The best 35mm adapter I've seen so far

rawfa

rawfa

Veteran
I know this is very personal and I'm sure there will be those who will disagree, but I have to say that after years spent looking into 35mm adapters, trying to find the holy grail...I found it. It has the same image produced by the G35 with the advantage of being a moving adapter and being much cheaper.

Check out the footage right here:

http://www.adrianoribeiro.com/vid/dof.html

Now here comes the tricky part...this adapter is actually a modification of another adapter. The orginal adapter is sold here www.wdr35.com. It's an italian website so it's really hard (at least for me) to undestand what's going on...but I checked the footage from the original and I was not half as impressed as I was with the footage from the modified version. So I've been trying to convince Ettore Giraldi (the guy who modified the original adapter) to show the original adapter's manufacturers his footage so that they may start using his method to obtain this absolutely amazing quality footage.

At DVinfo Ettore explains what changes he did to the original adapter (if anyone wants to give it a shot you have my full support...like you need it hehehe).

Oh, I forgot to say that I wrote wdr35.com and was informed the adapter costs 550€ plus shipping.

The only thing missing is that it's not a mobile unit. You're stuck to rod supports and tripod shots.
 
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Rawfa, This footage looks so good its got me a bit frightened. Is it the Canon, is it the PAL, is the lens used? Could it be really good color correction, could it be that it is .flv files? I will agree this is some of the best adapter footage I've seen to date. I can only dream of getting footage like that with my Redrock and DVX100b.... If someone knows how I can achieve it, please let me know.
 
Yeah, I talked to Ettore a while ago and although his shots with Nivea were great, he said he mod'd his gg and it is now without Nivea and they are better in his opinion. I am also surprised no one has chased this up. His footage is the sharpest I have seen.
 
I don't see anything else than some really average adapter footage and some very nice CC.
 
I'm with Jack Daniel Stanley...

Additionally, do you think that you can tell about a 35mm adapter that is the best adapter from just seeing a 358x287 clip?
 
Is he prepared to perform modifications to existing systems to sharpen them up (obviously for a fee) - a costom job as it were?
 
I was wondering too what is up with this talk about sharpness of these clips. Only thing which can somewhat be judged from these clips is the bokeh, which seems quite OK.

I think he was going for a technicolor look of somekind there and to my eyes did quite good job with CC. There could be some black though, maybe he has his monitors calibrated wrong? Or maybe he is just eating wrong mushrooms.
 
the night interior footage looks lifted but the daytime footage has a pretty good D-Max. Ettore explains in the thread that it was low light and that the blacks are light.

The footage is way sharper than any other adpater and exhibits much less halation also IMHO.
 
There's opinion. "nice" "sucks" "best ever" "worst ever"

And then there's a full spectrum of light to dark (or the absence thereof), 0 IRE (or the absence thereof), properly calibrated monitors (or the absence thereof), and an image with NICE CONTRAST (OR THE ABSENCE THEREOF).

Shooting this washed out with no black is a choice usually reserved for "Heaven" scenes and behind a white canopy perfume ads and otherwise considered an error and certainly not something you would want to choose to showcase a camera accessory. Because ... there's no blacks ... is it the milky thickness of the GG? Is it that the camera master ped is set to +12? is it the compression?

Also -- what footage have you seen that you are saying this trumps?

Again there are times when you might make the stylistic choice to have a heavenly hazy look. But not when showcasing an adaptor.

Beyond that these images are unpleasant for me to look at due to their hazy low contrast.


here's your lowlight.
hazy milky no black
lowlight.jpg

black
lowlightblack.jpg


hazy milky - do I have cataracts?
lowlight2.jpg


black
lowlight2black.jpg



OK so now we are out in the sun? Where's the blacks? - looks awful.
sun1.jpg


with closer to zero IRE
sun1black.jpg


this is really bad - really looks like a faded polaroid
sun2.jpg


and here's the blacks
sun2black.jpg
 
only 9 images per post
here's the last pair
the worst - ugh is there motor oil on the lens?
sun3.jpg


black
sun3black.jpg




Also contrast is important to perceived sharpness. Which makes it an even more mind boggling choice to not have absolute black in your image when you are showcasing a 35mm adaptor.

Maybe it's the camera settings, maybe it's post, but you cannot tell from this footage.
From this footage you would have to assume that the adaptor is severely limited to one stylized look and cannot shoot blacks.

If your image does not at least dip into black which matches your letterbox (if you have it) and you are not shooting a scene in Heaven or a Dream Sequence or a Perfume add or doing an aged film effect or something, then you have a problem.
 
which is a STATIC adaptor even, and I think this piece by the same filmmaker surpases even what you just posted.

http://www.macgregor.autoecstasy.com/similo._english.h264.mov

Also mostly with the g35 and some letus35a from the same shooter
http://www.macgregor.autoecstasy.com/nyc/eighteen_seconds.960.mov
or
http://www.macgregor.autoecstasy.com/nyc/eighteen_seconds.640.mov
good too even though I am biased on this one.

But of this filmmaker's 3 films shot with teh g35, I think Similo is far and away the most impressive looking.
 
Similo, Smile, and Eighteen Seconds are really great examples of what the g35 can do, but lets give some love to Macgregor, the director. He has an amazing eye for cinematography, and I believe he could take any of these commercially available adapters and create some truly beautiful footage from them.
 
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