I saw over on Cinema5D this morning that some industriously insane individual modified their 5dMk2 with a PL mount.  C5D has really informative forums, by the way.  I used to read them before I spent all my free internet time composing this stuff.

Keep reading below….

The PL mount is an industry standard for mounting cinematic lenses to cinematic cameras.  So this is well beyond the realm of anything you or I might do to our DSLRs.  But it’s an interesting development for folks who are looking to drag their relatively inexpensive cameras as close as they possibly can towards the prohibitively expensive cinematic gear.  Presumably on some manner of venture wherein dollars could be exchanged for services.  Or you’re an extreme hobbyist with money to burn.  These lenses be spendy.  I guess this is good, but I feel kinda left out.  Oh well.  I suppose I’ll have to be satisfied simply with ‘awesome’.

This has already been done commercially for the Canon 7D by a company called Hot Rod Cameras.  And it makes sense for that camera because the sensor inside is not a ‘full frame’ 35mm still photography sensor.  Meaning, it’s smaller than the 35mm stock that we all used to take pictures with back in ye olde tymes.  And for reasons I’m sure would be apparent if I actually read these wiki articles, (1)35mm still stock is not the same size as 35mm film stock.  It’s larger.  This is a mystery for another day.  What matters is that the sensor in the 7D is remarkably close to the size of 35mm film stock.  Serendipity?  I don’t know that either.

What I do know is that lenses are designed to take what they see in the world and project that circular apparition onto a rectangular surface inside a dark box.  Lenses are built to work with specific film or sensor sizes.  So pairing a cinema lens designed to work with 35mm film and a digital camera with a sensor that’s the same size as 35mm film yields results that are bon and boner (teehee).

Now take the 5dMk2, blessed with a ‘full frame’ 35mm still stock sensor, and pair it with a 35mm cinematic lens.  You end up with essentially this;

The lens is designed to project an image that is smaller than the sensor receiving it.  So there’s a part of me that wonders what the dilly, yo?  Are there readily available cinematic lenses that were designed to work with larger film stock?  Because if there aren’t, this is what you get when you PL mount your 5dMk2.  It looks like VistaVision would be a comparable film size, maybe.  Yeay VistaVision!  Here’s another good image designed to illustrate the differences between full frame and cropped sensors.  In this case it’s for Nikons, but the concept is the same no matter who makes them.  The red box is 5D sensor size and the blue is the 7D sensor size.  Quite a difference.

Yeah, so I’m excited for the nut who tore apart his 5D and I REALLY enjoyed seeing my camera innards but in my limited wisdom, I don’t see the benefits other than to entertain Me.