aaton mount with PL lenses

diego vazquez · August 23, 2007

so we're gonna shoot a project that has a bit of budget and this time we can afford to rent some cooke primes that cover super 16, and we own the camera which is an aaton ltr

but it has aaton mount.

i heard negative things about buying an aaton to PL mount adapter, someone mentioned, having to remove the whole aaton mount and replace it with a PL. but i cant seem to find anything about this.

also i keep reading about the aaton mount keeping an accurate distance between aaton mount lenses and the filmback.

has anyone shot with an aaton ltr and cooke primes (or PL mount)? any thoughts??

thanks in advance...

Brian Drysdale · August 23, 2007

You can't adapt the PL mount lens for use on an Aaton mount, you have to change the actual camera mount to a PL mount.

Allan Giles at Camera Engineering or ICE Films the Aaton agent in London can change your camera's mount to a PL mount camera. In practise it's a permanent change.

diego vazquez · August 23, 2007

is the aaton mount the same as the arri bayonet mount?? cus on the inventory list of the aaton ltr it reads

aaton/arri mount.

chuck colburn · August 23, 2007

is the aaton mount the same as the arri bayonet mount?? cus on the inventory list of the aaton ltr it reads
aaton/arri mount.

Hello Diego,

I think that is an Arii standard/B mount adapter to Aaton universal mount. The Aaton mount was 40mm flange focal depth and the Arri mount is 52mm ffd which gave enough leeway to make an adapter to mount the Arri standard or byonet mounts to it. The PL breech lock mount is to large in physical demension to work in that way.

Chuck

Mitch Gross · August 24, 2007

The Aaton mount works just fine and has no issues holding depth if well maintained. The mount can use adapters to work use Arri bayonet, Arri standard, Nikon F, Leica and a few other still lens mounts. In order to mount Arri PL (positive lock) mount lenses, the Aaton mount has to be removed and a complete PL mount attached to the front housing in its place. If the camera has never had a PL mount on it before, then it means dismantling the camera to drill new threaded holes in the front housing. PL mounts are generally not rental items, instead requiring a purchase in the neighborhood of US$1200. In addition to the cost of modifying the camera, every time a mount (Aaton or PL) is attached to a camera it must be aligned and shimmed for proper centering and depth. This is a one or two hour minimum labor charge. Once a mount is on there is no way to switch mounts in the field as the centering and depth would not be accurate. So you will have to use all PL mount lenses for the body of your shoot.

It may be less expensive to either (a) rent a PL mount camera body for the shoot and use your accessories (make sure they work with the new camera) or (B) see if the rental company can provide the lenses in a mount that is compatible with you camera. If you ever get outside lenses for your own camera, you really should bring the camera in at the time of rental to make sure that the mount depth is set correctly and that the lenses are therefore mounting properly.

HORACIO PLATA · August 24, 2007

Leica ( "R" or " M" ) to Aaton?

Where could this adapter be found?

I've only seen the Leica M 39 screw mount to Arri standard adapter.

Mitch Gross · August 27, 2007

I've never actually seen the Leica mount in front of me before, but I do know they exist. There's actually others as well, such as Camflex (Eclair) and Pentax. But good luck finding them. I think we have some of this stuff in a drawer somewhere, but no one ever uses them anymore.