Brevis35 Light and Current Shipping Times

L

livelikeriley

Well-known member
Hello, I.ve lurked for a long while on the boards about 35mm adapters and believe I have finally settled on the Brevis. My financing is almost in place so I should be able to place an order within a week or two - which is my first question - I know these were taking a while to ship...what's the time frame now? I need to shoot by say late November/Early December. Is that reasonable if I order in the next two/three weeks? Second questions is regarding low-light...I love low-light and it's a huge reason for going with the Brevis...I light a lot of my stuff with just China Balls...anyone else doing this? Is that working out fine? Thanks for any info!

Mark.
 
I just bought my Brevis system last week for my HVX (and I love it) and received it in about 3 days. I also purchased along with it the rail system and the Nikon mount. Everything came quickly. I plan on getting the Canon mount as well (we also have a Canon 5D and would like to be able to use those lenses).
 
It's fast... I guess it depends from time to time... But, it should be like placing any order from any place, and the shipping time is real fast too. Probably a few days, but Dennis will probably let you know for sure.

Jason
 
The Brevis is the fastest adapter (now tied with the Letus Extreme) but the HVX is a relatively slow and noisy camera. Plenty of light is the HVX's best friend.

China balls are mainly used to add a little bit of fill here or there; they are not meant to be your only source of light. If you want fill get an open-faced light and shine it through diffusion or bounce it off a white ceiling or wall. Additionally, think about your lenses. If you barely have enough light a 50mm f/1.4 will do fine but if your fastest wide angle is f/2.8 that will be two stops slower and your footage won't match.

Let me know if you have a specific scene you want to discuss and would like some advice because it really depends.


Marco
 
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We quote our light loss at a tested .5 to .7 stops with a 50mm f1.4 lens attached. That would place the Brevis with CF1 or CF1L at a full stop faster than the same lens on the Letus (you need to add the lens loss to the quoted .5 stops on the Letus adapter).
 
That's hard to understand since a 50mm f/1.4 lens loses 1 stop of light compared to f/1.0. So, in other words, the Brevis ADDS light?


Marco
 
Just felt like adding that when i ordered my Brevis little less than a month ago, it arrived in 3 days. I also was able to track its jouney to memphis and across the alantic to the UK to my local fedex depo. If there was a feedback option like ebay i would have put, "A+++ SUPERFSAT DELIVERHY".
 
Marco, You can light with China Balls any way you please. They are not meant to do anything in particular. If someone here wants to light with them as a key there is nothing at all wrong with that - plenty of people do it.
 
"Marco, You can light with China Balls any way you please. They are not meant to do anything in particular. If someone here wants to light with them as a key there is nothing at all wrong with that - plenty of people do it."

I never said there is only one way to use a china ball, just that they are typically used to boost fill. If you are filming a close-up I'm sure you can get away with using a bright china ball as a key, otherwise I don't find this possible.

The purpose of my comment was to give ideas of other easy ways to get fill light so that he doesn't feel restricted to china balls. If you have a wide shot of a room it would be easier to get your fill by bouncing one 800W light off the ceiling (it could even be a Home Depot light) rather than having 6+ china balls next to the camera.


Marco
 
Marco, the stop issue has been discussed both here and over at the Cinevate forum several times. Keep in mind that the imaging element represents a break in the optical chain. We don't advertise a .5 stop gain because intuitively most folks have an issue with that, particularly when 1 stop is being lost to an f1.4 lens. We test and state typical light loss with CF1/CF1L using a Canon FD 50mm f1.4 lens attached and compare it to the bare video cam at the same camera distance, lighting and framing. We do this as light efficiency claims in the industry are rather vague at best...but using a real lens, in a real world test makes more sense to us.

What no one has compared (although Phil Bloom did test) is how performance changes as a lens is stopped down. In his test you'll see that the gap in efficiency between the Brevis and the others tested widens significantly as the taking lens is stopped down: http://web.mac.com/philip.bloom/Shootout/Page_4.html Note that the Brevis/HVX at f4 (50mm at f8) images are still brighter than the two others....and that's with the HVX lens wide open. Looking at the pics, I would have stopped the HVX down yet another 1 or 2 stops further for correct exposure. Light loss in adapters is not a linear thing!
 
Dennis Wood said:
We quote our light loss at a tested .5 to .7 stops with a 50mm f1.4 lens attached. That would place the Brevis with CF1 or CF1L at a full stop faster than the same lens on the Letus (you need to add the lens loss to the quoted .5 stops on the Letus adapter).
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And you'd also need to add the .5 stop light loss from your flip adapter too, right? Which would mean the Letus is 1/2 stop brighter, apples to apples?

I'm curious about the apples though. What is the precise methodology you guys used to test the Brevis light loss? If you can dig up a 1.8 lens (that's the fastest I've got) and put it on a Brevis/flip/HVX at Z44.0, I'll do the same here with the Extreme and then we can tell exactly what the actual real-world light loss comparison is.
 
Dennis Wood said:
Note that the Brevis/HVX at f4 (50mm at f8) images are still brighter than the two others....and that's with the HVX lens wide open. Looking at the pics, I would have stopped the HVX down yet another 1 or 2 stops further for correct exposure. Light loss in adapters is not a linear thing!
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I agree with both statements. (2 stops down my guess)

Cheers,
Dan

PS
I get no commission from Brevis sales and no sales person will call.:)
 
What I'm saying is that when using CF1L or CF1, stopping the taking lens down from f1.4 to f 2.0 does not necessarliy require a full stop of compensation on the host video camera. It makes little sense until you consider that the imaging element is a transmissive and dffusive medium and does not follow the "rules" of the optical chain. With our imaging elements CF2 and CF3, that relationship between 35mm aperture and camera aperture changes.

We've invested heavily in R&D to establish full frame performance with almost any lens and camera combination out there. In the journey, some really interesting relationships have come to light (pun intended) :-)

When the flip modules are ready for shipping, I'd be happy to send you one Barry.
 
Hi all. Just a curiosity type question. What is the importance of the 35mm flip? I mean everyone needs some sort of monitor anyway in order to be able to pull proper focus and with HD almost everyone uses the cineform plug in; which flips to 180 degrees at capture. So why sacrifice the extra light just to have an upright image when you're still going to spend the exact same amount of money on the monitor for focusing? Is having the image right side up really such a big deal when it comes down to it?

Thank you.
 
Dmitry Yun said:
I mean everyone needs some sort of monitor anyway
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And yet many people don't...

and with HD almost everyone uses the cineform plug in
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???

Nobody I know of who uses an HVX or other DVCPRO-HD camcorder uses Cineform, no FCP user is using Cineform (is it even available on the Mac?) and no standard-def user is using Cineform either.

So why sacrifice the extra light just to have an upright image when you're still going to spend the exact same amount of money on the monitor for focusing?
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Because for one thing, your monitor won't have to be jerry-rigged upside down. No magnets, no mounting the camera upside down, anything. For another, what if you're shooting footage for a client -- are you going to tell them "oh, by the way, everything you see will be upside down, don't mind that, you just have to rotate every single image in post?"

For some people an upside-down adapter is no big deal. For some of us, it being upside down is a dealbreaker.

Fortunately Dennis has a flip module, Redrock is introducing a flip module, and all of Letus's adapters are all rightside-up.

Is having the image right side up really such a big deal when it comes down to it?
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Yes. Search through any forum and count how many times you see a question asking how to deal with "the flip", or begging camcorder manufacturers to put flip compensation in the next version of their cameras, etc.
 
Dennis Wood said:
What I'm saying is that when using CF1L or CF1, stopping the taking lens down from f1.4 to f 2.0 does not necessarliy require a full stop of compensation on the host video camera.
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I've observed that behavior on the L35Extreme as well. It's illogical... :)

We've invested heavily in R&D to establish full frame performance with almost any lens and camera combination out there.
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All I'm saying is, you should market it as that. The "full frame" you're talking about is not a 35mm movie frame, it's something else. You should let people know it's both, because while some may feel the larger frame is a big advantage, others could end up being hosed because it wouldn't perform the way they'd be expecting. I'm of the opinion that a 35mm adapter for filmmakers should emulate what a 35mm film camera sees. But seeing as I'm the only guy I've ever seen complain about it, I guess it's not a big issue to anyone else! :laugh:

When the flip modules are ready for shipping, I'd be happy to send you one Barry.
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Not asking for a freebie, I'd just like to get to the bottom of the question on behalf of everyone who keeps asking. I've seen side-by-sides before that weren't done consistently and just left more questions than they actually answered.

You have a big fan club, and you should have -- you have unique features such as interchangeable ground glass and an add-on flip module, as well as VistaVision frame sizes.
 
'Cause professional crews will laugh at flipping your monitor. 'Cause flipping a monitor is a band aid solution to a relatively simple problem. 'Cause I'd rather light a set to compensate for flip light loss than try and use practicals and flip. 'Cause it makes everyone jump through another set of hoops - and there is already enough to do in a day. 'Cause you're forced to use an external monitor for framing if you don't flip. 'Cause we shouldn't have to compensate for someone's inability to design something correctly......

Shall I continue?
 
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