C-mount lenses on the EOS-M

[Janke]

I have adapted some C-mount lenses to the EOS-M, and thanks to ML, they cover the entire image area when using the 3x video crop!

This is a Canon TV Zoom, 12.5-75 mm f/1.8:



Here's a cute little 8mm CCTV lens on the EOS-M:



Without the crop, this is what it provides:



Here's a cropped video - note that any 8mm lens intended for the full C-frame would be a huge chunk of glass! But with this tiny lens, I can get a wide coverage in a very small package, thanks to the 3x crop!

The video is a bit soft, since it was shot with the f-stop almost wide open, and my follow-focus wasn't too precise... and, it's shaky, to boot! But that will have to do for a first test...

[Danne]

Nice.
What, s the highest picture you can film in 3xmode on an eos m?

[ItsMeLenny]

What you've done was my suggestion to someone somewhere in terms of using low resolution raw modes.
Looks good. The lens is probably soft at wide apertures anyway, it would probably be best to stop it down regardless.

[Janke]

"The lens is probably soft at wide apertures anyway"

You are correct. Stop down a couple of clicks, and it's much better.


"What's the highest picture you can film in 3xmode on an eos m?"

What do you mean by "highest"? In pixels, Mbps, or meters, or feet?

[Danne]

aspect ratio, fps? Does it do 1920x1080 24fps zoomed in?

[gary2013]

aspect ratio, fps? Does it do 1920x1080 24fps zoomed in?

The M can't go above 1728 from hardware limitations writing to the memory card. It usually runs around 36Mbps. 1920 x1080 needs a cam with CF cards, like a 5dm3. The M can do 1270x720, 24 fps Crop Mode continuously.

[Danne]

Thanks, sounds good.

[Janke]

"The M can't go above 1728"

Eh? At least it looks like I'm getting full-HD 1920x1080 from mine... even at 1.5x bit rate.

Or are you talking about RAW?

[1%]

You oft forget that crop mode is possible, not just movie mode crop but FPS override + canon 5x zoom. Its just really inconvenient to enable due to lack of buttons + touch screen.

[AnthonyEngelken]

Doing the math, the M is really a 16mm shooter. Movie crop mode in 1920x1080 (h264) only requires 9.48mm sensor coverage, and standard 16 glass gives about 11mm.  Super 16 lenses cover about 14mm, which would be great if 2048 raw gave more than ~60 frames at a time. Just received my c-mount adapter in the mail, and the crappy little eBay Fujian 35mm is on its way from China now. Plan to get a PL adapter and rent some legacy 16mm glass for a weekend experiment soon. If I shoot anything fun and noteworthy, will be sure to share it.

[Janke]

Don't expect the Fujian to be stellar...

I have lots of CCTV lenses, none is tack sharp at full aperture, a lot of spherical aberration and some coma. Stop down to 5.6 or so, and they get good.

Having checked the size of the recorded image, it looks like even the 1920x1080 (h264) is scaled up from 1728x972 !

I wonder why it's not pixel-by-pixel 1920x1080 from the sensor, that would not require the scaling...

[gary2013]

"The M can't go above 1728"

Eh? At least it looks like I'm getting full-HD 1920x1080 from mine... even at 1.5x bit rate.

Or are you talking about RAW?

Raw.

[AnthonyEngelken]

Don't expect the Fujian to be stellar...

I have lots of CCTV lenses, none is tack sharp at full aperture, a lot of spherical aberration and some coma. Stop down to 5.6 or so, and they get good.

That's sort of what I expected, but I just ordered it for cheap test purposes. If I like the results, then I'll hunt around for some better glass to use. All the same, found some test videos of the Fujian and I kind of dig the dreamy barrel distortion. Not great of course for all applications, but fun for what it is.

[Janke]

Speaking of fun, this Canon 7.5 - 97.5mm f/1.4 ENG TV camera 13x Zoom was fun to adapt to the EOS-M, even though the quality is nothing to write home about:

PS: That shadow at lower left in mid-zoom is gone, now, had to rotate the lens 45° to get it to the bottom, outside the frame...

[Janke]

Warning: Do not boot the camera with a manual lens, it will (may?) hang!

[ItsMeLenny]

Warning: Do not boot the camera with a manual lens, it will (may?) hang!

I've never had a problem.

[Janke]

It hung up for me while switching on with a C-mount lens. Needed to take out battery and restart with a non-ML card.

[maxotics]

I kind of dig the dreamy barrel distortion. Not great of course for all applications, but fun for what it is.

I too, put on the Fujian onto my EOS-M on a lark and now I can't bear to take it off!

All these shots that don't say D600 were shot with the EOS-M and Fujian 35mm 1.7.   That's right, thousands of dollars worth of camera in the Nikon and I'm still reaching for this baby.  LOW LIGHT, no flash!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/maxotics/sets/72157639434130995/

Here's another shot.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/maxotics/12041902535/in/set-72157639946239006

And of course my Angry Toddler's video which I'll post again  It takes some getting used to the lens. It is truly an artistic tool.   If you focus too hard the lens can come screwing off.   Getting the camera to take properly exposed photos AND show on the screen takes some finesse (I usually use Aperture mode).  Did I say I LOVE this lens

[AnthonyEngelken]

Man, check out that wonky focal plane. Damn it's sexy.

[Janke]

Damn it's sexy.

Just ordered one for 20 euros...   

Is that video shot full frame, or 3x crop?

[maxotics]

Just ordered one for 20 euros...   

Is that video shot full frame, or 3x crop?

Best 20 euros you will have ever spent!  Make sure you get the effective 35mm 1.7,  I found the 25mm to have too much vignetting.

I shot the video in normal mode (no crop) with ML CBR set to 1.3, but I doubt that effected the quality much.  The irony is that I never meant to shoot this video with the EOS-M.  I had brought my 50D with 16GB card, to shoot RAW, and ran out of space in a few minutes!  (BTW, a corrupted frame at the end made the video useless--didn't feel like spending the time to fix).

The lighting was really nice, near sundown, cloudy, that surreal evenly lit feel.  So I only shot this with the EOS-M as a nothing else better to do. 

What's really nice about that focal plane you mentioned is it allow you to shoot multiple looks with one camera lens.  It helps the viewer not get tired of the same view, sort of poor man's way of making a multi-camera shoot  

Anyway, I look forward to what you shoot with the lens!  Photographers pay thousands of dollars to get wide aperture lenses for portraits on full-frames (like me) and yet this lens can give you virtually the same look.  You don't have to spend thousands of dollars to get a nice shallow DOF.

[Danne]

Cool video. Like the guitarist hendrixstyle playing. Cool band

[Janke]

Photographers pay thousands of dollars to get wide aperture lenses for portraits on full-frames

Not to make you green with envy, but I happen to own a Leica Thambar 90mm f/2.2 soft-focus portrait lens... one reason for buying the EOS-M was to use this lens!



Here's what it can do:



Here's a test shot with the Canon TV Zoom 12.5-75mm f/1.8, shot at f/5.6 - note that the "jell-o" is from warm, turbulent air; it was -15°C outside :

[maxotics]

Nice lens!  10 years ago I suspected these lenses might make a come-back but didn't bother to collect them when I saw them on old cameras at garage sales.  I had my chances

[a1ex]

This lens seems to be the perfect candidate for this: http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=8564.0