Veydra's new expander adapts older Super35mm lens designs to larger sensors like the Red Epic Dragon, and is available for a deep discount during introductory month.

Digital sensors are getting larger and larger, and some of the incremental changes are making it so even recently designed lenses aren't compatible with modern cameras. Veydra is aiming to overcome that situation with a 1.2x PL-Mount to PL-Mount Expander that lets lenses designed for the Super35mm format work with with the larger sensors we're seeing more of in the digital realm. For instance, even the Angenieux Optimo 24-290, which came out less than 20 years ago and is still a mainstay of production, doesn't cover the Dragon sensor fully.

Credit: Courtesy of Angeniuex

This is a bigger deal with zoom lenses than primes: a zoom lens has a much more complicated design to facilitate changing the field of view. Mount a 24-290 on the Dragon and you'll see a hard cut at the edge of the image. You’ll also run into issues with some very wide angle primes, since the wider the field of view in front of the lens, the narrower the imager circle behind. However, that tends to show up more as heavy vignetting and less as a hard crop. This has always meant discussions with rental houses about what format you were shooting, and a more limited pool of lens options available the bigger your sensor.

If the lens you want to shoot hasn't covered your full imager, the best solution in the past has been a tele converter, which will increase the image circle, but tele converters change the field of view more dramatically (1.4-2x) and usually eat a lot more light (a stop or more). The Veydra eats 1/2 a stop, only changes the field of view slightly, and is something that rental houses that purchase to help bring older lenses into the playing field for modern camera’s. It’ll give cinematographers and filmmakers more choices at the rental house, and perhaps (though maybe I’m being optimistic), lower prices on cine-zooms rental slightly by increasing the pool of lenses available.

Duclos lenses has tested a variety of Super35mm zooms and found a lot of great options for covering a sensor up to 34mm diagonally, but personally I’m most excited by the Cooke 25-250, a nice long cine zoom with a great personality that generally rents at a significant discount over the 24-290.

The 1.2x will ship with an introductory price of $2150, which will go up to a regular price of $3495 once the introductory period is over at the end of this month.

Are there any older lenses you can’t wait to mount up on a bigger sensor?