One Degree: A Canon 600mm w 2X Extender on the RED Epic

One Degree from Vincent Laforet on Vimeo.

The angle of video of a Canon 600mm f4 EF Lens with a 2X converter on a RED Epic, is roughly one degree. (1 Degree, 45 arcminutes horizontally to be exact.)

The focal length in terms of 35mm is more than 3400mm – not too shabby when you consider this was shot at 4K, 120fps in full RAW on the Epic.

So who cares? Is this just a case of "just because you can…"

Well perhaps to some. I started out as a sports photographers 20 years ago because I was able to manually focus a 400mm 2.8 wide open… long lenses are dear to me. And I love seeing the world through a 500mm + whether it’s at the Olympics, from a helicopter – or in this case for 45 minutes after sun set behind the Sierra mountains at Mono lake.

Why? Because at 3400 millimeters – the bubbles on the surface of the water 20 yards in front of you can look like UFOs for a split second… and I still find that magical 20 years into this career.

This was shot with the yet-to-be-released RED Canon mount – which has full support of Autofocus, Image Stabilization, digital aperture control, touch to focus, touch to rack focus, and distance readout. These are pretty amazing times to be behind the lens.

While long lenses are nothing new in the motion picture world – this type of resolution combined with Canon’s Image Stabilization technology is utterly impressive and should be a huge hit with wildlife and sports photographers around the world.

This is once again an example of technology allowing us to pull things off we once thought impossible (or could be done with a lot of additional technology)

This was shot in Mono Lake on afternoon over 45 minutes after the sun had set behind the Sierra Mountain range until everything went dark. ISO ranges from 800 ASA to 2000 ASA. This was shot on an O’Connor 1030HD head on sticks with one operator (me) doing the focus pulling.

As you’ll see from the image above – all you need to convert the RED Epic from the PL Mount to the Canon EF-Mount is a TORX screwdriver. There are no wires or connections to deal with, it’s an incredibly elegant design and this can be done in the field. Care should be taken to avoid dust/dirt of course. The conversion can be done in 30-90 seconds depending on how careful you want to be, given that the IR filter is of course exposed as is the case when a lens or front cap is not present. Also of note: if you look carefully at the detail shot above, you’ll notice that RED has a rotating ring, similar to a PL mount, that double-locks the Canon lens onto the Epic. (You have both the regular Canon click lock + the rotating ring now to secure your lens.) Gone is ANY flex inherent with the Canon mount that many of us are used to when you work with follow focusing units and/or motors.