Why are So Many Adapters NOW Being Re-Sold?

hoarp001 said:
Do we get to see this wonderful in-depth honest opinion?
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Hi,
If anyone has an honest opinion or experienced a situation with an adapter that you don't want to get "slammed" for just "pm" it to me and I will post it keeping the originator (you) anonymous.
We all acknowledge and opinion is simply that and it can be rebuked without cutting down the author of it.
This is a GREAT way to find out any real user experienced problems and for others to explain either why it isn't a problem or how to fix it.
I'll start posting the "pm's" Monday night.
 
sean90291 said:
i myself have been shooting with a redrock plus a hacked hv20 that flips the image in the lcd for me, and my recent upgrade tp a red camera means i'll be selling my adapter too. it certainly served me well!
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Maybe if I sell my car I can get a Red? Who am I kidding! If my HVX rig costs more than the HVX.... I need to sell my house for a Red (at least if I want to shoot anything useable with it. :)
If you can't guess, I'm totally jealous. Congratulations on having the new Rolls Royce.
That's another beauty about this board. Us beginners will never be on the same level as the pro's because when we reach that level the pro has already EXCELLED !
Only love,
T
 
the M2 is absolutley beautiful. it is prettiest adapter i've seen.
i am picking up my SGpro from UPS in 1 hour.

the only reason i didn't go with the m2 is the edge sharpness issues. i need edge sharpness. the sgpro seems to offer the best of that.

when redrock's flip module comes out, the edge sharpness issue will go away. because of the longer light path and better condenser lens. (all assumptions but i think it's right...)

the m2 also has the best rails design. the best follow focus. and soon, the best matte box.

if i could i would own a brevis for extreme night time stuff and an m2 for everything else... but i could only afford one adapter. so i went with the best all rounder. the sgpro.
 
Kholi said:
Have to backtrack on your post: a faster adapter is worth it.

That faster adapter needs to be as close to quality as possible, but half a stop of light in the field is still half a stop of light, that means more opportunity to stop down lens to control shallow DOF, get to the sharper parts of the lenses, and of course just a tiny bit less light.

It would be preferable that the faster adapter produce nice bokeh, edge to edge sharpness, etc... but do remember that having a faster adapter can be invaluable to those that can't afford to light much.

I also think that Redrock owners should invest in the flip option before deciding if they want to move to another adapter. I say this because the unit is already known to produce sharper edge to edge results, etc.

Then again, as always, it depends on what you want to do.
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I'm keeping my small talk to myself after this post. At least I'm going to try to.
How do you tell if an adpater is faster? You seem to have real knowledge so I am also
noting you are ANOTHER knowlegeable person who KNOWS how to compare and who chose a LetusEx.

Only love,
T
 
My observations with Brevis units is that relatively few are sold (compared to what's in use), and when they are, usually go within a day or two. Few owners' sell them to upgrade as we've designed the unit modular...so rather than selling/buying a replacement, most of our customers just purchase the upgrade modules as they become available. A very large group of our customers added our micro-collimation update, our latest swappable imaging element, CF1Le, and the flip module to their rigs, effectively integrating 1 1/2 years of product updates to their existing investment. This is something we've quite proud of, and certainly a popular feature of our products.

The size of a given used market is more or less determined by how many units are in circulation, how long the company has been in the business, and how good their products have been over the longer term.
 
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musicprogirl said:
I'm keeping my small talk to myself after this post. At least I'm going to try to.
How do you tell if an adpater is faster? You seem to have real knowledge so I am also
noting you are ANOTHER knowlegeable person who KNOWS how to compare and who chose a LetusEx.

Only love,
T
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Actually, if you want the Scientific user ask LENNY (Lenilanepi I think is the user name). He owns all of the adapters and does charts, etc with them.

You can also look for SOTTY and his posts because he's owned and used all of the adapters personally.

I've only owned the M2 and LetusEx, and friends here in LA own SGpros. The first time I got to use a Brevis personally was just last weekend and a lot of what I saw (without the flip unit) was definitely true to the adapter. It's actually PRETTY DARNED fast which was really weird (but true), but I found the edge softness pre-flip to drastic to be of use with 50 and a 28mm lens. Other users will report differently.

The sucker is fast as hell, though, that's for sure.

I loved my M2 to death and SITLL use Redrock products without batting an eye. The Redrock Follow Focus is incredible at an equally incredible price point. This is why I say you should try out the Flip Unit before you move to another adapter. Every single one of them exhibit some sort of edge softness and the SGpro is no exception to this. Tim Naylor and Lenny proved that the unit had soft edges as well, and the charts that they shot showed soft edges on the LetusEx and Brevis.

No matter which one you go with it's gonna be a matter of working with it and learning it. I'm still learning things about my Letus Ex but I'm not gonna sell it or give it up til someone drops a Spinning Ground Glass adapter that loses .5 stops of light in a small form factor at HALF the price or less than a P+S.
 
musicprogirl said:
Maybe if I sell my car I can get a Red? Who am I kidding! If my HVX rig costs more than the HVX.... I need to sell my house for a Red (at least if I want to shoot anything useable with it. :)
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I wouldn't touch a Red camera with a ten foot pole. It's a barely functioning camera system that's probably 2 years away from delivering all of what it's designed to do. And I wonder who really needs and can use 4K footage anyway. Keep your house.

.
 
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Chris Santucci said:
I wouldn't touch a Red camera with a ten foot pole. It's a barely functioning camera system that's probably 2 years away from delivering all of what it's designed to do. And I wonder who really needs and can use 4K footage anyway. Keep your house.

.
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I wish I could buy a house for $17,500!! Okay, $22,000 with other stuff.

So far my Red is highly functioning. Been really enjoying the images. Beautifully sharp and filmic, with lovely DOF.

Maybe if I was coming down from 35mm film cameras I'd have more complaints. But moving up from the various HD(V) cameras I've been using, I'm more than happy. I'm used to dealing with some workarounds...though so far haven't really had to workaround very much. We shall see.
 
Chris Santucci said:
I wouldn't touch a Red camera with a ten foot pole. It's a barely functioning camera system that's probably 2 years away from delivering all of what it's designed to do. And I wonder who really needs and can use 4K footage anyway. Keep your house.

.
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You should probably try touching one before you declare that you wouldn't.

I'd be willing to bet you change your mind.
 
Kholi said:
Have to backtrack on your post: a faster adapter is worth it.

That faster adapter needs to be as close to quality as possible, but half a stop of light in the field is still half a stop of light, that means more opportunity to stop down lens to control shallow DOF, get to the sharper parts of the lenses, and of course just a tiny bit less light.

It would be preferable that the faster adapter produce nice bokeh, edge to edge sharpness, etc... but do remember that having a faster adapter can be invaluable to those that can't afford to light much.

I also think that Redrock owners should invest in the flip option before deciding if they want to move to another adapter. I say this because the unit is already known to produce sharper edge to edge results, etc.

Then again, as always, it depends on what you want to do.
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I agree. I was lucky enough yesterday to be provided a full HMI package for my shoot with my LEX and it was interesting working with the HVX at more of an ASA of around 200 rather than the naked HVX-200's usual ASA of 320. I keyed with a 1200 watt HMI PAR through my medium Chimera and I metered an F4 at 180 degree shutter, 24fps with the 50mm 1.4 stopped down to 2.8 and the HVX at a 2.4.

I only had a single scrim in on the PAR. Keep in mind that a 1200 watt HMI puts out what a tungsten 5k puts out as far as output. This was an indoor shoot too with a fairly dark ambient light level in the BG. What this tells me is that I would have had to have ran everything wide open and had no scrim in the HMI if I would have had an M2. That's cool but the average HVX shooter is struggling to afford a small Arri kit with a 1k tungsten as it's largest instrument so shooting with the HVX and an M2, for instance, you would have to use 1/24th shutter, everything wide open and you might get a usable image (in my scenario with a medium Chimera with an egg crate). I know with bare lights, you could make it work but to get softness takes power away.

I would not buy a slow adapter unless I had a full HMI package or a worked with full crews and had access to BIG lights. Not saying you can't do it without HMIs and with little lights like 1ks and 650s but I know that as a DP, I could not get the looks I envision with small lights with a setup that slow.

And if you do run and gun or available light docs, yes, you DO need a fast adapter or it will be useless. Most video people don't know but almost all lenses look really bad wide open, unless they are really nice cine lenses but still lenses look horrible wide open usually so most of us are running our 1.4 lenses at at least a 2 and often at a 2.8 or a 4.0 to make them look their best. So you need to factor that into your equation. Faster lenses let you operate at smaller apertures and still look sharper and better than a slower lens at the same aperture.

I like the look of the M2 but it would not work for my situation.

Dan
 
puredrifting said:
I agree. I was lucky enough yesterday to be provided a full HMI package for my shoot with my LEX and it was interesting working with the HVX at more of an ASA of around 200 rather than the naked HVX-200's usual ASA of 320. I keyed with a 1200 watt HMI PAR through my medium Chimera and I metered an F4 at 180 degree shutter, 24fps with the 50mm 1.4 stopped down to 2.8 and the HVX at a 2.4.

I only had a single scrim in on the PAR. Keep in mind that a 1200 watt HMI puts out what a tungsten 5k puts out as far as output. This was an indoor shoot too with a fairly dark ambient light level in the BG. What this tells me is that I would have had to have ran everything wide open and had no scrim in the HMI if I would have had an M2. That's cool but the average HVX shooter is struggling to afford a small Arri kit with a 1k tungsten as it's largest instrument so shooting with the HVX and an M2, for instance, you would have to use 1/24th shutter, everything wide open and you might get a usable image (in my scenario with a medium Chimera with an egg crate). I know with bare lights, you could make it work but to get softness takes power away.

I would not buy a slow adapter unless I had a full HMI package or a worked with full crews and had access to BIG lights. Not saying you can't do it without HMIs and with little lights like 1ks and 650s but I know that as a DP, I could not get the looks I envision with small lights with a setup that slow.

And if you do run and gun or available light docs, yes, you DO need a fast adapter or it will be useless. Most video people don't know but almost all lenses look really bad wide open, unless they are really nice cine lenses but still lenses look horrible wide open usually so most of us are running our 1.4 lenses at at least a 2 and often at a 2.8 or a 4.0 to make them look their best. So you need to factor that into your equation. Faster lenses let you operate at smaller apertures and still look sharper and better than a slower lens at the same aperture.

I like the look of the M2 but it would not work for my situation.

Dan
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Very nice rundown, Dan. Wish I could've been there to shoot second cam for you. :B

But that's exactly what I'm saying, man. Being able to stop down the HVX as well as the Lens is great!

Can I has HMI's please? :3
 
Is it maybe

Is it maybe

Is it maybe they are done with their shoot and want to recoup expenses until the next big thing?
 
Kholi said:
You should probably try touching one before you declare that you wouldn't.

I'd be willing to bet you change your mind.
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Gee, if I HAD ordered one and I was maybe number 1,000 on the list of 4,000+, when do you think I might be receiving it???? Sure it's light years ahead of an HVX200 with a lens adapter in terms of image resolution/color, but then again, I generally don't shoot for the big screen, so what's the point?

.
 
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It's not like the footage from it has been bad or anything. Far from it. There are RED ONEs in NY. You don't have to be an owner to use/work with one. I'm not and I do.

Doesn't matter if you shoot for the big screen. The camera is much more than resolution. Dynamic Range for starters? And for side dishes? Well, you already mentioned those.
 
musicprogirl said:
I'm in the market for the ideal adapter for my price range
and I've researched Redrock, Cinevate and Letus.
In fact... as an excited newbie I first purchased a LetusFE,
then switched to a redrock M2 HD when I had really "originally" wanted a
Brevis.

Well, all of these units used to be hard to find second hand but now I seem
to see quite a few new listings almost daily.
Is there a reason that so many are dumping these units and/or is there something new on the horizon?

Any info would help. I haven't had a chance to use the Redrock yet and probably won't be filming with it in the next month or so. I'm still learning the camera.
Thanks in advance for any input.


My rig: HVX200, firestore, elipiz, redrock M2HD
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I just looked on e-bay and there were 3 or 4 adaptors that were being sold. So I don't understand the fuzz...
 
I'm a Redrock user and I love it. I've been able to get the edge to edge sharpness and I'm excited for the flip :)

Now what I'm really looking forward to is the G35, when the heck is that thing coming out
 
Passing Through said:
I just looked on e-bay and there were 3 or 4 adaptors that were being sold. So I don't understand the fuzz...
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I believe the OP was referring to sales going on in the various marketplace forums on sites like this one. I remember trying to buy an adapter used around this time last year. The market was much thinner then that it is now.


davide
 
I am considering selling my LEX for the following reasons;

1) It is cumbersome and adds considerable weight to the camera, most in the front which makes the camera difficult to balance.

2) Even with the camera stopped open all the way, the ground glass pattern still can be seen in certain situations (wide expanses of uniform color, like the sky). Also, I'm limited to slow shutter speeds and sometimes I like that jittery high speed shutter look.

3) You absolutely NEED a dedicated focus puller to get sharp imagery.

4) I shoot a lot of stuff by myself, and the extra weight, and extra lighting needed to get usable images makes working alone much more difficult.

5) I shoot a lot of green screen, where shallow depth of field is actually a negative. You need razor sharp outlines on your subject to get a good key. Shallow depth of field can be faked in post when you shoot green screen anyway.

For me I lose much more than I gain with the adapter. I mainly bought it for one project, where I had a DP and a crew, and am VERY pleased with the results, but it's not worth hanging on to.
 
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