Why no love for the M2?

Popsiclestand

Popsiclestand

Well-known member
Just curious. This forum seems to be very Letus/SGPro heavy. Not a criticism at all, but I was just wondering if it's because no one likes the M2 or because it is inferior or what. I haven't used anything except the M2 so I have nothing to compare with.
 
Give the Extreme a shot and you'll see why. WAY lower light loss, much better sharpness and hassel free setups are amongst the reason why the M2 is technically the most backward adapters out there. I've used the M2 twice, it worked flawlessly the first time and the second time I simply couldn't focus on the GG at all no matter what I try. It's ridiculous when I have to use 2k worth of light only to get a barely usable image. The M2 might have been revolutionary in the early days of adapters, but the bar has been raised and M2 is still stuck in 2005.
 
Wow, that's quite a review! Thanks for your candor. When you tried the M2, were you using the new acromat that ships with the MicroX? That has increased sharpness a great deal from what I've seen.

Before getting the M2, I was in the market to get the Letus Extreme (for one thing it's cheaper), but the vibrating ground glass was what threw me off. The light loss I can deal with because when I don't use lights I'm outside with the sun and reflectors. When I'm inside, I'm pouring light into my scene anyway. I'm from the film side of things so I'm used to it. I find the M2 comparable to trying to get an image on 16mm.

If it weren't for the lack of spinning ground glass though, I'd be all over the LE.
 
I didn't use the MicroX, so I can't comment on that. My biggest beef with the M2 remains light loss and setup time. With the Extreme I can slap it on and be running in about a minute, with the M2 if the alignment is slightly off all of a sudden I can't get sharp focus. I think that interior lighting is a must for a good look, but there are only so much lights that I can bring in before the household circuit maxed out on me; it's just not practical to have to use a ton of light every single time.
 
Aerialsfilm M* said:
It's inferior.
Click to expand...

Woah. Footage from the M2 is what first got me into this mess - thanks again Marlon Torres. Granted I ended up with the LEX, good M2 footage is hardly inferior.

No, I wouldn't recommend it (especially to the onslaught of unimaginative and lazy filmmakers who choose not to understand when or how this tool is appropriately used), but I think "difficult" is a better word for the M2. When it works, it works great. When it doesn't, it's awful.

The same can be said for my LEX. I feel like I spend hours before each shooting trying to get dust/powder coating flakes off of my condenser. It's not inferior, it is difficult (at times). And somehow the results are worth it :)
 
Cool. Can't argue with you on the setup time as the M2 does take a bit of setup (though not that much in my opinion). I think they fixed that alignment/columnation problem with the microx as I've never had the problem you speak of. The light loss thing I was kind of skeptical about until I read your first reply (you having used both) -- cause some people claim that the M2 loses lots of light and others say it's not so much. Keeping in mind that I have not used any other 35mm adapter, I can say that the light loss has never really bothered me or prevented me from shooting something.

Thanks for entertaining my question.

And Aerialsfilm, thanks for giving me the quick and dirty answer. Lol.
 
After further searching through various footage I've come to the conclusion that the look of the m2 to my eyes gives off a more pleasing and filmic lookk than that of the letus. Don't know, it just seems like it handles blown out highlights in a more pleasing way than that of the letus. BUt it is more than a pain to work with.
 
I prefer the M2. The majority of my demo reel is Redrock/HVX footy.

I just don't argue on these boards about it. People love the less light loss of other adapters, although I personally think those adapters have bleeding/blooming highlights.

Just wanted to represent and say 'hey'.

Love the redrock, nothing else.

-rpo
 
Huy Vu said:
the bar has been raised and M2 is still stuck in 2005.
Click to expand...

ture.
letus, sg, cinvate are making new adapters and raising the bar but redrock hasn't changed anything.
I'm sure they will make a new version on their M2 soon and that sure will be some kind of an adapter tho!!
 
ryvac said:
ture.
letus, sg, cinvate are making new adapters and raising the bar but redrock hasn't changed anything.
I'm sure they will make a new version on their M2 soon and that sure will be some kind of an adapter tho!!
Click to expand...

Ugh. Let's not hate on Redrock. It's a great product that needs little improvement. What? You want less light loss? Get some poo pooing lights. I like the look it has, and most of that look is because of the density of the GG. Making it have less light loss would change the image properties.

This is going to go on all day. Can we agree that all adapters can look nice in the right hands and let the redrock fans... be fans?

This is what he is posting about. There is a huge majority of people here who are favorable to other 35mm adapters and hate on redrock. Why can't we just get along? haha :)
 
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Popsiclestand said:
... but I was just wondering if it's because no one likes the M2 or because it is inferior or what. I haven't used anything except the M2 so I have nothing to compare with.
Click to expand...


Yes, it IS inferior. Redrock Micro needs to keep up a little bit better. The M2 is nicely engineered and constructed, but the key things for me when choosing the SG pro upgrade recently was the "look" of the footage I saw shot with it and the fact that you get accurate lens alignment with the SG pro.

.
 
I'm glad the fanboys of other adapters have decided to slam M2 in a thread that is trying to shed light on the redrock hate. How appropriate.

Since this has turned into a classic 'which adapter is better' thread, I'll not be coming back.

Frustrating.

This demo reel is mostly HVX/Redrock footage. I'm simply trying to prove it's a great product as is, and looks great if used properly. If you like another brand of adapter, by all means shoot with that adapter. But these threads are undeniably bias (not sure why) against redrock, and I'm just trying to support it... not trying to knock other brands. Enjoy.
http://ryanpatrickohara.com/demoreel.html
 
I agree that in the right hands, any of the 35mm adapters out there can look like gold. It really isn't about the equipment at all in my opinion. I was just kind of curious about why there weren't a lot of M2 owners on the board here. I thought there was something beyond the age-old "I like the one I have" argument or the subjective light loss versus lighting issue.

I see that there really aren't too many technical differences and that the lack of M2 posters probably has to do with the nature of the board. Just like there seem to be more HVX peeps than Canons (well it is DVXuser after all).

Didn't mean to start a versus war. Just wanted to make sure the M2 guys weren't tied up in a basement somewhere being denied their rights to post on the forum.
 
I have an M2 also. I think there are probably plenty of us on the boards, but there isn't a lot to talk about, you know? The M2 has been around for a quite a while, whereas Letus, SGpro, Brevis, and others are producing new or upgraded products quite often.

Those of us that have the M2 know that it can produce spectacular images when used properly. Like Ryan, I think a lot of us avoid the fruitless "which adapter is better" arguments, as we are settled in with our M2s already.
 
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