LETUS Advertising "Absolutely no vignetting"...

Barry, In my experience - only the Letus will focus outside of the "macro" area so the "numbers " readout has always been neccessary. I've always wondered if there were more increments in the feet/mm readout. Thanks for the info.

Re: 35mm frame. I have just the opposite attitude. I can't understand whatsoever why anyone would care whether you are getting the same image size as 35mm cine. I don't see anything magical about that size and figure it was only chosen for "industrial" not aesthetic reasons long ago. I think all the choices about frame size - 16mm, 35mm Academy, Cinemascope, Vistavison, Super-35mm were chosen for a combination of aspect ratio, cost and technical (grain and sharpness) quality. I doubt if many people picked a format because they liked the look and DOF of a particular lens in those formats.

I have read your explanation (I hope I'm being fair by paraphrasing that it just feels closer to the look we expect from a feature) - it just doesn't make sense to me - so we'll just have to continue to have different feelings about that one. Maybe if I saw 2 dramatic pieces side by side I would come around to your way of thinking though.

I just want to be able to get the best picture from my lenses and that sometimes means being able to maximize the width. One very cool thing about the Letus extreme is the ability to zoom in on the diffusing screen without loss of detail. That allows you to go for either very easily and to have great flexibility. I hope that also happens with Dennis' flip- unit. I guess it will with the SGPro since that is being designed by Letus.

Lenny
 
Lenilenapi said:
Barry, In my experience - only the Letus will focus outside of the "macro" area so the "numbers " readout has always been neccessary. I've always wondered if there were more increments in the feet/mm readout. Thanks for the info.

Re: 35mm frame. I have just the opposite attitude. I can't understand whatsoever why anyone would care whether you are getting the same image size as 35mm cine. I don't see anything magical about that size and figure it was only chosen for "industrial" not aesthetic reasons long ago. I think all the choices about frame size - 16mm, 35mm Academy, Cinemascope, Vistavison, Super-35mm were chosen for a combination of aspect ratio, cost and technical (grain and sharpness) quality. I doubt if many people picked a format because they liked the look and DOF of a particular lens in those formats.

I have read your explanation (I hope I'm being fair by paraphrasing that it just feels closer to the look we expect from a feature) - it just doesn't make sense to me - so we'll just have to continue to have different feelings about that one. Maybe if I saw 2 dramatic pieces side by side I would come around to your way of thinking though.

I just want to be able to get the best picture from my lenses and that sometimes means being able to maximize the width. One very cool thing about the Letus extreme is the ability to zoom in on the diffusing screen without loss of detail. That allows you to go for either very easily and to have great flexibility. I hope that also happens with Dennis' flip- unit. I guess it will with the SGPro since that is being designed by Letus.

Lenny
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Very good thoughts, Len. I personally am not sure of the benefits for shooting one format over the other when approaching these adapters. I'd love to hear someone/read someone explain it though.

As far as feet/mm go, well I started using those numbers based on measuring during shooting. Havent switched back permanently but I do every so often now that I have gotten the Letus just to compare with what I was used to with the M2.

Len, also, are you confirming that the Letus is the only adapter that you have that lets you zoom in and out of the frame as far as the HVX is concerned without losing the image? I found this exact same thing as well. The image doesn't fall out of focus when I zoom all the way in, which allows a pretty nifty way of using the frame.

I've gone and tried some pop zooms through the HVX while focused in on a specific object with the lens and it makes for a really nice effect.
 
Lenilenapi said:
I can't understand whatsoever why anyone would care whether you are getting the same image size as 35mm cine.
Click to expand...

Well, I guess it all depends on what you're trying to accomplish. I'm a stickler for finding out what IS, not what we wish it was.

People get hung up on the idea that movie = shallow depth of field, therefore the shallowest they can get is what they want. Then they go for this hyper-shallow look and then they complain "how come it doesn't look like a movie?"

Duh. :)

I prefer the flexibility of having multiple frame sizes. But if I could only have one size, it would be the 35mm cine size. It's what I'm used to, it's what the audience is used to. It's what the mini35 was designed around. And, if you ever want to use proper cine lenses, you may find that many of them don't cover the 35mm still frame, they only cover the 35mm cine frame.

So I guess I'll try to say it a little differently: if someone just wants a shallow-depth-of-field "effect", the frame size doesn't really matter. But if someone's trying to emulate the look and feel of a typical feature film, the frame size certainly does matter, quite a bit. And if someone wants to use actual cine lenses instead of little still-camera lenses, the frame size will matter quite a bit.

So yes, I realize that my stickler-ness is not representative of the way a lot of people feel. Heck, lots of people have no problem with upside-down adapters and trying to use a frickin' magnet to turn their LCD over! As ranted before, I think that's preposterous and unacceptable. I feel the same way about some vague undefined frame size where people seem to think this is some sort of "arms race" and the shallowest DOF "wins." From my perspective it's supposed to be a tool designed for a purpose, and the question is: does it meet that purpose? If so, good. If not, er, what's the point?

Having flexibility to step outside that specific purpose is always a good thing. In my mind that's a bonus, but not the purpose.
 
Well I will agree with you about one thing:

"People get hung up on the idea that movie = shallow depth of field, therefore the shallowest they can get is what they want. Then they go for this hyper-shallow look and then they complain "how come it doesn't look like a movie?"

For a while I kept seeing examples of adapter work that just looked out of focus to me. Citizen Kane looked like a feature didn't it?

- Lenny
 
Barry,

I did the Contax Zeiss 28/2.8 test. I followed your instructions and it's still vignetting. And it's not (?) the extreme when it's without the lense.
But a dop with a hvx/ m2 adapter combo and the same Contax Zeiss lenses did'nt have significant problems like I do. So it's a mystery (for me). ... And so I have to zoom in at Z32.

Arno
 
Next step is to try your lens on a different adapter.

I have a 50mm Zeiss lens and it exhibits terrible vignetting. Pop on the Nikon 50mm without changing anything and vignetting is gone.

Have you tried another 28mm prime?
 
Okay if 27.3 is Academy, what's Vistavision? I thought Vista was larger than Academy and if so, I can't use Vistavision because 27.3 is the point where my Letus edges out of vignetting for anything wider than 50mm.
 
Lenny, with regard to your question, our flip setup does have a lot more zoom-in flexibility than the non-flipped setup. CF1Le will show near zero edge falloff with an f2.8 28mm. In fact, some of the autumn footage we shot was using an f3.5 28-200 zoom which had a usable frame about 10% in excess of the SLR standard :-)

Kholi, Vistavision uses film oriented horizontally like SLR film cameras. It has a frame width similar to 35mm SLR lenses. Running the film vertically is cheaper (more frames/foot) but reduces effective frame width. This is why typical cinema lenses only provide 16mm x 22mm coverage...they're designed for vertically run film. Anytime you manage to increase image area given the same diffusion surface (like going from academy format to SLR format), you effectively decrease grain, similar to what Paramount was trying to do with film by going with a larger "Vistavision" frame.
 
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On the Vistavision note - also by shooting Vistavision, you have a larger target frame, so you effectively decrease you're DOF for a given framing.

That may be a plus or a minus though depending on your shoot.
 
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