Magnetic Matte Box – JetMag Pro

A matte box stops the light that was never meant to reach your lens. This one weighs 140g, clamps onto its own JetMag Pro Matte Box adapter ring, and leaves your 82MAG and 95MAG magnetic filters working exactly as they do now. No rods, no rails, no cage. New to the system? The JetMag Pro magnetic filter system is where to start.

• 140g. Light enough not to upset gimbal balance or weigh down a handheld rig.
• Removable carbon fibre top flag. On or off in seconds, and replaceable on its own if it is ever damaged.
• Airflow channels on both sides. Less wind drag when you are shooting from a moving vehicle or into coastal wind.
• Clamp-on mount. Attaches to its adapter ring in seconds and stays square to the lens. No threads to chase, no tools to carry.
• Your filters, unchanged. The full JetMag Pro 82MAG and 95MAG range still snaps on magnetically and locks.

82MAG or 95MAG: which adapter ring do I need?

The matte box does not screw onto your lens. It clamps onto a Matte Box adapter ring, and you choose that ring by your lens filter thread. These are not the same as the standard JetMag Pro adapter rings: they carry the clamp-on mount, so the rings you already own will not hold the matte box.

Your lens filter thread	Adapter ring
67mm	67mm to 82MAG
72mm	72mm to 82MAG
77mm	77mm to 82MAG
82mm	82mm to 82MAG or 82mm to 95MAG
86mm	86mm to 95MAG
95mm	95mm to 95MAG
Cine lens, 95mm outer diameter, no thread	95mm Cinema Clamp to 95MAG

82mm is the one size that appears twice. Choose 95MAG if you own, or expect to own, an 86mm or 95mm lens, or if your 82mm lens goes as wide as 16mm and you use a variable ND on it: in the test below, that combination vignetted on 82MAG and was clean on 95MAG. Otherwise choose 82MAG.

One ring per lens is all you need: the matte box and the filters stay the same, and only the ring changes.

How wide can you go? The vignetting test

NiSi tested the matte box on a Sony 16-35mm f/2.8, which has an 82mm filter thread and is about as demanding as a full frame zoom gets. These are the results as measured, not a rounded claim.

The short version: on 95MAG nothing vignetted at 16mm, in any combination tested. On 82MAG, 16mm is the limit: one filter is clean, two show a little, and the VND vignettes noticeably because it is a thicker two-element design. The slight vignetting with two filters disappeared once NiSi applied the lens profile correction in Photoshop. From 17mm everything tested was clean, VND included.

Lenses with a 67mm, 72mm or 77mm thread only fit 82MAG. The test was run on an 82mm lens, so we have no measured result for those threads at 16mm yet.

The two kits

Both kits include the matte box and the bag. What changes is the set of adapter rings.

Both kits are the same price, so the choice is about your lenses and how wide you shoot, and nothing else.

The range

Cinema lenses with no filter thread

Many cinema lenses have no filter thread at all. The 95mm Cinema Clamp ring clamps onto the front barrel of any cinema lens with a 95mm outer diameter, which puts the matte box and the whole JetMag Pro filter range onto a cine rig.

NiSi’s own cine primes do have a thread. The NiSi Athena Prime lenses have a 77mm front thread, so they take the 77mm to 82MAG ring, which comes in the 82MAG kit. The Aureus Prime has an 86mm thread and takes the 86mm to 95MAG ring.

The 95mm Cinema Clamp is the one ring that is not part of either kit. If your cine lenses all have a 95mm front and no thread, the matte box plus the Cinema Clamp is all you need.

Once it is on, nothing else about the workflow changes: the same magnetic filters you use on your stills bodies snap onto the same matte box, and the patented lock keeps the stack together while the rig moves.

Working with 4×4″ or 4×5.65″ cinema filters in trays instead? That is what the NiSi C5 Matte Box is built for.

Stacking filters behind it

This is the part that matters most for video. The matte box does not replace your filters, it sits in front of them: ND and CPL for landscape, VND and Black Mist for video, Black Magic Diffusion or Cross Screen 4x when you want the look. Filters snap on magnetically and the patented lock holds the stack together while the rig is moving.

No JetMag Pro filters yet? The JetMag Pro system page covers the whole range, and the JetMag Pro Filmmaker Kit is the usual starting point for video. If you are still choosing between a magnetic and a screw-in variable ND, the comparison between the JetMag Pro and the True Color ND-VARIO covers it.

Not sure which rings you need?

Tell us which lenses you shoot and we will tell you which rings you need, and whether 82MAG or 95MAG suits the way you work.