4 lenses. It features a positive locking B4 Mount and is generally an excellent build quality.
The idea for this product is that it allows you to use the crop modes of All red DSMC 2 Cameras (with a caveat for Gemini) and utilises these lenses at around, or just above, the intended resolution. The ability to film in Raw creates the highest quality images these lenses can provide.
The testing done for the adapter produces optically excellent results, as this adapter does the Prism conversion and expands the image ever so slightly in the process.
In my opinion it is one of the best ways of experiencing a B4 Lens on the RED system!
