Brevis or Red rock?

M

misha

New member
Hey All,

I'm new to the forum but have been reading here for a while. I'm trying to decide which adapter to go with for my HVX200, the brevis35 or the M2?

With the M2,
I'm not sure if i should go with the "indie complete package" or just get a standard "m2 HD" bundle.

I'd prefer to keep my EOS (EF) lenses as I own 4-5 of them now, but can get some FD lenses if necessary.

All advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance and a happy new year :thumbsup:
 
You should definitely consider the Letus Extreme and SGPro as well. For myself, I'll almost certainly be ordering a LEX in the very near future.

I can't speak from personal experience except as an actor, but I think unitil RedRock updates the M2 with some (widely discussed) much needed improvements to the light loss, sharpness and consistency issues, I'd look elsewhere.
 
i've looked into the letus after making this post and it seems really great, plus they claim the image is upright which is always great. only downside is the 3-4 weeks for delivery.
 
All depends on what you want to do. Each adapter has strengths, and some do things the others don't. Letus is right-side-up; you need add-on flip modules for the others. SG Pro and M2 are spinners whereas the Brevis and Letus are vibrating. Brevis has interchangeable screens. My vote for the best all-around package is the Letus Extreme, but they also have the Economy which is far less expensive than the others (when the others are configured for rightside-up). If you care about rightside-up, the Letus is much less expensive and delivers great images, it's really in a class of its own; if you don't care about rightside-up, if other factors (like extremely light weight or spinning ground glass) are more important to you, look closely at what the others offer.
 
Barry_Green said:
All depends on what you want to do. Each adapter has strengths, and some do things the others don't. Letus is right-side-up; you need add-on flip modules for the others. SG Pro and M2 are spinners whereas the Brevis and Letus are vibrating. Brevis has interchangeable screens. My vote for the best all-around package is the Letus Extreme, but they also have the Economy which is far less expensive than the others (when the others are configured for rightside-up). If you care about rightside-up, the Letus is much less expensive and delivers great images, it's really in a class of its own; if you don't care about rightside-up, if other factors (like extremely light weight or spinning ground glass) are more important to you, look closely at what the others offer.
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Thanks for the detailed explanation, being right side up is important to me, though i'm not sure of the difference in vibrating versus spinning ground glass. i'm very new to 35mm adapters, but I am certain that I want to use one. truth be told, user friendliness is important. As it stands now, i'm leaning towards the letus extreme, just dont like the 3-4week lead time.
 
To be fair - while the other adapters may be more expensive once you add in a flip module, the SGPro does come with its own rails, which can make a big difference if you don't already have rails.

Otherwise you need to budget in a few hundred to add rails to your Letus or Brevis setup.

That said - I had the chance to use a Letus recently and was pretty impressed with the build quality as well as the image.
I would highly recommend looking around in your area to see if you can find someone with any of these adapters - nothing beats being able to see and use them first hand.
 
The Sgpro won my vote, thats why I just bought one, I like to have the ability to stop down completely, hard mount out of the box, use higher shutter speeds, and to have a good/non-altered images produced. no other adapter can offer those.
 
Luis Caffesse said:
To be fair - while the other adapters may be more expensive once you add in a flip module, the SGPro does come with its own rails, which can make a big difference if you don't already have rails.

Otherwise you need to budget in a few hundred to add rails to your Letus or Brevis setup.

That said - I had the chance to use a Letus recently and was pretty impressed with the build quality as well as the image.
I would highly recommend looking around in your area to see if you can find someone with any of these adapters - nothing beats being able to see and use them first hand.
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i've accounted for the rails and what not, i guess due to the holidays the letus extreme is discounted right now, and even with the rails seems like a pretty good deal. I'm going to order that with the EOS and FD mounts. really hoping to be able to successfully use my canon EF glass, but I've been told that the results are less than desired with those lenses
 
misha said:
really hoping to be able to successfully use my canon EF glass, but I've been told that the results are less than desired with those lenses
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The results are fine. This was shot with EF lenses on a Letus Extreme.

The workflow is tough. The EF lenses don't allow you to manually control the aperture. You have to have your still camera (with DOF preview) to change the SLR lens aperture.

You will feel really informed if you read the Stickies at the top of the 35mm Adapter section. They are really detailed and explain the lenses and the differences between rotating and vibrating ground glass.
 
Michael Friedman said:
The results are fine. This was shot with EF lenses on a Letus Extreme.

The workflow is tough. The EF lenses don't allow you to manually control the aperture. You have to have your still camera (with DOF preview) to change the SLR lens aperture.

You will feel really informed if you read the Stickies at the top of the 35mm Adapter section. They are really detailed and explain the lenses and the differences between rotating and vibrating ground glass.
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that looks really great, the video quality is just as good as the slr quality. it really took me a minute to figure out which was which.

Again thanks to all for the suggestions and quick responses. you guys really made this experience MUCH easier for me. being that this isn't an "impulse buy", i really hate spending large amounts of $$ w/o knowing which is the best product for the money.
 
misha said:
i really hate spending large amounts of $$ w/o knowing which is the best product for the money.
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Well, it's not so easy as that though. There's a best product for your purpose, but not one overall "best product", even "best product for the money" because if it doesn't do the job you need, it's not worth any money, right?

The Adapter Wars are confusing; the great thing is that most all the manufacturers have really upped their game and the top three (Letus, Brevis, SG Pro) all seem to be extremely competitive with each other as far as ultimate image quality goes, and the non-flipping guys are introducing flip modules too.
 
Barry_Green said:
Well, it's not so easy as that though. There's a best product for your purpose, but not one overall "best product", even "best product for the money" because if it doesn't do the job you need, it's not worth any money, right?

The Adapter Wars are confusing; the great thing is that most all the manufacturers have really upped their game and the top three (Letus, Brevis, SG Pro) all seem to be extremely competitive with each other as far as ultimate image quality goes, and the non-flipping guys are introducing flip modules too.
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You're absolutely right in that respect. i've pretty much settled on the letus 35 extreme, will post my experiences with it once i get it :thumbsup:

1 other question i had was regarding the rod system, if i'm using it with an HVX200, is it safe to assume that i'm better off going with the 45cm versus the 30?
 
until red rock updates stay away unless you want heart aches.i've used the letus ex and it's the best solution out there right now in terms of low cost adapters,possibly better then the overpriced mini35.
 
Being that you posted "Brevis vs M2" I'll chime in with another biased opinion of what we offer:

Cinevate now has flipped or non-flipped bundles and if you were using the Brevis in its flipped mode, you'd never know it was an "add on" part. In fact, the modularity of the system has been popular with our customers who want to have the latest/greatest combination without buying a new unit.

Our entire 35mm lens mount collection offers tool-less microadjustment for perfect collimation adjustment in a few minutes...including our PL and OCT19 cine mounts.

Oscillation is 100% tunable in our system.

The Brevis itself is the only adapter out there that can go from full frame performance (with even slow zoom lenses) on a little HV20, to an HVX200 by swapping one of our interchangeable elements in. This flexability is also hugely popular with our customers. Those customers will be very thrilled that the results of our imaging R&D program can be simply dropped in to their existing units. Bokeh lovers stay tuned!

The Brevis/flip is nearly 1 lb lighter than the Letus, using carbon fibre, and carefully optimized CNC aluminum parts. With our solid carbon rails system...even lighter relatively. With our new quick release mount (shipping this week), you can have your entire rig off the rails in about 10 seconds :-)

End of biased pitch ... and Happy New Year :-)
 
also ,does anyone know if red rock offers phone support now?thats another thing you may want to look at.i know letus ,and i'm not sure but believe i heard that dennis is or will be offering phone support.this is huge in my eyes.there is no excuse for any company with a big name and has been around the longest to not offer over the phone tech support.for me that was major ,as if i'm on a job and having trouble i can't afford for you to email me the next day or so for a product i've spent over $1000 for.don't no where all the rest of the adapter makers are at with this but this should be customary now.
 
Service has been a major area of growth for us, and something we've invested in improving. Not only do we have a published phone number, but the guy answering it (Hubert Den Draak) has 25 plus years in the film/animation business, speaks four languages...and is a great guy to boot. Our new location includes a small studio that is dedicated to providing live video/voice support using SKYPE, MSN and H263/264 compliant video conferencing. We're trying :-)
 
I have a Redrock and a friend of mine has a Brevis, both on HVXs. I prefer my Redrock as I think it produces a slightly better image and it's built like a tank. In defence of the Brevis, my friend only has one medium grade Nikkor lens on it and has not spent as much time tuning it as I have my Redrock.

I also am the type of person who will build and modify on what I have. The boxy Redrock construction is actially a benefit to this as it has allowed me to make some easy changes, like mounting a Birger ef-232 to it. (www.birger.com). If you want to shoot Canon lenses, the Redrock / Birger combo will be the best way to do it.

Bob
 
Bob Gruen said:
, like mounting a Birger ef-232 to it. (www.birger.com). If you want to shoot Canon lenses, the Redrock / Birger combo will be the best way to do it.

Bob
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Am I reading something wrong or is that thing a grand? And you need to carry a computer with you.. Why not just bring your SLR and change aperture using the DOF preview trick? I am not criticizing your method, I am just curious about the advantages it offers.
 
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