WHY ME??? Brand new LetusX dies in the middle of my shoot

AGH.

I knew it, I knew it, I KNEW IT.

My Letus Extreme is defective. I just got it approx 6 or so weeks ago, and when I first put the batteries in and turned it on, I remember it vibrating very powerfully. I even thought to myself: Boy this feels weird. This is my first adapter you see, and the first time I ever touched one.

Over the course of the week, I used it a couple more times to test it and it felt like the vibrations were now very mild. Didn't think much of it. But I did however think a lot about the slight artifacts I saw in some of my shots (but not all of them).

I contacted a couple of fellow dvxusers and sent them screen grabs and they saw the slight artifacts too. We went over my settings (lens apperture, shutter speed etc..) and all was well within safe range. I then called Letus and talked to them, we went over my settings again and all were well within parameters.

I told them i would do more test shoots to find out if the problem is on my end.

I started to think that maybe the GG is not vibrating quite fast enough, causing the grain to be seen sometimes, slightly... This theory was just in my head, but I did share it with a couple more Letus owners dvxusers.

I tried to find other Letus owners local to me so I could take a look at their adapters and see how strongly it vibrates but the only one I found had just left town on a project for a few weeks :( . So much for that idea...

Meanwhile, I started filming a short film and completed about 4 scenes. Did not notice too much artifacts, but was doing low light filming, and artifacts can be seen best against light solid background...


Just when I thought I had imagined the whole thing and maybe was paranoid, everything came back to bite me in the fannies.

So imagine this: Here I am in the middle of an official shoot. Took 2 days to set up the set, I have actors, paid crew, location and we are FILMING.... About 3 hours into the shoot I notice my actor's face now looks like granit. WHAT?

I look and my red light is ON, red as can be... ??? Maybe my batteries are becoming weak? (so fast??). OK we put in another set of batteries, light is on but nobody is home (NO VIBRATION WHAT SO EVER).

And another set of batteries, then I sent a PA to teh store to get a BRAND NEW pack of batteries. Just in case. But same results. No go, adapter kapputs. The red light is lit, but no vibrations are occuring and you can clearly see ALL the GG in the shot.

At 2AM I had to fold and sent everyone home. The adapter is D.E.A.D and I have no idea why.

Needless to say I am very stressed out about the whole thing. But I know the good folks at Letus are very good with customer service so I expect they will immediately rectify the situation. Overnighting me a new adapter sure would be nice, considering I am in the middle of production and have locations, actors and cree all lined up for the next 10 days.

If not, then I am jumping off a bridge, or hitting my head repeatedly with the adapter until my own death occurs..

WHY ME????? Is this common? How can a brand new adapter used only 7 times and LOVED (pampered to death) give up the ghost like that?

I am so very upset and depressed, having had to cancel all my scheduled shoots for the week-end... And not knowing what will happen now... Sigh...
 
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Wow...my sincere sympathies. That is a toal drag. I hope Letus takes care of you pronto, so you can get back on track. In the meantime maybe some kind soul in your area with a LEX (or equivalent) can loan you one so you don't miss out on more shooting time.

Best of luck to you.
 
Mines died as well. I have to ship it back to Hien but he'll take care of it. Just let the Le brothers know.
 
Mines died as well. I have to ship it back to Hien but he'll take care of it. Just let the Le brothers know.

Wow, now I don't feel so lonely anymore! how did it die? Same way as mine? Do 35mm adapter usually die often? I never heard of it until now.

I have to tell you though, I would never want to film without a 35mm. I LOVE it, never going back to straight video... Ever.... Just hope my next adapter goes the distance. I have otehrwise been happy with the Letus features, low light capabilities and flipping of image which saved my butt already several times (when my 7inch monitor ran out of batteries on a shoot and I had to use the LCD to finish the scene - boy was I glad I was not upside down that day!)
 
Wow, now I don't feel so lonely anymore! how did it die? Same way as mine? Do 35mm adapter usually die often? I never heard of it until now.

I have to tell you though, I would never want to film without a 35mm. I LOVE it, never going back to straight video... Ever.... Just hope my next adapter goes the distance. I have otehrwise been happy with the Letus features, low light capabilities and flipping of image which saved my butt already several times (when my 7inch monitor ran out of batteries on a shoot and I had to use the LCD to finish the scene - boy was I glad I was not upside down that day!)

I've had my Letus since the first run and the only reason I've ever taken it off is because it died. I'm sad to have to send it back but I definitely have to get it fixed. The praise I get when renting it out or workin' with it is marevlous.

It happened the same way, by the way but I dunno if it was due to rental mishandling. I got it back from one rental and it was fine during the check. Left it on for a few seconds, turned around and it was literally OFF. Thought it was the batteries playin' with my mind, but turns out it just stopped.

I know if I turn it upside down when it does that it actually starts workin' again, that leads me to believe that there might be a loose wire or something. And given that they assemble these things there's definitely a margin for human error.

The M2 we had to fly in the same day on location when this happened kept turning off as well, so again nothing's perfect. Sometimes ish happens.

I PM'd you but the gyst of it is that I'm in LA as welll (Santa Monica area) so if you need a second cam or somethin' for a future shoot PM or email me.
 
I know if I turn it upside down when it does that it actually starts workin' again, that leads me to believe that there might be a loose wire or something. And given that they assemble these things there's definitely a margin for human error.

OH MY GOD. I just tried it and you are RIGHT. I flipped it upside down and it vibrated. I turned it back the other way and it stopped, then i flipped it again upside down and it vibrated again.

GOSH DARN IT! I could have at least finished my scene had I known this would temporarily do the trick.

:kali:
 
Sounds like your motor is done or some sort of short. Did/can you smell smoke (white smoke) ?

No sir, nothing at all, it looks and smell mighty wonderful, normal as can be. It just won't wiggle no more ... (sigh) unless upside down that is LOL.

Wait.. Maybe it thinks it is in Australia???
 
OH MY GOD. I just tried it and you are RIGHT. I flipped it upside down and it vibrated. I turned it back the other way and it stopped, then i flipped it again upside down and it vibrated again.

GOSH DARN IT! I could have at least finished my scene had I known this would temporarily do the trick.

:kali:

I can't explain why it was doing that. I do know that I thought it was the motor going out at first but that doesn't seem to be the case, either. Anyway, sendin' it back will be painless.
 
I saw this thread on the Letus Direct site (unfortunately there seems to be no follow up since Dec 19th) -
Seems like it may be related to the magnet in the motor.
Something apparently somewhat common in the motors used (one user mentioned a Brevis once having the same problem).
So this may not be adapter specific.

It looks like it might be the same problem you're mentioning.
http://www.letusdirect.com/letus35-extreme/416-glass-won-t-vibrate.html

Thanks for that link, Luis. That's exactly what's happening. I didn't know the Brevis did it as well.

Well snap, enlightened.
 
now you got me thinking, look at my stills, shot at 720pn 180 shutter, and it looks grainy as hell to me, or maybe its just on my head, you be the judge


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It's in your head. That looks like a normal HVX image to me.

Plus the aspect ratio is all wrong.

You're also soft focused in the second image.

With Vibrating GG adapters, don't go any lower than F4 on the Camera or F5.6 (with plenty of light) on the taking lens.
 
That doesn't look like the adapter. GG problems will show mostly in the light areas where the dark grain is in silhouette. Your noise appears to be primarily in the darker / dimmer areas. Which looks like a lot of HVX and even some HPX footage.

EDIT: Yeah, what Kholi said.
 
damn got scared there for a sec, I mean the gg is vibrating fine, but damn the adapter adds some grain no doubt about that, and sorry about the aspect ratio, did a quick still image export from fcp
 
so you are saying that on a 55mm 1.4F I should never shoot at 1.4 or 1.8?

always go higher but never wide open is that right?

thanks


It's in your head. That looks like a normal HVX image to me.

Plus the aspect ratio is all wrong.

You're also soft focused in the second image.

With Vibrating GG adapters, don't go any lower than F4 on the Camera or F5.6 (with plenty of light) on the taking lens.
 
so you are saying that on a 55mm 1.4F I should never shoot at 1.4 or 1.8?

always go higher but never wide open is that right?

thanks

Nah, 1.4 is fine (although not that sharp). I'm sayin' don't close the Iris down on either lens more than F4. That's when you start seein' grain.

Drawback of Vibrating GG.
 
ohh ok so f2-f4 is the sweetspot on average for most nikons? glad to know
I had heard something about not shooting wide open because lenses are sharper at a higher f stop
 
I thought the iris on the camera didn't matter - that only the taking lens needed to be F4 or less...
 
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