Savannah Miller wrote:When you watch the video, he talks about all the "mounts" he is building for the lenses. You can't just build EF mount micro 4/3 lenses. It's not so easy to build all the different mounts like he thinks it is. On top of that, all the lenses look different. Some have a yellow ring, some have focus gears, some do not. These lenses have IDENTICAL spec to the ones sold on Aliexpress and even look identical. The bokeh looks similar to the lenses as well, leading me to believe the are the same with a 10x markup on the price.
He uses the words "designed in France" because it's not a legally binding statement. His company is registered as an optical materials reseller, not a manufacturer. I'm guessing it's a scam. A good example is John Brawley is a cinematographer and does not directly manufacture cameras or sit in the factory when they're being made, but he works with Blackmagic enough to have an understanding about how the cameras work. If you own a LENS company, if you hired an engineer to make your lenses, he would have at least told you it's not possible to adapt a micro4/3 lens to an EF mount camera. Conveniently, however, the same cheap chinese lenses are also made for other mounts, so likely he's just buying existing lenses.
Even if you're not a lens engineer or clueless about lenses, it's impossible to own a lens company and not learn how lenses work because you have to hire people to design them, and through that process you're naturally going to learn something whether you like it or not.
I don't know what you on going on about? That's not the guy from Cinemartin and not the same company.
Isn't he talking about doing seperate lens with different mounts? This sort of X times the amount of lenses to offer (and negotiate licenses) would explain the expression. When you offer a lens for a different mount, you adjust the optics as needed. Speed boosters are one example using seperate mounts.
What is the problem with having different lenses? He says there are three different optic specs, but there could be other options like you mention? You said they are identical to the ones on AliExpress? So, they have yellow rings and gears as well?
If the AliExpress ones are identical, wouldn't the bokeh be identical? Just yesterday I saw some new high-end name brand ones that look similar. I didn't compare, but maybe near identical look. This is how it works in China, they copy each other even, and sell the same thing with alterations. TV's have been done like this for decades. Multiple brands just order an OEM design done at a plant that probably does special ones for name brands. This is common, called network manufacturing as well, which Nintendo always did. I'm actually thinking of using some of those EF ones with similar spec to famous ones. As long as the quality drop is not much, I'm happy with it and can figure out something really good to maximise quality.
I would imagine the French (of all people) would be particularly interested in "Designed in France" being legally binding. They're a bit particular. But this is common. Stuff designed in Italy manufactured in China, for Chinese or other nationalities. France is just another country you can get a good 'local' talented engineer to work closely with. You can get the lens made in Europe or India, and assembled in barrels from China if you want, or in China. (Personally, I prefer to keep money making components local).
But it's true you can get items on AliExpress at Chinese wholesale like prices and mark up and sell locally. 4x-10x the price is reasonable, as there are a lot of expenses and mark up for retail stores as well as carrying ALL the warranty handling. They tend to buy on the basis of X percentage will be defective and simply replacing it and chucking the old one. This is the way it used to be done. If you have got somebody you can trust to deal with.
I guess the guys business might have been related. So, optics materials reseller is ok. Supplying companies and optical engineers you could talk with. He seems to be only just moving into lens manufacturing and maybe even product branding.
There are companies with people running them that know little technology. It's business, they tend to be run by business people. It's like journalism. The most important thing is to be a journalist rather than a technical person. I know, I've enquired. If you don't have journalism under your belt, they weren't that interested before. But you haven't shown anything that shows he doesn't know anything. I guess he is still learning as well.
Wouldn't you agree, it's a matter of seeing how something can be true as well as false?