A few questions about the Letus35

J

Jonny

Member
Hello everyone.
I have been researching 35mm adapters on this site for a bit now, and think I am going to go for a Letus35a, but i have a couple of questions before I buy. I was wondering what a resonable price would be for one used in good condition? Also, would i have to put a macro lens of some sort on the letus35a? and if so, what kind?

EDIT:
Also, how loud is it? Is it soft enough to not have to over dub the voices in a scene and use what is picked up by a boom?
Thanks.
-Jonny
 
Last edited:
I've got a Letus35 Flip Enhanced, which does the flip for you -- highly recommended, and it's only $700. The vibrating mechanism is practically silent.
 
I think its well worth to spend the extra money for the Red Rock or Brevis simply for the construction of them. I have used a letus and was pretty displeased with the diyness of it. The first one I got broke, neither of the lens mounts locked the lenses on it, and the inner construction was pretty poor as I found out on an attempt to fix the first adapter. I think the letus has gotten better since, (it was an older version) but the image was pretty soft and there was alot of vingetting. I think its awesome there so many people out there working to make better products and its great how the 35 adapter has come out of that really, but, I think money is better spent on a more proffesional product.
 
Not to be disagreeable, but I completely disagree.

Maybe there have been massive improvements, I don't know, but my brand-spankin'-new Letus35 Flip Enhanced is impressing my socks off.

I am really, really pleased with it so far. I have now entered the phase where I'm looking to find an "Achilles Heel", because if I don't find one soon, well...

let's just say, it's very sharp (with a tad of sharpness falloff on the edges), and when I got through configuring the lens adapter for proper field of view there is not a hint of vignetting, the system is nearly uniformly lit so there's no hot-spot in the center, it's silent, it seems solidly built, and it does the flip for you, and it costs HALF what the others do.

And did I mention it does the flip for you?

And that it costs half?

Lenses don't lock on, that part's disappointing, but I'd take the built-in flip over that feature any day of the week. Compared to the $1300 adapters, I'd gladly buy the Letus35 Flip Enhanced, a whole rack of lenses, still save hundreds of dollars, and never have to bother with magnets or upside-down LCDs or flipping the footage in post or rendering times or mounting my production monitor upside down or mounting the camera upside down or any of that silliness. The Letus35FE renders that whole process obsolete. You just shoot with it.

Oh, and while I'm delighted that it does the flip for you, it also arrived in three days, not 10 weeks or 6 weeks or whatever the times that some of our other members have reported that it took for their other adapters to get to them. And I had the Letus35FE set up and operational in 30 seconds, and fully properly calibrated in 5 minutes.

And it does the flip for you.

I took the time and used my color and grayscale charts to develop a scene file that gives the Letus the same color & contrast as the HVX raw lens (i.e., without the adapter installed). I've then shot with the Letus35FE, and with the naked HVX lens, using their appropriate "matching" scene files, and compared the shot, and can't see any substantial difference (other than DOF, of course). So then I shot a flat picture (the "CamBelles" from my DSC CamBook, a professional test image) to remove the whole DOF issue from the equation. It looks very, very similar with and without the adapter, which tells me I'm getting near to the raw quality of the HVX even with the adapter on. Which is astounding. Astounding. So I showed it to another guy, an esteemed video professional, who said "looks the same to me." We didn't pore over every pixel, but I did spot examine it in the DV Rack HD monitor at about 300% magnification, and it's close enough that I'm not concerned with bothering to look for any more discrepancies.

So you get the clarity, color, and contrast of the HVX itself, but you get shallower DOF. And it sets up in 30 seconds flat, not the 2.5 hours I've seen reported from members using other adapters. And it does the flip for you. And it costs about half what the other ones do.

And free shipping too.

If I don't find a fundamental flaw in it in the next few days, I'm gonna proclaim it a major breakthrough. I'm having a hard time understanding why anyone would want to pay twice as much, and have to go through the flipping issues and setup issues that other adapters demand.

Note: all these comments refer only to the Letus35 Flip Enhanced; I've never seen or used any other Letus product. And the particular Letus35FE is the very most recent version; I have no idea what prior units may perform like.
 
Last edited:
wow, I'm assuming substantial improvements have been made I will post some grabs from the footage we shot with the letus for our film in a bit...the vingetting is very apperent and its deffinetly somewhat softer, definently noticeable even in sd at no magnifcation. the adapter we used also was just prior to the flip so we had the magnet and all which was kinda a pain in the neck. I just had a very bad expeirence with the product and it just felt completly unproffesional to me. Maybe the build of the new adapters has been improved as well, the non locking lens mount is an issue but for the money it saves its alright I would say, but If I am on set shooting a film I want my lenses to lock onto the camera. Maybe if it was a bit more hobbyish then it would be ok. and mind im not even a proffesional I'm shooting no budget short films still, but that kinda stuff just kills you on set. if you could I would love to see the test stuff you shot comparing the hvx with and with out the adapter, that would be interesting to see.
 
I'm working up a full review for the unit (although I kind of just gave it all away in the post above!) but footage and stills will be included when it gets posted...
 
cool, look forward to seeing it....btw there was an old post comparing the m2 to stock hvx lens with a resolution chart and the diffrences were pretty big, I think the user may have not had the adapter setup completly properly but the soft edges and chromatic aberation alone was somewhat obvious. It would be pretty suprising to see the letus out perform the m2.
 
JZalutsky said:
btw there was an old post comparing the m2 to stock hvx lens with a resolution chart and the diffrences were pretty big,
Click to expand...
Hench why I said "Astounding" at the results I'm getting from the L35FE. Not that there's not a difference, there is a bit of a difference, and at the extreme edges it does get softer, but overall it looks basically the same. And to me that's astounding.

I think the user may have not had the adapter setup completly properly but the soft edges and chromatic aberation alone was somewhat obvious.
Click to expand...
I doubt very few people set these things up actually properly. You have to zoom all the way in to Z44.0mm to get an appropriate 35mm cine field of view, and when you do that, you eliminate vignetting and get much, much better edge-to-edge sharpness (not perfect, but better.) And a more even distribution of light across the frame.

But it seems like most people try to zoom in so that they fit a 36x24mm frame on the screen. That's completely not what you're supposed to do.

It would be pretty suprising to see the letus out perform the m2.
Click to expand...
Why?
 
barry
what are the set up you used on the hvx to make it look the same?

any one here use the letus35 fe with z-1?
 
Barry_Green said:
I doubt very few people set these things up actually properly. You have to zoom all the way in to Z44.0mm to get an appropriate 35mm cine field of view, and when you do that, you eliminate vignetting and get much, much better edge-to-edge sharpness (not perfect, but better.) And a more even distribution of light across the frame.
Click to expand...

With my DVX and letus flip enhanced I have to zoom to at least Z90 or so to get the framing out for the picture. Does the HVX zoom in to different numbers?

Jgastelb
 
Can someone give me some clarity on Adapters

If it's not flipped does that mean I have to turn it upside down when I bring it onto my computer ?

Im looking at getting the best bang for my buck when I purchase me adapter also
 
jgastelb said:
With my DVX and letus flip enhanced I have to zoom to at least Z90 or so to get the framing out for the picture. Does the HVX zoom in to different numbers?

Jgastelb
Click to expand...
HVX has a different zoom range. DVX is 4.5 to 45mm, HVX is 4.2 to 55mm. On my Letus35FE, I zoom into 44mm to get the appropriate framing. That's about Z98 on the DVX.

Z90 on the DVX is about 32mm, so I would recommend zooming in even more. I haven't fit the Letus to my DVX yet so I don't know the exact zoom & focus settings; it'll be different than just a straight mathematical calculation because the chip shape is different. But I would suspect you should be at around Z99 to get proper field of view from the DVX.
 
Inspired Vision said:
If it's not flipped does that mean I have to turn it upside down when I bring it onto my computer ?
Click to expand...
It means you're in for a massive amount of inconvenience on every possible aspect, yes. It means when you look through your viewfinder everything's upside-down and backwards. And it'll record that way. And you'll have to do something to properly frame your shots (which people have been trying to do with magnets, and upside-down LCD panels, and mounting the camera upside down and all sorts of extreme measures). And then you'll have to rotate all your footage 180 degrees in post too.

Which is what makes the L35FE so enticing -- it eliminates all that nonsense and just gives you right-side-up footage in the first place.
 
Barry, that's a great point on the zoom-in. I don't recommend zooming in to academy frame size as a rule...but you certainly are guaranteed to be in the sweet spot of pretty much every optical element in the chain if you do this.
 
yea I didnt even think about that....I zoomed into to about 20mm or so when I shot with the letus because i wanted a 20mm lens to be a 20mm lens and not have any crop factor.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top