Brevis35 - Optional GG Footage

I'd be curious to know how many of you who are aching to compare have actually shot projects on film? My last 3 projects were film, 16, super 16, and 35mm. I also work with a lot of thesis students on post production workflows and have been privvy to many supervised telecines to Digibeta, DV, and HDCAM, as well as a few DI sessions, and I've been to efilm and worked on a project that was shot with the DVX and upped to 35mm.

I've seen the M2 footage, the G35 footage, etc. Actually, when I was first looking around, the M2 footage looked really bad to me, compared to other stuff... then some really good DPs got their hands on it, and it looked great.

I can tell you this. Save for the depth of field, the color, gamma, lat. the footage from any of these adaptors that I have seen on the web looks NOTHING like a 35mm work print projected. But, if you take that 35mm neg, telecine to DV, and compress it for the web, then I can start to see similarities.

What is the point of all this? Every example we see is web ready. There is SO MUCH that goes on from shooting to web that will taint any objective analysis. To truly test side by side, you'de need to shoot 35mm and project a work print, then shoot with an adaptor and project with an HD projector. Then you would see the differences clearly.

So... quit worrying about it. You're not gonna match it. You're gonna be shocked when you go to a festival and screen heads up with any film.

Or... you can look at it in a completely different way. You are shooting something NEW. Something that the big companies haven't even gotten their hands on yet. The optics of a 35mm lens shot digitally. It's not DV, it's not HD, it's not Film, it's something in between, something different. It looks great, people will like it, and for a short time before sony and panny wise up and build these things into their packages, any of these adaptors will give you an edge visually. That is if you know how to shoot... and direct... and write... and produce... and distribute :)
 
zoostory said:
I'd be curious to know how many of you who are aching to compare have actually shot projects on film? My last 3 projects were film, 16, super 16, and 35mm. I also work with a lot of thesis students on post production workflows and have been privvy to many supervised telecines to Digibeta, DV, and HDCAM, as well as a few DI sessions, and I've been to efilm and worked on a project that was shot with the DVX and upped to 35mm.

I've seen the M2 footage, the G35 footage, etc. Actually, when I was first looking around, the M2 footage looked really bad to me, compared to other stuff... then some really good DPs got their hands on it, and it looked great.

I can tell you this. Save for the depth of field, the color, gamma, lat. the footage from any of these adaptors that I have seen on the web looks NOTHING like a 35mm work print projected. But, if you take that 35mm neg, telecine to DV, and compress it for the web, then I can start to see similarities.

What is the point of all this? Every example we see is web ready. There is SO MUCH that goes on from shooting to web that will taint any objective analysis. To truly test side by side, you'de need to shoot 35mm and project a work print, then shoot with an adaptor and project with an HD projector. Then you would see the differences clearly.

So... quit worrying about it. You're not gonna match it. You're gonna be shocked when you go to a festival and screen heads up with any film.

Or... you can look at it in a completely different way. You are shooting something NEW. Something that the big companies haven't even gotten their hands on yet. The optics of a 35mm lens shot digitally. It's not DV, it's not HD, it's not Film, it's something in between, something different. It looks great, people will like it, and for a short time before sony and panny wise up and build these things into their packages, any of these adaptors will give you an edge visually. That is if you know how to shoot... and direct... and write... and produce... and distribute :)
Click to expand...


well said!
 
zoostory said:
I've seen the M2 footage, the G35 footage, etc. Actually, when I was first looking around, the M2 footage looked really bad to me, compared to other stuff... then some really good DPs got their hands on it, and it looked great.
Click to expand...

I've seen raw stuff from the G35 and the M2 with natural day light and not color correction that looks amazing. But I agree that when Redrock first started I didn't like what was being shown either (until they came up with their cinescreen and made some aditional changes to the adapter)

zoostory said:
I can tell you this. Save for the depth of field, the color, gamma, lat. the footage from any of these adaptors that I have seen on the web looks NOTHING like a 35mm work print projected. But, if you take that 35mm neg, telecine to DV, and compress it for the web, then I can start to see similarities.
Click to expand...

I don't think it was ever said here it looks like 35mm. But I'll give you this, Ok, saying it looks straight up like film is a bit of an exageration. But it's the closest we get so far for so little.

Don't digicon, ultracontrast, etc claim to increase latitute? Maybe it's a similar effect. That is the point of this debate. I know most adapters simply give you the DOF, so when you put them on the camera you the exact kind of image you see produced by the camera being used. But with the M2 and the G35 I've seen tests (no natural light or CC) made with cameras like the A1 or even a 1 chip camera (cameras that scream video) that made the footage look like they were shot with cameras with greater latitude (not 35mm). I can't really remember how to say this in english, but each color had diferent tonalities and there was a smooth transition between them (say from light red to dark red, for example); and there was diffent tonalities before the blacks turned totaly black.

zoostory said:
What is the point of all this? Every example we see is web ready. There is SO MUCH that goes on from shooting to web that will taint any objective analysis. To truly test side by side, you'de need to shoot 35mm and project a work print, then shoot with an adaptor and project with an HD projector. Then you would see the differences clearly.
Click to expand...

With that logic it's pretty hard to ever find out what's what because most people here don't have the money to make these kinds of test...and we shouldn't trust the tests on the web because they are web ready.

zoostory said:
So... quit worrying about it. You're not gonna match it. You're gonna be shocked when you go to a festival and screen heads up with any film.

Or... you can look at it in a completely different way. You are shooting something NEW. Something that the big companies haven't even gotten their hands on yet. The optics of a 35mm lens shot digitally. It's not DV, it's not HD, it's not Film, it's something in between, something different. It looks great, people will like it, and for a short time before sony and panny wise up and build these things into their packages, any of these adaptors will give you an edge visually. That is if you know how to shoot... and direct... and write... and produce... and distribute :)
Click to expand...

No worries here, amigo :) . I think these adapters are a blessing and one of the greates inventions for everybody who shoots video. I think you said it all when you said "It's not DV, it's not HD, it's not Film, it's something in between, something different"

BTW, I have some day light run & gun brevis footage I' like to post but savefile.com won't accept it (84mb). Anybody knows about a more powerful file host?
 
Rapidshare will host it (<100mb). So will stickypod (again, <100mb and free rego for dvxusers)
 
>I think you should visit Redrocks' and Cinemeks' site
>to see it for your self. There's even some tests made
>with and without the adapter where you can see
>a drastic difference. One clear example is MacGregors work.

I went to the sites and looked around but couldn't find any tests. I saw a lot of nice clips that were very inspirational, but no actual tests...
 
I just did a chip chart/ waveform monitor test with my DIY 35 adapter. I saw at best a 3 IRE improvement in latitude, nominal at best. It appears to be more of an apparent increase then actual. BTW, I used a 5 micron static hand ground glass to do a test. Others using spinning/moving/nikon/AOL may have a different effect.

-j
 
A few clips from the inlaw's garden using the "production" diffuser option. The shots were done just at sunset, with a Minolta Rokkor 50mm f1.4. I used the lens at f2.8 for most of the shots. The cam was the wee GS400 in 16:9 frame mode (procinema).

43MB WMV, Fast
43MB WMV, Alternate
 
I can say with a certian amount of confidence, that the 35 adapters in general seem to add "dynamic range". ( of all that ihave used, letus, go35, Sgpro, Brevis with exception to the Letus, theletus did not seem to have this effect) While it may not be actually there as the DVX can only read so much lattitude, but i think the fact that the camera is now reading the image off a projection, not the actual scene, changes the way the light is distributed to the CCD's. this can also be a function of the lenses used as well. Even if its "percieved" Dynamic range, i'll take it! it looks great.

Also i notice the increase to be in the darker parts of the images, like the contrast is flatter. i find to get the same black levels as stock lens, the master pedestal has to be much lower, sometimes by as much as three points. IT seems to "bring up" the darks. But this is to my eye.

The Go35 Does this, the Brevis does this, and the SGpro does it alot. The letus seems to leave the image alone interms of gamma, but just adds the DOF effect. the different GG materials i believe make all the difference.

I still think it may actually buy us half a stop though. needs to be tested.
 
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I also noticed that it seems to give more dynamic range for some reason. I think going through the GG mutes the highlights a bit giving you a stop more range. I think its the vibrating little dark spots on the GG that do a sort of dodging effect darkening the bright spots. Sort of like looking through a moving scrim.
 
From what I can tell, the diffuser likely responds differently to different wavelengths of light. There's no question that when compared to a film shot (35mm SLR), the diffuser footage has more visible detail in shadows, where the film looks too dark to pick out any. I'm preparing a test series using the Brevis, its two production diffusers, 35mm film, and 8MP digital stills. Getting an indoors setup with controlled lighting, that is 30 feet long or so is a bit of a challenge for me...I need a warehouse.

I'd like to do it outside, like my first test series, but this will take a fair bit of time. The sun will have travelled a fair bit during the series making consistent lighting very difficult.
 
guskersthecat said:
A few clips from the inlaw's garden using the "production" diffuser option. The shots were done just at sunset, with a Minolta Rokkor 50mm f1.4. I used the lens at f2.8 for most of the shots. The cam was the wee GS400 in 16:9 frame mode (procinema).

43MB WMV, Fast
43MB WMV, Alternate
Click to expand...


Dennis great footage! I like what you're doing with the adapter, it's all taking shape now. Also, the music in the video, what is it?
 
Thanks Yas. I've been working very hard on making the diffuser options happen. This option will keep the shallow DOF/max diffusion folks happy, while still offering HD quality grain-free images in its f stop range. The music was done in Acid 6 using royalty free tracks from a sony cinema ambience series.

I'm pretty stoked to do my next test series, but I'm waiting for some support equipment to do it. How does the Brevis mounted to a full suspension MTB going full tilt off road sound?
 
Just stumbled onto this thread now . . . I imagine that the "increased latitude" is simply the effect that any diffusing element in front of your lens would have--it simply acts as a low-contrast filter. By the way, is there any "downside" to the new diffuser with the "fatter" bokeh?
 
The downside is more light loss using the adapter. Having three options means you can choose the light loss level, from .5 stops to about 1.5 (assuming a 50mm f 1.4 lens, fully open) but also control the character of bokeh. Once I get set up properly with the incoming XH-A1, I'll post up a test series using all three.
 
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