Veydra Lenses 12mm Mini Prime Delivery Update, New Sony E and C Mounts, Lens Support
12mm Mini Prime Delivery Update
Hello again everyone. We cannot thank all of you enough for being patient and waiting for the 12mm to deliver. We have had significant challenges in producing this lens on a mass scale. All wide angle lenses are very difficult to manufacture. Flatness of the focus across the image and accuracy of the focus scale are both big problems for all wide angle lens manufacturers. We are no exception. We have finally resolved the production issues that have caused multiple delays in the shipment of the 12mm.
We will ship the 12mm Mini Prime to every one around the middle of September or as soon as possible. We will never rush a product to market until it ready for your demanding needs and long lasting quality. We thank you for your patience and we are confident in our decision to delay the 12mm until it is ready in middle of September.
New Sony E and C Mounts, Lens Support
Good news for you who have invested in our Kickstarter, we will be making a special offer to all Kickstarter backers for our latest product updates which include a new Sony E and C Mount options as well as a lens support.
We often get emails asking for adaptability of the Veydra Mini Primes to other cameras than M4/3. The physical design of the Mini Primes is too small and the flange depth is too shallow (distance of the back of the lens to the sensor) to accommodate adaptation to Canon EF or PL mount. However, we can offer other shallow flange depth mounts like Sony E and C Mount. Therefore we will offer a Sony E mount for the Veydra 25mm, 35mm, 50mm and soon to be 85mm lenses in APS-C mode coverage on all Sony NEX or E mount cameras including the Sony A7s, A7RII, A6000, FS-700, and FS-7.
We will also offer a C Mount for direct mounting on Super16 film cameras and Digital Bolex cameras with no need for adapters. The C Mount will work on all current Veydra Mini Prime lenses except the 50mm which will require it’s own dedicated C Mount.
There has been some significant discussion online about the inherent loose nature of the Micro4/3 mount. This is not so much as design flaw on the part of camera manufacturers as it is matter of original intention for the mount. PL mounts were made for “positive lock” on cinema cameras for heavy cinema lenses. Micro4/3 mount was meant for very small lightweight still photo lenses and therefore, when we put a heavier lens like the Veydra Mini Prime on it, the lens will move a bit.
We have addressed the issue by making a lens support which we will put on our website soon and send a special offer to Kickstarter backers. This will resolve the twisting of the mount and resulting image shift. When we originally designed the Veydra Mini Primes, we considered adding a built in lens support but it would have increased the size of the lens and complexity of manufacture so we decided to wait and see if a support would be required. Again, we apologize for the delay in this support as we expected to have it completed by now however it proved to be its own design challenge which we have resolved. We will ship the lens support for interface with 15mm LWS Rod systems in October.
Jim and I thank everyone for their patience in all things Veydra on Kickstarter and we are glad to see so many people are happy with their lenses. We will meet our now final September delivery date for the 12mm and look forward to seeing all the awesome content you all have been creating and will continue to create with our craftmanship.
Thanks,
Ryan Avery
Veydra Lenses Kickstarter Update: Delivery Timing Continued, new 85mm Mini Prime, JVC LS300 Compatibility, More D|Focus Accessories
Hey Everybody!
My sincere apologies for the delay in an update. We’ve had a lot going on and we have some fun new stuff for you here.
Delivery Timing Continued
Down to what everyone cares about; “where are my Veydra lenses?”. We had some delays in shipping the the 4 and 5 lens sets due to an intentional withholding of the 25mm and 50mm Micro 4/3 Mini Prime lenses until they were perfect. We’ve had the 6 Lens Case, Formatt Firecrest Filters, D|Focus Accessories and the 16mm and 35mm lenses for a couple weeks now but we wanted to deliver everything at once for a complete experience.
We will be shipping to all Backers on Monday and Tuesday February 23rd and 24th. We apologize for the delay but we did what we felt was in everyone’s best interest.
We have already shipped to many of you for single lens rewards and the response has been very positive so we are assured you all will greatly enjoy our quality and workmanship.
New Veydra Micro 4/3 85mm T2.2 Mini Prime lens!
We are pleased to announce the all new Veydra lenses Micro 4/3 85mm T2.2 Mini Prime! We’ve been working hard on making some new lens calculations and we are happy to announce that we will be shipping a new 85mm focal length at the end of this year. The 85mm T2.2 M4/3 Mini Prime will have the same features as the other lenses identical length, focus/iris gears in the same position, plated brass mount, 80mm front diameter, and 77mm filter thread. The 85mm is available for pre-order and we will be sending a special offer for priority delivery to Kickstarter Backers.
We will also announce later this Spring a wider focal length Veydra Micro 4/3 Mini Prime than our current 12mm for those of you that desire something even wider. We finalize the design on this lens and announce it in the coming months. We hope to deliver everything we announce in the coming months before the end of the year.
JVC LS300 Compatibility
We are pleased to announce that all current Veydra Micro 4/3 Mini Primes have been tested by JVC here in North America and they are compatible with the new LS-300 camera. The Veydra Mini Prime lenses in 25mm, 35mm and 50mm all cover the effective portions of the sensor on the LS300 with no sensor mapping required and the 16mm and 12mm also cover due to the variable sensor mapping technology found in the LS300. We have had several Backers ask us about this camera due to it’s larger S35 sized sensor in the native M4/3 mount and we are pleased to have had it tested by JVC here in North America directly to get confirmation. If this camera meets your needs, then we are happy to say the Veydra lenses Micro 4/3 Mini Primes appear an excellent match for true cine style shooting.
D|Focus V4 and D|Rails Available
In addition to all the great things we have going on over here at Veydra, we continue our partnership with D|Focus Systems and we are pleased to offer their D|Focus V4 and offer a special 20% off coupon to all Backers with code kckacc20.
The D|Focus V4 has been specially made for us without the D|Gear to keep the price down and also as the D|Gear is not needed for our lenses since we feature the 0.8 module focus and iris rings built into the lens.
The D|Rails is also a great add on for your kit as you can add a 15mm LWS rail mount to your D|Cage or your BMPCC or GH4 directly. Our kit includes 6″ Rods which we find to the be the perfect length for Veydra lenses Micro 4/3 Mini Primes. We offer the same 20% discount if you use code kckacc20 on checkout at Veydra.com
That’s it for now folks. Check back soon or feel free to drop me a message if you have any other questions.
I am very excited to have lenses in all your hands in just a few short days.
–Ryan Avery
Veydra Lenses Kickstarter Update: Delivery Timing and Accessories on Micro 4/3 Mini Primes
Hello Everyone!
It’s been a busy few weeks since the conclusion of our funding. We are overwhelmed by the support and we officially raised 544% of our goal for the Veydra lenses Micro 4/3 Mini Primes! Very exciting and we are committed to continuing to support the Micro 4/3 format with more lenses and some new ideas in the coming months and years.
We are currently doing market research on the next big thing from us and while we can’t comment yet, I am very excited for what is to come. We will keep making announcements here. Don’t forget to go to sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page to catch the latest updates.
Delivery Timing
Regarding delivery, we ran into some quality control issues with the 25mm focal length Veydra micro 4/3 Mini Prime lens. We decided to withhold delivery of the 25mm by about 2 to 3 weeks to fix some excessive drag issues with the focus rotation. We feel it is better to fix this issue in production than to rush delivery to meet our January promised date. We apologize for the delay but we feel this is in everyone’s best interest. We will begin delivering some of the single lens rewards and T Shirts in the next two weeks. Below is the current projected timing for delivery;
- $25 T Shirts Reward only will be shipped by January 30th
- Single Lens Rewards for Imperial focus scales except the 25mm should be shipped by January 30th
- Single Lens Rewards for Metric focus scales and all 25mm Lens Rewardsshould be shipped by February 13th
- All 4 and 5 Lens Set Rewards for Imperial focus scales should be shipped by February 13th
- All 4 and 5 Lens Set Rewards for Metric focus scales should be shipped by February 20th
- Rental Rewards should be shipped to LensProToGo by February 16th
- The 12mm both Metric and Imperial versions should ship by June 2015
Accessories
Illya Friedman over at Hot Rod Cameras has designed us all a very nice 6 lens case for the Veydra lenses Micro 4/3 Mini Primes. Illya has been designing custom cases for lots of big names in Hollywood for the last 10 years or so and we trust his judgement in case selection and layout. Illya has brought us this excellent quality Seahorse SE-720 hard case with custom foam cut out and low-pile top surface for 6 Veydra Mini Primes. The cut outs feature finger holes on either side as you can see in the pictures below.
The retail price for this case with the custom foam is $259 USD but we will offer it for $199 and we will have an even better special offer price for all Kickstarter backers which we will email you each a special discount code. If you would like this case be sure to order it before your lenses ship so we can ship with your lens order.
We are having a Veydra lenses logo decal made for these cases which will be ready when the cases ship with the lenses. We are choosing not to put the decal on the case because many professionals prefer not to identify what is in a case for security purposes. We will ship each case with the decal and you can decide if you want it on the case or not.
Despite the prototype screw-in lens cap images above (which get stuck on lenses easily), we also went with a new lens cap design that we felt was better for a production environment. We will be shipping all Veydra lenses Micro 4/3 Mini Primes with the 77mm photo style center pinch cap pictured below.
We also have finished the packaging for all Veydra Mini Primes and we really like the design. All lenses will ship in these boxes pictured below with the text and image appropriate to each lens.
We are adding some new accessories to our shop due to popular request of backers. We have partnered with Veydra Kickstarter backer and fellow manufacturer DFocus Systems at dfocussystem.com to offer some of their innovative cages for the GH4 and BMPCC. We will have special offers for these cages shortly and will send a discount code to each backer for purchase of these cages.
We have also partnered with formatt-hitech.com to offer their revolutionary Firecrest Neutral Density filter in 77mm size in multiple densities from ND.3 (1 Stop) to ND2.1 (7 Stops) for direct threading onto Veydra Mini Primes. The Formatt-Hitech Firecrest ND is an all new filter that is manufactured of Schott Water-White glass and features the electrolytic deposited hyper neutral carbon coating which makes these filters fully IR protected and the most neutral filters available on the market today. We will have a special discount code for all backers on these great filters as well.
We thank everyone for their patience and we are hoping to get these Veydra lenses Micro 4/3 Mini Primes into your hands as soon as possible. Stay tuned here for more updates and exciting announcements as we move forward.
–Ryan
Veydra Lenses Kickstarter Update: New Reward – Rent a Veydra Micro 4/3 Mini Prime 4 Lens Set from LensProToGo
Hello everyone,
12 Days to go and the Veydra lenses Micro 4/3 Mini Primes are officially well over 200% funded! To celebrate this milestone, we have added a new reward level for those of us that can’t take advantage of the $200 to $1600 discount offered to lens reward Backers right now but still want the Veydra Mini Prime experience.
We have partnered with LensProToGo.com to bring you a new reward. In addition to all the goodies you get with our $25 T-Shirt reward, for $149 ($300 value) you get a 4 day rental of the 16mm, 25mm, 35mm, and 50mm four lens set of Veydra lenses Micro 4/3 Mini Prime lenses at an available date of your choosing in February to April 2015. Due to insurance restrictions this reward is only available to Backers in the USA so we apologize in advance to all our friends outside the USA. All rentals are subject to LensProToGo’s normal rental requirements as well as terms and conditions.
The rental reward is limited to 20 Backers so we can hopefully get everyone lenses on their desired rental dates so act fast before they are gone.
Thanks again to everyone and we will be back with more updates soon.
–Ryan
Veydra Lenses Kickstarter Update: Micro 4/3 Mini Prime Physical Size Comparison
Hello again everyone,
We are really grateful for all the pledges so far and we are happy to see that everyone will be getting lenses. The Veydra Lenses Micro 4/3 Mini Prime Kickstarter is now 180% funded.
We are working on final product boxes and packaging this week. Manufacturing of these Veydra lenses is underway to meet our January delivery promises.
We have received a few notes from people saying that the photos we have posted don’t have a size comparison to see how small these Veydra lenses are in reality. I have added the images I took below of a Zeiss CP.2 and a Schneider Xenon FF Prime next to the Veydra Micro 4/3 Mini Prime to give everyone an idea of relative size.
In addition to the size comparisons here, we also want to remind everyone that you can own an entire set of Veydra Micro 4/3 Mini Primes for the price of just one of the other lenses shown in these pictures.
We will be back soon with another update and we look forward to shipping lenses after the Kickstarter has concluded.
Thanks everyone for your support and we will be back with another update soon.
–Ryan
Veydra Lenses Kickstarter Update: BMPCC Test footage
Hello Everyone,
Here are some more complete tests from the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera (BMPCC) shot by Jared Abrams at Wide Open Camera for everyone to review using the Veydra Lenses Micro 4/3 Mini Primes. We are confident you will be happy with the performance of Veydra Mini Primes and we have put them up against some popular lenses.
As I said in the GH4 Update, we have been working hard on this for the last week so please understand we couldn’t test everything against every lens on every camera. Lens tests are very difficult with multiple criteria and the possibilities are nearly endless. We feel that what we have given you here is a good representation of what the Veydra Lenses Micro 4/3 Mini Primes can do as if you were going to test them for rental.
On this Test we used a BMPCC and you will find the following; Focus Breathing, Color Matching within the set of lenses, Flare, Contrast, Skintones, and Bokeh. You will find different subject matter for the skintone tests than our GH4 update.
These are straight from the ProRes file off the BMPCC with the exception that we did crush the black levels a bit to help with overall viewability. Most scenes are shot at T4 because we could not get a usable exposure from T2.2 at the lowest ASA setting on the BMPCC and we did not want to introduce an ND filter for the added variable of extra glass.
We recommend that these files are best viewed in high resolution ProRes 422 HQ as a downloaded from our Dropbox page here:
Thanks again to everyone for the support. We are well over 100% funding so Veydra Lenses Micro 4/3 Mini Primes are happening!
–Ryan
Veydra Lenses Kickstarter Update: Mini Prime – GH4 Tests and Tech Spec
Hello Everyone,
Here are some more complete tests from the Panasonic GH4 shot by Jared Abrams at Wide Open Camera for everyone to review. We are confident you will be happy with the performance of Veydra Lenses Mini Primes for Micro 4/3 cameras and we have put them up against some popular lenses.
We have been working hard on this for the last 4 days so please understand we couldn’t test everything against every lens on every camera. Lens tests are very difficult with multiple criteria and the possibilities are nearly endless.
We feel that what we have given you here is a good representation of what the Veydra Lenses Micro 4/3 Mini Primes can do as if you were going to test them for rental.
On this Test we used a Panasonic GH4 and you will find the following; Focus Breathing, Color Matching within the set of lenses, Flare, Contrast, Skintones, and Bokeh.
We did shoot some more tests similar to these with the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera and will try to put those tests up in another Update in the next few days.
The Kickstarter platform compresses the video so we recommend that these files are best viewed in high resolution as a downloaded from our Vimeo page. https://vimeo.com/112637687
Veydra Mini Prime Lens Test on Panasonic GH4 from Ryan Avery on Vimeo.
Here are some tech specs on the Veydra Lenses Micro 4/3 Mini Primes (courtesy of Matthew Duclos)
We thank everyone for their ongoing support of this project and we are confident in the success of the funding here on Kickstarter. We are excited to get these out into the world and working on real projects of the Creatives for which we have designed these lenses.
Thanks!
Ryan Avery