35mm Adapter Movie!

P

Policar

Carbonite Member
This one is really good, I PROMISE! Seriously, watch it.

8.2mb QT7 (h264)

A few of the shots are out of focus since the focus setting got screwed up, softening everything. But they're not bad, just a little soft, and that's only a few shots. I used a 50mm f1.4 and an 80-200mm f2.8 for most of this but most aperture settings seem to work fine with no grain. Yeah, there's a spot of dust. So sue me.

http://home.comcast.net/~kittyluv/random.mov

This is a super-duper rough adapter. Seriously. I can't even begin to list the problems with it, but if you scan the movie you'll start to pick up on them. Nothing too major, though.

If I built these things (better image quality than you see here, 2 stops of light loss) would people pay $70 for them? (No lens, but metal nikon F mount and 72mm threads connecting to the dvx. Built out of PVC pipe, of course!) I could probably build them for about that much....

Hmm...on second thought, maybe I'll just put together a new tutorial. The last one was awful, just awful in a lot of ways. This is cheaper and infinitely better. Also a bit more work to build, of course! Very comact, too. Think G35 made out of spraypainted PVC.
 
Policar said:
Hmm...on second thought, maybe I'll just put together a new tutorial. The last one was awful, just awful in a lot of ways. This is cheaper and infinitely better. Also a bit more work to build, of course!
Click to expand...

For a bunch of random footage put together with some music, yeah, it is good. The results that you got from the adapter look great! (Other then the soft and out of focus images that you mentioned.) I would love to see pictures of the adapter, and a tutorial. Not bad for $70. Keep up the good work.

Let's see some pic's of the adapter .....
 
looks to me like you used pvc, ground glass to focus on, no motor and a 35mm lens.
hmmm...D.I.Y. kit from micro 35 site maybe???

post some photos of the adapter-
 
The "bugs" are dust on the focusing screen. I made a very bad choice when I painted this thing using paint NOT made for PVC pipe and it started flaking.

I disagre about the 16mm/8mm thing. I certainly could see the dvx's color grain giving it that "500ISO underexposed" 16mm look, but the depth of focus is much shallower than 16mm or 8mm. I could see the 16mm comment, because it is a little soft, but 8mm has a depth of focus just like the dvx and 8mm looks to me a lot like oversaturated dvx footage. Then again, I haven't seen much 8mm footage and I've been seeing a lot of 16mm footage lately.

The shakiness is because I can't frame stuff upside down while pulling focus. It's so hard. Remember, this is all test footage. The good stuff comes later.

EDIT:
I used a microwax screen, but you're otherwise right. The advantage of microwax is that it can hold more resolution and it does not produce static grain until you stop down to around f8. I think I have some photos somewhere in another thread and I'll dig them up tomorrow when I get the chance.

And yes, I wouldn't use this for production purposes (although with a good achromat and better construction I honestly would.) I am going to be using it on b-reel cameras against professional adapters this summer if I get my big epic project off the ground, however. (And, of course, only a few scenes use b-reel....)
 
Policar,
This looks really amazing. I actually liked the softness, but it probably depends on what you're shooting. You built this for $70? I'd be game for $70 easily.

Questions: How sturdy is the PVC attachment? And the answers probably obvious, but does it give you the same inverted image as the G35? Can you post some images of the rig? How much did you pay for those nikon lenses?
 
Yes, flipped image, unfortunately. It's basically like a horrible quality version of the G35 in terms of how it is constructed, at least from what I gather about their design.

This will give you an idea of its resolution at its best:

35mm1.jpg


Currently, it's being inconsistant and some footage is softer. I'm looking into why but I think it's user error. PVC is pretty solid, but I built this with a "modular" design (3 pieces) so I could continue experimenting with it. Thus it's not THAT solid. But once all glued together, it would be quite strong. Obviously, you wouldn't use big lenses on it, though, without rails.

I'd put together a guide in the next week, but school is trying to kill me and I mean that literally. Thus I'm busy through early December and can't do much until then.
 
Thanks, and sorry if I got defensive--I do agree it doesn't look as good as a real 16mm telecine or something by any means and I still have a lot of little fixes to work out, especially keeping bits of dust out. (This isn't such a huge issue except for the flakes of paint which was just my fault for being stupid.) The depth of focus is a lot of fun to play with--it really gives you another variable or another dimension in your storytelling. I'm doing a mini35 shoot in a couple weeks and am just so excited about that.

The song is Hunting Bears by Radiohead. Radiohead is really great. Their best album is probably OK Computer, but if you like that song in particular other good tracks from their more experimental albums are: Life in a Glass House, There There (The Boney King of Nowhere), Everything in its Right Place, I Might be Wrong, You and Whose Army, Optimistic. None of those are instrumental (they all have singing and lyrics), but they are very similar in terms of sound.
 
awesome work man.

looks amazing, especially for $70..

I actually think it looks better than most of the micro35 footage I've seen (which isn't a lot)
 
I love that song! It's Radiohead, Storyteller. The stuff looks alright, a maybe a little too grainy, but for that cheap, not bad at all. Can't wait to see some more. Have you tried the magnet trick to flip the image on the screen?
 
I thought the footage looked good. A dreamlike quality that could be kept in mind for just such a sequence. Photos of the device would be nice.
 
policcar, ill buy it from you today for 100 plus shiping. or if you make me one. i just need one for the dvx. and yours is impressive.
 
I just want to reiterate that there really is no grain, per se, but the out of focus shots look a little grainy because there was so much light (and I didn't have an ND filter over the SLR lens) that things started to get kind of soft and fuzzy...the focus was also off. The other grain is just video noise from the dvx and compression artifacts from highly compressed very saturated footage. The soft edges, vignetting, etc. are all issues, though, that I have yet to work out 100%.

I can't find any photos and I don't have a camera here at school except my dvx and it's too much work capturing footage and everything. Again, I'd sell this thing but I'm just too busy to build them. I'll put together a guide, though with a parts list and everything. It's easy to build.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top