35mm adapter Shootout

Thanks for putting the effort and time into doing this review. Having seen, it, and relating your findings to footage, and anecdotal reports, I'd say your findings are pretty relevant.

The Brevis will be ready in about two weeks or so..and it will be up for the next shootout :-)
 
Excellent read, it's great you guys took the time to inform us. It looks as if the technology in this is ever developing of 35's is really heating up.
 
I'm disappointed that the M2 wasn't reviewed. From what we've read on the 24 reviews, it still sounds like the absolute best value for the money.

Is there a reason Red Rock Micro didn't get involved or wasn't involved?

e
 
why does the sg35 unit with the two women seem to have absolutely zero focus pull. Neither of them seem to ever be in focus..
 
Overland, I spoke directly with Brian at Redrock, and he would prefer that his adapter be compared against the Mini35, and other HIGH end and COSTLY adapters. He did not want to be included in a sub $1K shoot-out. Nothing we could do about it.

PaPa, we didn't have the Indie Focus on these to pull a rack focus w/hard stops, so we were simply trying to pull focus at the same time, by hand ... there should be SOME point, where you'll find the subject(s) in focus, however the footage is certainly softer than the DVX itself.

I can personally see the focus pulled between the two on the SG35, though I agree it's not dramatic ... could the lighting/setting, I'm not sure.

To get a much sharper image out of the unit(s), a user is going to want to play with the settings inside the camera. Both scharky and Jack Daniel Stanley have posted some of their settings that they use ... while these are for the Letus35 A/Original, they could likely be applied to improve nearly any 35 adapter, to a degree.

scharky's thread: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=50191&page=4

Jack Daniel Stanley's thread: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=46631&page=17
 
The Redrock M2 actually costs $650. It includes:
M2 Cinema Lens Adapter
M2 rod mounting clamp
M2 Achromatic lens

You can verify this here:
http://www.redrockmicro.com/p_wizard_1.htm

You do have to buy a lens mount, so add another $75 for a total of $725.

If you have your own rod support, then you don't have to buy theirs, which pushes the cost of the M2 up to $995 plus S&H and any other accessories you want. I went with their rods and my order came in at exactly $1,046.27.

All of these adapters really should have some kind of rod support it seems, so with the upgrades coming with the SG35 and LetusFLIP+Rods, all 3 of these adapters are within a few hundred dollars of each other.

That said, I ordered my M2 a few weeks ago. From what I've read it could be the winner at nearly the same END COST as the two adapters from this article.

Once I get my M2, I'd love to hook up with anyone in the Bay Area who has any other adapter (from $10k to DIY 10 bucks!) so we can do a review on it with my DVX100B. Maybe we can do a test with the HVX200 too.

Cheers.
 
Envision said:
Overland, I spoke directly with Brian at Redrock, and he would prefer that his adapter be compared against the Mini35, and other HIGH end and COSTLY adapters. He did not want to be included in a sub $1K shoot-out. Nothing we could do about it.
Click to expand...


Wow, why? I mean if they want to compare against the high end ones cause they think they can compete, then why not go in a sub 1000 shootout and totally blow the competition away if they think it's that great. Ah, well, that's truly a shame.
 
Well, there were a few other reasons that were stated in the conversation, that I'm not sure he'd want me to go into, so we'll just leave it at that he only wants to complete against the high end adapters.

However, I agree with your line of thought.
 
Invito said:
The Redrock M2 actually costs $650. It includes:
M2 Cinema Lens Adapter
M2 rod mounting clamp
M2 Achromatic lens
Click to expand...

Yep you're right, as long as you just get the stand alone unit. If you get either of the other two bundles you're looking at $1,000+. Which to be fair, you have to get rails for the M2. As we were testing complete units- the SG35 came with rails, and the Flip does not require rails (Although I would use rails as I wouldn't want that much weight hanging off my lens.)
 
That doesn't seem right to me...The M2 from RRM can be picked up with a mount for about $750...You couldve used the rods from one of the other adapters instead of paying another 300+ for RRM's indie package. It wouldn't have been fair though, M2 would've destroyed these two adapters from the way the shootout looked!
 
With the run of bad luck the other two adapters were getting with either a defective mirror, or issues from shipping, etc. ... I wouldn't have been surpised if there was 'something' that could have effected the M2 as well ... hopefully not, but I do want to defend the units on the basis of two things:

  1. Neither of them were in peak form, unfortunately
  2. Neither of them were optimized for the BEST performance to get out of them, as the focus was on the differences and staight camera settings for both units. To get optimal results from any unit, you'll likely want to increase core detail, and other settings within the camera to sharpen the pictures, then work with some others to decrease/offset noise, etc.
Lastly, it sounds like from your above suggestion that we should have considered purchasing the unit for testing, but save on the rails because we could have used others we had on hand? Um, no thanks. Neither of us rec'd a penny for this, nor any other form of compensation, and were taking our own time & resources to do this comparison ... we weren't going to purchase an adapter to benefit the manufacturer with free exposure.
 
InvisionProductions said:
That doesn't seem right to me...The M2 from RRM can be picked up with a mount for about $750...You couldve used the rods from one of the other adapters instead of paying another 300+ for RRM's indie package.
Click to expand...

To add to Norm' response:

Envision said:
Lastly, it sounds like from your above suggestion that we should have considered purchasing the unit for testing, but save on the rails because we could have used others we had on hand? Um, no thanks. Neither of us rec'd a penny for this, nor any other form of compensation, and were taking our own time & resources to do this comparison ... we weren't going to purchase an adapter to benefit the manufacturer with free exposure.
Click to expand...

I also think that there would have been a slight underhandedness to say that we were reviewing sub $1000 adapters and have one of the adapters be $750, but to really have it work you have to spend over $1000. The adapters we were testing were sub 1K, and worked straight out of the box, without anything more to purchase. With the M2 you need rails, and they are not included in the sub 1k price. There is just something that doesn't sit right with me when saying "Here is this great 35mm adapter, and it is sub 1K! ..... on, and by the way, if you want to actually use it on your camera, you have to spend more then 1k." But that's just me.

Anyway, all that is really just a moot point. As the M2 was not available to test anyway.
 
The redrock people would brilliant if they had the m2 up against the sub 1000 level and won and then tried vs the g35 and mini35 and won or came in close. That would make then look good no matter the price point.

That's what I'd do but oh well.
 
One thing I'd like to ask Jarred is this: Would you consider using either one of these lensadapters for one of you own projects?

Tony
 
Since the GG was off center (or mirror was angled incorrectly), it forced us to zoom in even further than the normal Letus35 or the SG35. Doing this actually cut down our field of view, since we were now zoomed into the GG more than necessary.
Click to expand...

May I ask what zoom you had to use? What zoom did you use on the sg35?
 
Hi ncje, your question to that has been answered over in scharky's thread: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=50191&page=6

tlorenzo, I don't know about Jarred, but I know Barry Green has expressed interest in the Flip ... or the $10K+ Mini35. Reason being, is he doesn't want the hassle of the upside down image that most 35 adapters bring with it. I'm not saying he's endorsing the Flip ... far from it. Just that the already flipped image of the Letus35 Flip and the P+S Mini35 are the only ones that have really held his interest/curiosity.
 
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