Could a Fuji B4 lens be serviced and converted to fit an Arri Universal Bayonet mount?

[Owen A. Davies]

I have a Fuji B4 zoom lens which I need to fit an Arri Universal Bayonet mount 16mm camera. I realize no mount adapter exists to make these two fit, but I could potentially have my lens serviced by a professional company and converter to Arri Standard Bayonet? And if so, do you have any referrals?

[Dom Jaeger]

B4 mount zooms were designed for 2/3" 3 chip cameras, so not only will the image be degraded when used on a camera without a beam splitter prism, but it will also vignette on 16mm. (If the zoom has a built in doubler it would cover 16mm but you would lose light and image quality.) The flange depth of B4 is also 4mm shorter than Arri B so I doubt it's actually possible to convert.

You can get optical adapters for B4 lenses which extend the flange depth, correct for the lack of a prism, and sometimes expand the image circle to cover larger formats, but these tend to be thousands of dollars. Here's an "affordable" one for instance:

https://www.lensadaptor.com/b4-23-arri-pl-adaptor

But I doubt anyone makes one for Arri B anyway.

So I really don't think it's worth the expense to get your B4 zoom modified, even if it was possible to convert it to Arri B. You'd end up paying a lot of money for a pretty crappy zoom. You're better off buying an old zoom (or primes) already in Bayonet mount. Arri Standard mount lenses will also work on Arri Bayonet mount cameras.