isn't the sg pro the best value?

K

kiyong

Well-known member
i've been doing research on the different 35mm adapters, and it seems to me the sg pro is the best deal. it's right around $1000 in US dollars and it comes with rails.

the letus fe is $700 but you have to buy separate rails and loses more light.

the brevis looks good but costs $1100 and doesn't come with rails. rails would cost about $200 plus $125 for the brevis to rails mount for a total of $1425.

other than the long wait time for the sg pro, it seems to be the best value to me. anyone have differing opinions?
 
If you are only looking for image quality, at any cost (under 2K) IMO the best 35mm adapter is the Letus35FE. It needs rods, but he features the highest resolution, sharpness, and no visibile vignetting.



.
 
If using anyhting other than 1/48th a second shutter, The Letus (A/F/FE) suffers from a particualrly alarming image artifact, the "swirl". On solid planes it generates this bizzare swirling artifact because of the vibration of the GG. WHile it is good otherwise, that is a deal breaker for me. The brevis is pretty good about his because Dennis' GG vibrates in a variable speed. so you can "de harmonize" the vibrations from the Shutterspeed.

The M2/Sgpro have no such artifacts because of spinning discs. Though the added benefit of The inverted image may make the Letus a more practical choice to some. You just need to know what the particualr drawbacks of each system are and which features are most important to you.
 
i can attest to the letus being the worse of the light hogs sice i've owned one before, but as tim said the flip does make it appealing.i've even thougt about getting another for outside purposes only.image wise i personaly think the sgpro image stands out over the letus.in sharpness,less grain and better bokeh.you can also gauge it by this,you'll always find a letus for sale in the market place but rarely an sgpro.
 
ennfurno said:
you can also gauge it by this,you'll always find a letus for sale in the market place but rarely an sgpro.
Click to expand...

Well, that may not be the whole story. Maybe just not that many people have gotten their hand on an SGPro to sell. The Letus has been in circulation longer than the SGPro. It's delivery is much quicker (about two weeks vs. more than a month). I've noticed an increase in the numer of Brevis available used after Dennis sped up productions for example. It's possible we might see this trend with the SGPro as well once Wayne is able to increase production.

One thing that is interesting about the Letus FE though is that there seems to be no significant design improvements in these past several years. Most other manufacturers are at Rev. 2 or Rev. 3 of their own design but the FE still seems to be the same. That might have contributed to the impression that the FE is an outdated tool. If Quyen would just market the Letus with a bit more fanfare it would really give his sales a push.
 
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Just a quick note on the revision issue. It's got little to do with marketing, and more to do with listening to our users. The last update, external and simple micro-adjustment of all of our lens mounts, was a response to user requests for the same. With all of the small refinements under the hood, the Brevis should be called the REV20 or so....not the REV2-MC :-)

Because our imaging elements are interchangeable, the nearly constant R&D efforts in that regard do not trigger any version updates either. Our users can take advantage of the advancements by just dropping them in.

Other than the version changes between REV1 and REV2, any of our units can take advantage of updated parts too. This means that any unit sold in the last 8 months can become a REV2-MC quite easily.
 
jade8472 said:
One thing that is interesting about the Letus FE though is that there seems to be no significant design improvements in these past several years. Most other manufacturers are at Rev. 2 or Rev. 3 of their own design but the FE still seems to be the same. That might have contributed to the impression that the FE is an outdated tool. If Quyen would just market the Letus with a bit more fanfare it would really give his sales a push.
Click to expand...

Just to be fair to Qyuen, he does make changes / upgrades to the Letus FE about every 2 - 3 months as needed. So by that measurement, he would be on something like version 8. For example, the light loss from the first batch to the current batch has significant decreased. He does not market the changes, nor say when they've occured- so the marketing leaves something to be desired.
 
I own the letus35FE and you lose hardly any light at all, and you don't have to have
rails, of course they have to be recommended it, but I've used mine without rails
for about a year now.
 
hey nathan,
what camera are you using with the letus?
if you don't have rails, does that mean you're not using a follow focus?
thanks.
 
I use the Letus with my HVX without rails too. I've got it all nice and snug and it works great even with the heavy lenses. When I use the matte box or anything else I have to use the rails.

I was all set to buy a different adapter but some other issues that were negatives for me crept up so I went back to Letus. One issue being easy communication. Say what you want about the Letus’s lack luster marketing or what have you but Quyen was very responsive and accommodating while I couldn't get the other guy to respond (sill waiting).

And be careful to confirm opinions through more than one source because just because someone has had an issue with an adapter because of this or that doesn't mean that is across the board. He could have been using it wrong. I keep hearing how you have to use the rails with the Letus and I don't. I can't compare the light loss issue but it makes sense to me that adding the mirrors to flip the image would cause some light loss but it looks great to me. Adding and controlling light is usually a good idea anyway.

You just have to read everybody's opinions and try to make a good judgment about how you're going to be using it. All of them have their issues, which ones can you deal with and which ones can't you deal with.
 
IMHO the best value for money is the WDR35pro. At least if you are from europe...because u don't have to pay tax and customs then...
But also if u are from overseas, the WDR35pro should be considered. Comes with rails, spinning GG ,... Had the chance to compare it directly with a letus and sgpro and for me the WDR was the winner...
 
maniero said:
IMHO the best value for money is the WDR35pro. At least if you are from europe...because u don't have to pay tax and customs then...
But also if u are from overseas, the WDR35pro should be considered. Comes with rails, spinning GG ,... Had the chance to compare it directly with a letus and sgpro and for me the WDR was the winner...
Click to expand...

Yeah, but al long as the site is in Italian only (with some randomly put english inserts...) it won´t play a big role in the game...
The sample clips on the site also show a somehow milky-silky image, to soft and dreamy for my taste, like a David Hamilton movie...
But mayb e there´s already other stuff out there, do you have any clips from the WDR35pro...?
 
TimurCivan said:
If using anyhting other than 1/48th a second shutter, The Letus (A/F/FE) suffers from a particualrly alarming image artifact, the "swirl". On solid planes it generates this bizzare swirling artifact because of the vibration of the GG. WHile it is good otherwise, that is a deal breaker for me. The brevis is pretty good about his because Dennis' GG vibrates in a variable speed. so you can "de harmonize" the vibrations from the Shutterspeed.
Click to expand...

How about shooting in 720/24pn Film Mode 180 at 60fps?
any bizarre reports with the Letus?
 
there is a swirling crawing texture that appears in solid colored parts of the image.
 
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