Low profile lens's & step rings, PC109

[drunkenmunkey 0]

Hey all

I have ordered my first camera helmet - FF2 style sidemount fully enclosed helmet and i have a PC109 to bolt to it.

I fully intend to buy a low profile lens, probably a stealth, but the concern going through my mind is that this camera is a 25mm thread and thus the smallest thread available. this does not give me any flexibility in future if i find a deal on a better camcorder, or mine dies to change to a camcorder with a larger thread, E.g. a PC1000

so what i am thinking is why not buy a 30mm or 37mm thread lens, and a decent quality step ring to 25mm and have that degree of flexibility for future

if anybody could provide some insight into the pros and cons of this idea, it would be a great help.

jimmy

[dragon2 0]

Since I own both a 30mm and a 25mm cam, all my lenses are 37mm (ok that's not totally logical but hey). So I need step-rings for both.
I can use the ($$$) glass on pretty much all sony's now so I prefer it this way.

However: the angle of the lens gets slightly narrowed when using a step-ring, might be bad for say AFF instructors who really need the full .3 or .25, and my sidemount camera gets slightly bigger (don't care about my top-mount camera getting slightly bigger). And the 25-37 step rings were kinda hard to come by

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[drunkenmunkey 0]

ok thats cool

as im only using the helmet cam for fun freefly jumps, that sounds fine, but i wonder how much narrower the angle would get, and would it therefore be better to buy a 0.3x if the angle with step rings may be closer to 0.5x or would it not be as drastic a difference?

[dragon2 0]

For inside freefly video you'd very probably want a .3 anyway.

It's hard to tell how much the angle changes when using a step-ring; you need to have 2 lenses, same make and model but different thread sizes, so you can try them on the same camera. Between camera's there's variation in angles when using the same lenses, and between lenses there's a lot of variation too (a sony .6 I had was slightly wider than my current hama .45).

BTW since you can't zoom the low-profile lenses, or not much if you have one that can be zoomed, you need to be sure of the lens you buy. Then again, if you're just starting, I'd just buy a .3 and learn to fly that

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[bofh 0]

I got Sony's VCL-0625S for my PC-107 (in a FF2). Its a lot cheaper than a step-up ring together with most other converters. If you get a new camera, sell the old converter with the old camera and get yourself something that fits well with the new camera.

I've used it a lot for freefly video and am really happy with it. On the FF2, the converter sits right in the hole with nothing sticking out (which is a minor pain since one has to tape the lens protector over the lens instead of just snapping it on).

[SkymonkeyONE 3]

I have a 30mm lens that I use with a step ring on my PC 109. It works great.