Brevis and EX-1 Owners, please

B

Bobonli

Well-known member
With the recent announcement of price changes at Cinevate, I can't help but reconsider the Brevis for use with my EX-1. Based on my reading of reviews, the major concerns with this adapter are:

1) Edge to edge sharpness. They offer a special element for the EX-1 but I've only found one person commenting on it, and that person does not think it really improves the image to the level of, say, a Letus. There's also been discussion about zooming in on the EX-1 to improve the E2E

2) Dust, fabrication materials in the tube. One or two mentions of this, none lately.

3) Fact that it's a vibrator not a spinner and that impacts ability to stop down etc.

So for those of you who are using this combo, what are your thoughts? If you had to do over would you still buy the Brevis?

Thank you for helping wade through the myriad options out there!

PS: It's such a PITA not being able to rent/test these things (like you can a camera) before deciding. All I have to go by is footage and others' experiences.
 
Great post, i also noticed EX1 used heavily in the Cinevate advertising.
Are there any good test videos available and/or chart comparisons available.
Users, let us know and i'm sure Dennis Wood from Cinevate will address the potential E2E, CA issues with the EX1. He is a straight shooter and he will tell it like it is.
Cheers
 
I recently dumped my Cinevate Brevis 35 system. For me, as many others the solution was not adequate on the ex1. I bought a redrock m2e system and am very happy with the result. I would have never used the brevis ex1 combo on a pro job, but I would use the m2e on my ex1 for shooting pro jobs. The images I gt are so much cleaner and in my opinion thr rig is much more versatile for shooting situations, oh, and it turns on when you turn it on. I mention this as even though I sent my unit back to cinivate and paid for a system ugrade, it still failed to turn on in the field from time to time. was not cool.
just my experience,

best regards,
Anthony Miles
 
Well, here's the skinny on the EX1.

1. We have quite a few folks using our adapter and the EX1 professionally. The last example of some length was Stillmotion's all adapter wedding filmed in Mexico. The EX1 Brevis combination was all over that.

2. CFXL is part 1 of our optical solution to the EX1 field focus curvature issues.

3. Part 2 of the EX1 solution is being tested as we speak. This solution is akin to a person wearing eyeglasses and for us is the "ultimate" fix for field focus curvature.

4. The EX1 at the ideal zoom value for our system (72) against an evenly lit white cyc will show slight darkening in the overscan areas left and right. We've reduced this behaviour also in the unit being tested.

5. The MP.2 or MP.1 units now use a new motor that we have made specifically for us...and we provide a user replaceable spare with every unit. We're the only manufacturers of any adapter that do this. If anyone is using our MP.1 with the old motor, you just need to contact us for the replacement. For MP.2 owners, you all have the new motor..and a spare in your case :-) Based on recent repair stats, we're nearly perfect on this front.

Is our EX1 solution perfect right now? Nope...but no camera on an adapter is perfect...none of them. Are we making the EX1 better on our system...absolutely. More importantly, part 2 of our EX1 solution can be applied to any camera in the future that shows field focus curvature..and we can customize the solution much as your optometrist does for your eyes. The current edge to edge sharpness in the unit being field tested right now is nearly perfect...on par with the XH-A1. If you'd like a sneak peak of this EX1 footage, it's in the small camera shoot guide..first clip on that page. The EX1 footage is in the last few minutes in that piece.

So that's the scoop.
Cheers,
Dennis.
 
The new redrock encore is already killing it on the ex1, and has rotating screen so doesn't have stop down issues of vibrating adapters and is better light than the letus ultimate:

http://vimeo.com/4203443

i understand all scenes on that shot with the EX+encore even th b+w stuff.



dj
 
Thanks, Dennis, for the detailed reply. It's so refreshing to see business people take the time to answer questions on forums like this.

If you can point me (in a PM, perhaps) to any of your sponsored shooters' footage with the EX-1 that would be helpful. I've seen the Still Motion piece but I've also noticed they haven't really mentioned its use (the adapter and the EX1) on their blog since then.

How far can one stop down with the Brevis and the fastest shutter speed?

When do you hope to have the "Part 2 fix" available for consumers?

As for your last paragraph: aint that the truth! The hard reality of optics is that things rarely get better by adding things in front of the primary imaging element. I know there's no such thing as "perfect," but the goal is to find something "perfect enough" at a reasonable price. One thing that keeps bringing me back to considering the Breivs is your reputation for service and that your in N. America. The Blade is also a contender on my short list but having to ship back to UK if there's a problem would be a bummer.

Thanks again
Bob
 
Stillmotion is a Canon sponsored studio :-)

As far as the rest, the best thing to do is search the footage section of our forum for the terms EX1 and Brevis. As far as shutterspeed and stopping down on the MP.2, it's 1/250s and f5.6. My comfort level with CFXL and the EX1 is in the 1/120s to 1/250s range. The microprocessor in our unit controls oscillation to a very defined movement and can be set "on the fly" fully rigged and connected to an HD monitor. If you do tune it for higher shutter, you'll likely want to crank it up a bit for use at 1/48s.

As far as part 2 of the kit, as soon as Ray and Patrick finish their torture tests we'll have a green light for production and would make that announcement by the end of this month. In order to make part 2 of the solution retrograde friendly our machine shop had to do what I though impossible..basically machine an optical element holder that is literally a piece of delicate art. It's retrograde friendly of course to every unit we've ever sold.
 
Thank you Dennis for chiming in, very cool! I have spoke with owners and tested in the field many adapters with exception to the Blade, with the "new EX1 fix" and i will agree no adapters are perfect with EX1 and if they are better with handling E2E or CA, they were weaker on Bokeh or film like texture.

REDROCK is definitely a lot closer with the M2E than before, it looked good at CINE GEAR and Blade's new fix looks good as well. But both companies admit it's not perfect and is better without flip. So it's a compromise between Bulky, flip, non flip, low light, Bokeh and then of course E2E and CA. EX1 is a problem child for all adapters, even some Letus owners have certain issues but i think Letus looks less filmic than the others in my opinion.

One thing is for sure, Cinevate makes great products and people love the Bokeh.
Cheers
 
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I'm happy to hear Dennis is improving the optical issues with the EX and the Brevis which I found to be inadequate unless the EX was stopped down perhaps to f4 or beyond. However that doesn't mean someone couldn't get great results with it they either were using it at higher f stops, or their style didn't demand edge to edge sharpness.

My preliminary tests with the Blade are very much improved (CA and edge to edge) even when wide open - perhaps they've nailed it but I need to test more. The Letus nailed the optical issues with the EX last year and is quite good. I don't know about the redrock as I think I've read positive and negative reports about the EX - but that's just off the top of my head.

Dennis, to really go top of the line on a monitor - add HDMI for the Canon mark 5D, add waveform at least and vectorscope if possible ( like the TV logic), make it as tolerant as possible of off-axis viewing ( a big problem) and make sure you have good color rendition - not too cold.

Lenny Levy
 
Lenny, we've got all of that and a lot more in terms of the feature set including HDSDI and full IO. We're being very quiet about the rest of it, but as a hint...our monitor will include a software application :-) Why, I won't say just yet.

Philip, you're absolutely correct in that no camera lens is perfect, nor are the related optics. We've invested over $10K in DSC labs charts and related equipment specifically so we could baseline bare cameras and identity their flaws before trying to make magic with our adapter. Add on the sins of many of the 35mm lenses out there and it becomes very difficult to sort out visual issues that may show up. The EX1 fix isn't really any magic...and every "fix" simply just gets the camera into a different zoom range. If you're paying $400 dollars for a special achromat...what you really should do is just stack on a +1 or +2 achromat and observer what you find. In our case, the stack solution will not work for various optical reasons. The decision was made to nail down the EX1 issues precisely and then target a fix that could be applied to any camera...not just one. So just as your optometrist provides a prescription for vision issues, we've done precisely the same for the EX1. Like glasses, our solution is interchangeable and completely customizable should you end up with a camera down the line with vision challenges at close distances.

Cheers
Dennis.
 
Cinevate's Dennis: ..."5. The MP.2 or MP.1 units now use a new motor that we have made specifically for us...and we provide a user replaceable spare with every unit. We're the only manufacturers of any adapter that do this. If anyone is using our MP.1 with the old motor, you just need to contact us for the replacement. For MP.2 owners, you all have the new motor..and a spare in your case :-) Based on recent repair stats, we're nearly perfect on this front."

We have been shooting the feature film STRICKEN using two Brevis units. We had a minor problem with the units' old motors. After contacting Cinevate they kindly and immediately helped us. The nice folks at Cinevate were absolutely wonderful to work with. I have personally replaced the vibration units on the two Brevis units and it was easy.

Those who have complained about the Brevis getting dusty just need to understand that removing 35mm lenses in any normal environment will introduce dust on any lens, and also on the Brevis glass surfaces. We keep a small compressor on set with a very small high velocity nozzle and use it to keep our Brevis glass surfaces and lenses squeaky clean.

The Brevis flip units have given us great shots. We have been very pleased with them.
 
Focus Problems with Brevis on Ex1

Focus Problems with Brevis on Ex1

So I just bought a Brevis35 adapter without a flip module , 2nd hand from a guy here in van-city, I tested the adapter to make sure it was working on his small chip handy-cam, and it was. I got my step down ring today, and rigged up the thing to my Ex1 and it failed to give me sharp focus, My question is, what is wrong with it? Do i need the flip module to shoot this adapter on my camera?

Thanks!
 
You will probably need a flip, but even then the Brevis achromat is not really optimized for the Ex-1 like some of the adapters so it will never have sharp corners when used at open f stops. This doesn't seem to bother some people who have still done great work with that set-up, so it depends on your needs. I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't work at all without a flip though I've never tried it - just a guess.
 
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