Any quality 35mm adapters?
- Thread starter mbell75
- Start date
Just looked an everyone I saw was using a 7D or a 5DII. I am talking about a 35mm adapter that allows you to use SLR lenses on a camcorder, not footage shot with a DSLR.
Marc Villafan
Well-known member
The SGblade. From all the footage i've seen the SGblade seems to be the best; its what I would purchase if it was cheaper or I could afford it.
Well, first of all you can't judge footage objectively on places like Vimeo. Most of that stuff is downrezzed 720p material recompressed into flash. Who knows what went wrong in the signal chain.
Second is that the vast majority of people depends on their on camera LCD to judge focus--big mistake. The focus being off just a bit can result in soft looking footage.
Third is WAY too many people like to shoot wide open on their lenses for super shallow DOF which--surprise!--also makes the footage way softer than it could be.
Here are some full-res stills shot on my A1 and Letus Extreme at f4-f5.6, focused with a Manhattan LCD monitor. It can be very sharp if you use it right.
Second is that the vast majority of people depends on their on camera LCD to judge focus--big mistake. The focus being off just a bit can result in soft looking footage.
Third is WAY too many people like to shoot wide open on their lenses for super shallow DOF which--surprise!--also makes the footage way softer than it could be.
Here are some full-res stills shot on my A1 and Letus Extreme at f4-f5.6, focused with a Manhattan LCD monitor. It can be very sharp if you use it right.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Letus Ultimate.
Marc Villafan
Well-known member
They are a TINY bit soft but they look great still. The last one seems to be the sharpest. Regardless I love the look. And Huy, your definitely right. It slipped my mind, compression really crushes and changes an image. Thanks for the uploaded images though.
Anyone have some SgBlade screen caps to compare? Maybe even with the XH-A1.
yommytacoe
Well-known member
The whole point of using a 35mm adapter is to make your footage look like it was shot on 35mm film, not ultra sharp HD footage. You should check out some of Huy Vu's videos if you want to see some great work with an adapter (he's the one who posted the stills above). The stills may look slightly soft, but when you watch them in motion they look pretty sharp. Or you could just go out and buy a Panavision Genesis. That'll do the trick.
Yea, I suppose thats true. Guess its a Red camera if I want 35mm digital look :cheesy:
Joe Calabrese
Well-known member
Not really. The point of the adapter is to allow you to attach 35mm still and cine lenses (mostly with faster lenses than on your camera already) to your digital video camera, many of which have 1/3" sensors. The large ground glass in the adapters you to have a larger "circle of confusion", hence, a shallower depth of field. Understanding how the adapter works allow you to know what its purpose is.
The light goes into your cine or still lens, and is focused onto the ground glass of the adapter. The iris of your lens and the circle of confusion from the size of the image projected on the ground glass create the shallow depth of field. Your video camera then "films" the image projected on the ground glass.
Adapter make the image soft because they cannot resolve or translate all the resolution that your HD camera can make out.
If you want your image to look like film, among other things, you need a lot of workable latitude, and color representation similar to film. Also, lighting creates the cinematic look everybody calls the "film look". In fact, many Hollywood films don't use shallow depth of field all that often, but when they do, it has it's rightful purpose in creating the tone and feeling of the scene.
If you're looking for a 35mm lens adapter, the Cinemek is by far the best one i've seen besides the Letus Ultimate, which I think is not worth the 4k price tag.
Last edited:
Marc Villafan
Well-known member
Your right about that, in motion it would definitely look great. Regardless I love the look whether soft or not, takes away from the digital look imo.
Thanks, checked it out. Saw some footage Philip Bloom shot with it on Vimeo. Checked the price and its $1500 with the Canon mount. To be honest, the quality doesnt look any better than what I have seen from the Jag35 which only costs $300. They all look about the same, guess I will go with the more affordable one. Thanks
Joe Calabrese
Well-known member
If your going to go with that, go with the one with the spinning ground glass because it will reduce visible imperfections from the cheap glass.
One thing is that a lot of these adapters are used with the Canon HV series cameras and such with cinemode and cinemode on an HV20 is a lot softer. There have been tests showing how much softer cinemode is even without an adapter. It increases the dynamic range a lot, but at the expense of sharpness. I personally think it's worth it, but it may not be the adapter making it look unsharp always. It could be the combination of cinemode with the adapter.
You and I have different definitions of ruining. These adapters make the footage look more movie like and less home videoish. If softens out the highlights and adds that dramatic soft movie focus that we associate with film and gives the ability to focus on the subjects. I have seen some poor footage with some adapters, but have seen some that made me shocked that the footage came from a Canon HV20/HV30, because it looked like something from a Hollywood movie.
If you are expecting one of these to leave the entire image in focus you are not getting what these are for. With scenes where you want deep focus simply take the adapter off. If you want deep video focus where all is in focus then you don't want an adapter or at least don't want to use one for scenes like that. If you want to be able to throw the background or foreground out of focus and focus on the subject as they do in movies quite often this is what a lot of us want an adapter for.
Those of us who make movies usually don't want everything to be in focus all of the time. In a lot of scenes it's pleasant and feels more movie like to have the actors more in focus than the background so they stand out more. It gives more artistic control than simply having everything in the scene HD sharp all of the time.
Joe Calabrese
Well-known member
Actually, just like any camera (1/3" all the way to 70mm IMAX), the longer the focal lenght, the more of the background or foreground will be out of focus, due to the way the way light is bent by the lens. If you want deep depth of field, use a wide angle lens, like an 18mm, and most of the background or foreground will stay in focus.
I actually recommend that if you shoot one scene with the adapter, you should shoot all of them with the adapter, just changing lenses for your needs. This makes everything pretty even as far as grain and softening from the adapter.
Mike Harvey
Veteran
Bingo.
You're wanting to stick a $300 lens on a $1k -$2k adapter, and put that onto a $3k - $6k camera with a fixed lens and have footage that looks like it was shot with a $80k camera with a $15k lens on it. Well... $30k camera if you're shooting Red. That's not possible. And besides... some of the stuff out there does look like crap, but some stuff, like Huy's little shorts, look pretty darn good. Not $80k camera good... but I'm usually paying more attention to the story to notice or care. Dillon Novak's music videos also look pretty darn good (all the more so considering he's just a kid) and very clean.
And to be honest, I do notice a huge difference between the stuff those two, Philip Bloom, and Stillmotion are putting out and stuff shot with, say, a Jag35. A big difference. It all depends on if the shooter knows what they're doing.
Last edited:
smithy
Well-known member
If you all really want your footage to look like film, then why not just rent and shoot S-16mm film? With all that money spent on the Red camera set with lenses (30k), you could pick up a used Arri SR2 for less and still get more information on film than any form of digital capture there is. When you start investing into 30k or above, then you should also look into other options. Granted if your budget is less than 7k, then having the nice adapter with some decent lenses on a prosumer camera is a very good compromise.