marco0782
Well-known member
Based on three months of owning a Letus35 Flip Enhanced:
Pros
- Great sharpness
- Great bokeh
- Flips the image
- To my understanding, it loses about as much light as the Redrock adapter
- Very easy to open up to clean
- Motor is virtually silent
- Sturdy construction
- I have yet to notice any aberrations or image distortions
- The price ($700)
- Shipping is extremely fast; it took 3 days to get mine
- Quyen offers excellent e-mail support
Cons
- Lots of dust inside the unit from manufacturing; even if you clean it dust will probably come back
- Several places for dust to stick (all the mirrors and glass elements); it's very time consuming and frustrating finding which mirror or glass element the dust you see resides on, then getting rid of it
- On my unit, a string of glue hangs down from the top (a manufacturing oversight) and I don't want to risk bending one of the mirrors to pull it off so I have to zoom in more than usual to hide the glue
- AA batteries only last 3-4 hours, but you can remedy this by using NiMh batteries which last much longer and can be recharged 1000 times
- If your batteries run out, you might have to point the adapter straight down after switching to new batteries if the motor doesn't turn on immediately (explained later)
The image quality is terrific and on par with the other adapters. You'd be hard pressed to prove to me or someone else that footage from any of the other adapters looks better, and what's amazing is that this one flips the image.
If not for the dust and glue problem, the Letus35 Flip Enhanced would be extremely easy to recommend. The thing about dust is that you may not know it's there until you capture your footage. The speck may be smaller than what can be shown on your LCD/viewfinder, and this is especially true on a high-def camera. I would recommend Letus owners to thoroughly inspect and clean their adapter, then shoot and capture some test footage to examine carefully. The first movie I shot had a speck show up when I captured and I was terrified. For the second movie I spent about two hours cleaning and inspecting the unit and the captured footage turned out fine. It was a standard-definition project, however, so I might have been less lucky with HD.
The light loss of between one and two stops is not a big concern if you have fast lenses and lighting equipment available. I've shot two movies with it so far and I didn't have any headaches compensating for light loss.
The vibrating motor is extremely quiet and does not pose a sound issue.
The battery life is only 3-4 hours with standard AA batteries. I would highly recommend investing in NiMh batteries which should last more than twice as long and can be recharged up to 1000 times. One *very* important thing to note is that it takes quite a bit of battery power to start the motor, so if your batteries are less than half full you may not have enough voltage to start the motor (standard AA batteries are rated at 1.5 volts, but as the energy is depleted the voltage drops). A few times I turned off the adapter to save power and when I turned it back on the motor didn't vibrate. The first time this happened I panicked, because I switched to new batteries and the motor still didn't vibrate. Later, when I researched online, I found out that the motor might have gotten stuck and that I should point the adapter straight down, then turn it on. I then tried that and it worked very well for me on multiple occasions when I had to switch batteries.
To summarize, here are my battery tips:
1. If you are on a movie shoot that lasts the whole day, just leave the adapter on until your batteries run out. If the batteries are low they may not have enough voltage to start the motor from a stop.
2. If you switch to new batteries and the adapter doesn't turn on, point the adapter straight down and the motor will start vibrating
3. NiMh batteries are highly recommended
Feel free to post any questions and I'll answer as best as I can.
Pros
- Great sharpness
- Great bokeh
- Flips the image
- To my understanding, it loses about as much light as the Redrock adapter
- Very easy to open up to clean
- Motor is virtually silent
- Sturdy construction
- I have yet to notice any aberrations or image distortions
- The price ($700)
- Shipping is extremely fast; it took 3 days to get mine
- Quyen offers excellent e-mail support
Cons
- Lots of dust inside the unit from manufacturing; even if you clean it dust will probably come back
- Several places for dust to stick (all the mirrors and glass elements); it's very time consuming and frustrating finding which mirror or glass element the dust you see resides on, then getting rid of it
- On my unit, a string of glue hangs down from the top (a manufacturing oversight) and I don't want to risk bending one of the mirrors to pull it off so I have to zoom in more than usual to hide the glue
- AA batteries only last 3-4 hours, but you can remedy this by using NiMh batteries which last much longer and can be recharged 1000 times
- If your batteries run out, you might have to point the adapter straight down after switching to new batteries if the motor doesn't turn on immediately (explained later)
The image quality is terrific and on par with the other adapters. You'd be hard pressed to prove to me or someone else that footage from any of the other adapters looks better, and what's amazing is that this one flips the image.
If not for the dust and glue problem, the Letus35 Flip Enhanced would be extremely easy to recommend. The thing about dust is that you may not know it's there until you capture your footage. The speck may be smaller than what can be shown on your LCD/viewfinder, and this is especially true on a high-def camera. I would recommend Letus owners to thoroughly inspect and clean their adapter, then shoot and capture some test footage to examine carefully. The first movie I shot had a speck show up when I captured and I was terrified. For the second movie I spent about two hours cleaning and inspecting the unit and the captured footage turned out fine. It was a standard-definition project, however, so I might have been less lucky with HD.
The light loss of between one and two stops is not a big concern if you have fast lenses and lighting equipment available. I've shot two movies with it so far and I didn't have any headaches compensating for light loss.
The vibrating motor is extremely quiet and does not pose a sound issue.
The battery life is only 3-4 hours with standard AA batteries. I would highly recommend investing in NiMh batteries which should last more than twice as long and can be recharged up to 1000 times. One *very* important thing to note is that it takes quite a bit of battery power to start the motor, so if your batteries are less than half full you may not have enough voltage to start the motor (standard AA batteries are rated at 1.5 volts, but as the energy is depleted the voltage drops). A few times I turned off the adapter to save power and when I turned it back on the motor didn't vibrate. The first time this happened I panicked, because I switched to new batteries and the motor still didn't vibrate. Later, when I researched online, I found out that the motor might have gotten stuck and that I should point the adapter straight down, then turn it on. I then tried that and it worked very well for me on multiple occasions when I had to switch batteries.
To summarize, here are my battery tips:
1. If you are on a movie shoot that lasts the whole day, just leave the adapter on until your batteries run out. If the batteries are low they may not have enough voltage to start the motor from a stop.
2. If you switch to new batteries and the adapter doesn't turn on, point the adapter straight down and the motor will start vibrating
3. NiMh batteries are highly recommended
Feel free to post any questions and I'll answer as best as I can.
