Letus (Extreme or Ultimate) or Cinevate Brevis MP.1?

M

MitchLewis

Well-known member
Okay, I've looked through most of the threads I could find on this subject and felt it was worthy to start an additional one. (sorry)

This will be the first time I've ever worked with a 35mm adaptor, but I've been shooting video professionally for 20 years now (mostly producing local television commercials). We're replacing our Canon XL-1S with a Sony EX3 and after looking at the footage Phillip Bloom (and many others) I'm now addicted to the look of shallow DOF. But making an educated decision about which 35mm adapter to go with has proven to be difficult, mainly because I'm such a newbie with them. I was especially inspired with Phillip Bllooms statement about how when he first starting shooting with a 35mm adaptor (Letus), he suddenly became much more inspired about shooting video. He would shoot on the weekends (whether he was getting paid or not). This hits home with me, because over the last few years, my passion has really because just a paycheck.

OUR SITUATION
We currently don't have any 35mm lenses so we'll be purchasing them as well. (don't have to worry about resetting the back focus when switching lenses...right?). My biggest concern right now is ease of use/setup. I'm worried that it will take a considerable amount of time to setup each shot using a 35mm adaptor and prime lens when compared to our XL-1S with the standard zoom lens. But I'm willing to deal with the extra time if the video is as beautiful as the examples I've seen online. I'm confident in my ability to compose a shot correctly. I think I have a pretty good eye when it comes to composition. We're going to be shooting mostly local television commercials in HD, but delivering them to the broadcasters in SD (they are not able to handle HD yet). So this tells me that having the absolutely sharpest image possible isn't as much of a concern as if we were delivering to a large screen. Right?

In addition, we plan to purchase a relay unit as well when they become available. My thought is that we could switch from the 35mm adaptor setup to the standard lens setup by just swapping either from the camera body. But maybe it won't be quite as simple as that. (I said I was a newbie with this stuff!) :)

We started out looking at the Letus Extreme (from Philip Blooms reviews of the EX1 and EX3). But then we saw his review on the Ultimate and thought that it would be easier to use than the Extreme. But there is such a huge price difference, I'm worried about selling my partners on a $5000 35mm adaptor. I probably could, if I knew in my heart that it was truly the best way to go.

So off of a venders recommendation I started looking at the Cinevate Brevis MP.1. I like how they have an Imager devoted specifically to the EX1/EX3. I also LOVE the fact that you can call them and a knowledgable person actually answers the phone (unlike Letus who will only talk to you via an email interface). But I don't know how the Brevis compares to the Letus Extreme or Ultimate on ease of setup and use?

Can anyone provide some basic pro / con information about 35mm adaptors for the EX1/EX3? I feel like I'm really sticking my neck out on buying one. My friends who work at the broadcast tv stations think I'm crazy. They think it will be way too complex to setup and I'll never end up using it much. I'm hoping that I WILL use it as I've been shooting a lot of "beauty shots" lately and I wish they had the look of the stuff I've seen on Vimeo.

Thanks in advance, and again, sorry if this question has been asked and answered before.
 
I recommend looking at these adapters individually as a whole. They all support the EX in some form or another. The ultimate is in a completely different price range, so you need to decide for yourself what is within your budget. Keep in mind a Brevis loaded up AND lenses will cost you less than an Ultimate. Letus has a great adapter with the ultimate, but it doesn't mean you can't get a great product out of the brevis. I've used them professionally on countless gigs and with great success (even high paying, multi billion dollar corporations)
 
You mentioned a magic word there...relay unit. The Brevis MP.1 flip is the base for the upcoming relay lens...and like all of our products, they are modular. Our relay unit is the only one in the world purposed designed with full support for both SLR and cinema frame widths. The optics use low dispersion glass, some fairly exotic coatings, adjustable back focus, and it's own aperture. At the projected cost of $2500, we're pretty excited about finally getting it done :-) We recently became an authorized Zeiss reseller after testing their SLR glass on our system and have posted a review of them for adapter use, found in the link below.

As far as ease of setup, once you do some initial alignment, it should only take about 60 seconds to affix the adapter, and install it on our carbon rails system. We've made the effort to educate our customers in the Video University which should provide you with everything you'd need to know to use our gear. http://www.cinevate.com/website/index.php/videouniversity/

Feel free to give us a call during business hours, or just email if you have any questions we can help with. Hubert will take care of you.

Cheers and good luck with your search :-)
Dennis.
 
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Dennis Wood said:
You mentioned a magic word there...relay unit. The Brevis MP.1 flip is the base for the upcoming relay lens...and like all of our products, they are modular. Our relay unit is the only one in the world purposed designed with full support for both SLR and cinema frame widths. The optics use low dispersion glass, some fairly exotic coatings, adjustable back focus, and it's own aperture. At the projected cost of $2500, we're pretty excited about finally getting it done :-) We recently became an authorized Zeiss reseller after testing their SLR glass on our system and have posted a review of them for adapter use, found in the link below.

As far as ease of setup, once you do some initial alignment, it should only take about 60 seconds to affix the adapter, and install it on our carbon rails system. We've made the effort to educate our customers in the Video University which should provide you with everything you'd need to know to use our gear. http://www.cinevate.com/website/index.php/videouniversity/

Feel free to give us a call during business hours, or just email if you have any questions we can help with. Hubert will take care of you.

Cheers and good luck with your search :-)
Dennis.
Click to expand...
Dennis you do a great job of answering EVERYONE'S questions on the Brevis!
This gives me great faith in your product and has ultimately sold me on the Brevis. Just wanted to say how much I appreciate this lost art of customer support.

Looking forward to ordering mine soon!

-Brock
 
^^^^^What he said^^^^^^ (I agree!)

Thanks Dennis, it's good to know that you plan on releasing a relay unit! We would definitely buy one when it becomes available for the EX3.
 
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BTW, sorry my post is so long. If you want, just PM me with your phone number and we can talk for a couple of minutes over the phone.

I already talked to Hubart at Cinevate about the Brevis. He was VERY helpful. Much more so than sending emails to Letus (they're probably a good company, but it's really tough for a newbie to communicate with them)
 
If you can test any of these units do it. They've all their pros and cons. I currently own an Ultimate and love it - mainly for sharpness. They're also releasing a new and improved lens mount. It's pricey so make sure you can keep it working. Mine earns its keep. SG is coming out with the Blade soon which has some great features as well at a fair price and no one touches Brevis on light loss. So figure your priorities in.

Concerning relay lenses, as long as its optics are as sharp and lose significantly less light than the stock EX3 lens, I'm sold. But the stock EX3 lens opens to 1.7 (all the way through), is quite small and benefits from Fujinon's economies of scale and R&D. I'd be amazed if someone can produce something as sharp, small and efficient for less. Also with a relay, you lose your zoom option. With the Ultimate/EX combo, I zoom in/out all the time to create a "variable" prime so to speak. If the adaptor is sharp enough and grainless you can zoom in quite a bit and pay a neglible price in rez. The Ultimate allows this. If the adaptor has any grainy quality to it, zooming magnifies this - noticeably degrading the image.
 
I just learned that you can't open the ires up more that about f5.6. If this is true, I should probably order some ND filters to go in our matte box.......right?
 
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