HVX + LEX stills and footage

M

mvdsanden

Member
Hello everyone,

First of all, my name is Martijn from The Netherlands and i've been around here for quite some years. Registered a few months ago since I purchased the HVX200 and the Letus Extreme.

I would just like to post my experiences plus some stills and footage.

Ordered the LEX on October 11th, recieved it November 28th. First impression: Looking good :) It's my first adapter so I couln't really compare it with others, but it sure looked good. I ordered it with a Canon FD and EF mount. Too bad the EF mount was missing.

01box.jpg

box

Next day was testing time. Setting it up was a bit harder then expected, but as said, first adapter.. Not that technical either. We didnt have any support rods btw. Images looked great, great DOF, very little loss of light.. nothing to complain about. Too bad we also noticed the HVX is shifted... Also, wider lenses (like the 28mm 2.8) had alot vignette. Ofcourse zooming in more will help, but what's the point about wide angle lenses then? When watching the footage on the PC we noticed some specs on the glass, especially in the darker shots. After some help of Aaron we managed to get it away with some canned air.

02spec.jpg


02spec2.jpg

high aperture on hvx / nd filter + adapter off which makes the specs visible

Next couple of days was mostly spent on testing it. Forget to turn the adapter on is very frustrating though :) Happened multiple times that it looked sweet on the LCD, but in post the GG was visible... my bad :)

One weird thing though, im sure this shot was with the adapter turned on, but the bokeh/highlights on the pianokeys looks very weird, as if the GG is coming through..

04piano.jpg


[download 720p still]
[download 720p footage / .mov 10MB)


.
 
Another cool thing was using Canon's auto bellows for some extreme close-ups of eyes, watches, anything... + it made the cam look extreme sweet :D (just not so practical for handheld stuff :))

05bellows1.jpg

Books work fine when you don't have rods

05bellows2.jpg


05bellows3.jpg



And here are some stills (note: the following stills have been graded/sharpened in post)

05bellows4.jpg


05bellows5.jpg


05bellows6.jpg


I think these shots were all with the Canon FD 50mm f1.8. This is a great lens that we almost use all the time. Other lenses we use are
Canon FD 28mm f2.8
Canon FD 85mm f1.8
Canon FD 135mm f2.8
 
Here are a few more random stills:

06random1.jpg


06random2.jpg


06random3.jpg

This last one was shot with the adapter off... [1920x1080 still]



Last week the Letus rod support arrived, which in my opinion looks awesome and works fine. Gotta have to check if my rods are 15mm, but I still don't have a mattebox.

Conclusion for me: Letus extreme sure is awesome. Im pretty positive about the letus support, although I notice they're getting very busy... I still haven't recieved my EF mount and after 2 months of waiting I think that's a shame. I was told it was on it's way, then the supplier didn't diliver, then it was on it's way again, but still not here. Send a few mails last week but no respons.
Got some nice zoom lenses here i'm dying to try out.

Sorry for the long post, just wanted to share :)
 
very nice extreme CUs!!! I would love to have one to use here and there

about the bokeh on the piano still... do you remember the shutter used? then again it would have to bee quite high for that to be the culprit with a Letus
 
USLatinContent said:
about the bokeh on the piano still... do you remember the shutter used? then again it would have to bee quite high for that to be the culprit with a Letus
Click to expand...

Yes, I was going to ask about that, were you shooting at a slower aperture (on the 35mm lens)?
If so, you tend to notice a lot more of the gg grain.
Perhaps the batteries were low and not vibrating to it's max speed?
Also, the shot looks very low light, maybe camera gain contributed to this?

CU of the girl looks good.
 
Last edited:
I like the book-support you built. in the ages of youtube and myspace books are relegated to support cameras and lenses ;-)
 
The new FD mount for the extreme arrived with the rod support, before I couldn't adjust aperture on the 35mm lenses, so all shots were wide open.

Camera gain was low, batteries were full (the piano shot was one of the first ones, and batteries are now getting low)
 
Those were CG :) But nice you're asking it

Still not really satisfied with the shot though, sometimes the dirt is too sharp (especially when watching it at full res), since the explosions don't have the motion blur of the camera.
 
I don't know... It never happened again.. Perhaps I did have the adapter off then? I wouln't have any other clue. But still, this looks pretty weird, even if the adapter would've been turned off.
 
Well can you get completely zoomed in there or is the room too tight.... plus it doens't look like you had it off... anywho... maybe a ghost? hehe...

again, very nice extreme close ups
 
Thanks :) Now I almost got the complete range of mm, from wide to extreme close up.. Just need one more lens (probably macro) to get shots like ehm.. a watch on someone's wrist.. but then not that you see the whole arm (as in wide), and not that you only see a little piece of the indicator :)

and no, the shot was definitly made with the 50mm, with the hvx lens zoomed in to about 70-75%.
 
Yes, not to take away your thunder, but they were quite suspect, so I was more worried as if they were real then what they were made up of to create such smooth constant flames so abruptly :) but it does work with the edit and camera movement.
 
Noel Evans said:
Are those dust specs inside your unit??
Click to expand...

Yes.

At first I thought the specs were on the anchromat:

1201100253.jpg

this one was the largest..

Had no idea how to get it out, in fact, i think it's still there. It's on the inside of the glass, and I have no idea if that can even be opened..

Anyway, turned out the specs were on the glass right beneath the GG (its called condensor lens I believe). We had to open the unit, blow some canned air in it and after doing so a few times it was gone.





ps. looks like i'm out of bandwidth for today :) it will reset within a few hours
 
i too have had issues with dust, but i called Hien Le and he helped me right out.

I haven't seen any dust inside since!
 
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