Lens mounts

John Adolfi · July 6, 2006

I still do not know much about lens mounts. Can anyone chime in and tell us your favorite lens mount and why? Q: Do "C" mounts that screw in have the potential of varying the postion of the length of the back element to the cameras film plate and thus giving a potential soft focus? What lens mount flavors do we see in super8? What's a "M" and a bayonet? Is a PL a realitivily newer type of mount? What of Nikon mount.

Laurent Andrieux · July 6, 2006

A C mount lens has to be tightly screwed in. If not so it will cause soft focus.

Arri PL mount is designed for Arri cameras, not esp. new, like PV mount is designed for Panavision camera.

M is a still photo mount, I think it's Pentax if I'm right.

Rik Andino · July 6, 2006

I still do not know much about lens mounts.
Can anyone chime in and tell us your favorite lens mount and why?

Q: Do "C" mounts that screw in have the potential of varying the postion of the length of the back element to the cameras film plate and thus giving a potential soft focus?

What lens mount flavors do we see in super8?

What's a "M" and a bayonet?

Is a PL a realitivily newer type of mount?

What of Nikon mount.

You got so many questions...not good, it confuses people...

I'll try to answer a few of them...

I don't know much about C-mount lenses haven't worked with them in years...

But they're pretty solid so you don't have to worry about back-focus issues..

However you do have to make sure they're screwed in all the way.

Again I don't know much about Super-8 cameras haven't worked with them in years...

But I think the majority of S8 cams come with fixed lenses..

The ones that don't well most of them use C-mount lenses...

So a C-mount is the most popular on S8 cams...(I think... :huh: )

By M I think you mean M42 mount, it's an old pentax screw mount, prior to their newer K-mount

it's used in some of the K3 cameras that's why it's useful to filmmakers.

A bayonet mount usually refers to an Arri Bayonet mount was pretty popular in 16mm lens

It was originated in the 60's and was very popular until the PL mount was invented.

Actually it's still a very popular mount on lenses since it's easy to adapt it to other mounts.

A PL mount is the latest Arri mount created...

It's very useful because it can be used for 35mm lenses and S16mm lenses

It makes lenses very versatile and very useful---it's also a very sturdy mount.

A Nikon mount is a mount for Nikon SLR Cameras

You can adapt some film cameras to accept Nikon lenses although this isn't a very common thing.

As for your answer about favorite mounts...

Most people don't really have favorite mounts, they have favorite lenses...

I like the Aaton Mount alot because it's very sturdy and easy to change lenses...

Also it's a very adaptable mount, you can adapt it to take Nikon lenses, or B-mount lenses, etc...

But the PL mount is more popular so if I want to use a lens it's most likely in a PL mount

So I really should have my camera on a PL mount...you get what I mean...

It's the lens that mostly matters not the mount.

Good Luck

John Adolfi · July 6, 2006

Thank you one and all for the time spent on your answers.

Leo Anthony Vale · July 6, 2006

M is a still photo mount, I think it's Pentax if I'm right.

---it's a Leica rangefiner bayonet mt. It's also used on a Leicina super8, which is its only cine use.

---LV

Charles MacDonald · July 7, 2006

Actullay, as this topic comes up every week, I wonder if it might be useful to sugest taht a few articles maight be written in Wikipedia about it?

The curent catagory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lens_mounts

has several of the more common ones, but surprisingly not the c-mount...

C-mounts are used on alot of older 15mm Camera. As long as they are screwed in, they work well. don't accidently come out and the lens flange keeps them at the right place.

Regular 8 Cameras sometimes came with a D-mount, but 90% of the super 8 units had a fixed lens.

The wiki page abouve links ot articles on both the M39 and M42 lens mount.

(as an asside, There is a LOT of film making information on WikiPedia, and there is a project to build detailed articles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Filming_stubs has over 200 Articles that need some additional information to be added, so if you have downtime, and have some reference material, their is a lot of places to be creative.

Laurent Andrieux · July 9, 2006

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_mount

Charles MacDonald · July 10, 2006

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_mount

Yes, the nice thing about wikipedia is that it is easy to edit, I put that stub of an article up after posting here. It needs a lot of fill in.

ecozyz · July 11, 2006

A clever guy:Mitch GrossNYC DP

expaines a lot here:

A lens mount has nothing specifically to do with a film format, but here's some basic info. I swear I wrote this all up before, but perhaps it wasn't on the CML. I'm going to skip some ancient and obscure mounts.

Arriflex

Arri started with their standard mount, which was a ring with a small tab inside. This was common on the 35mm Arri 2c (and variants) and the 16mm Arri S. Later they developed the Arri Bayonet mount, which was the same sized ring with two outer "wings" that locked the alignment of the lens and provided a stronger mount. Standard mount lenses could be used in Bayonet mounts but not the reverse. This mount was common on later Arri 2c, S, M, 16BL, SR 1, SR 2, 35BL1, 35BL2, early 35BL3, 3c and early 3 cameras. This very popular mount was replaced by the Arri PL (Positive Lock) mount, which features a large four-point flange on the lens and a clamping disk on the camera for a very strong and stable mount. With adapters, Arri Standard and Bayonet lenses can be used. This is the most popular mount available today, standard on such cameras as later Arri BL3, BL4, BL4s, 535a, 535b, later Arri 3 models, 435, Moviecam Super, Compact, SL, later Aaton 16 & 35 cameras, ArriCam ST and LT models.

C-mount

A threaded, screw-in lens mount of a rather small size. Generally only good for small primes and lightweight zooms and used primarily for small 16mm and industrial video applications. Cameras include Bolex, Beaulieu, secondary mounts on the Eclair NPR and ACL, and numerous industrial video cameras. The C-mount has a very short depth, which means that adapters mounts which put the lens further out can be made for numerous types. I've seen adapters for C-mount cameras to take all the Arri mounts, plus just about any still camera or other cine or video lens mount one can think of. There's still the issue of the fairly weak thread design, but some adapters get permanently installed and hard mounted to the frame of the camera body.

Eclair

Eclair developed the CA-1 mount for their cameras when introduced in the late fifties. This mount uses a two-prong flange like the PL but is much smaller, about the size of the Arri Bayonet. This mount was available for the 35/16 Cameflex (CM-3), some high speed cameras and the 16mm NPR and ACL. The ACL also offered adapters for other mounts including Nikon and the smaller Arriflex mounts. Today these cameras can also be retrofitted to PL mounts.

Aaton

The Aaton mount is a three-prong flange that is about the same size as the Arri Bayonet mount, but it's great advantage it it's relatively shallow depth. This allows it to accept various adapters for Nikon, Leica, and the smaller Arri mounts. This mount was standard on the Aaton LTR-7, LTR-54, and early XTR models, and was an option (instead of PL) with the XTR-plus and XTR-prod. The Aaton mount is almost identical to the Cinema Products mount (CP-16 and CP-GSMO cameras) and with slight modification any CP camera can accept Aaton mount lenses.

There are other mounts out there such as BNCR, Panavision, plus the standard (and not so standard) video lens mounts but I think this answers the spirit of your question.

Edited July 11, 2006 by Tom dissing