Minimize Crop-Factor with Focal Reducers

Focal reducers are a cost effective way to eliminate most cropping on Blackmagic Cinema Cameras.

Blackmagic Design cameras offer a lot of really awesome features that give filmmakers a huge bang for their buck…but one of those features comes at a cost, the infamous crop factor. A Gizmodo review of the Blackmagic Cinema Camera states:

The camera’s Super-16mm sensor—smaller than micro four-thirds—means you have to re-assess your lens selection to account for the crop-factor. Not only will few lenses get you a super-wide angle shot, but depth of field will not be nearly as shallow as a full-frame camera like the Canon 5D series, or even APS-C sensor cameras like the Canon 7D or Sony FS100.  

To get around this crop factor companies like Orion and Meade have created adapters that reduce cropping. These focal reducers come in a variety of prices but the real question is, do they work?

In the following video presented by Ruben Kremer we take a look at a .72x focal reducer on a Blackmagic Pocket Camera and see if it’s worth the money.

Pretty impressive huh? As with most lens adapters there is an added risk of creating some chromatic aberrations but it seems like the focal reducer that Ruben used worked pretty well. You can check out this focus reducer from Roxen on eBay.

Thanks for sharing Ruben!

Do you use focal adapters? Share your thoughts in the comments below!