Brevis TROUBLE

[Lenilenapi]

David,

My zoom range is similar on all three adapters between 70- 75. My Letus doesn't center well on my HVX so I have to zoom in more than if it centered, but exposure doesn't change during the 65 - 72 move anyway.

 

[DavidChia]

Good to hear that...

But on the XHA1 , the range changes from F1.6 after Z67. So I'll like to hear from the other XHA1 user of the Extreme

 

[Barry_Green]

Barry,
Have you personally compared all 4 major adapters against one another?

I have used the SG Pro, Extreme, L35FE, M2, mini35, G35, and MovieTube LT. Haven't yet used the Brevis, but if you re-read my statement I said that it was the combination of image quality, build quality, and it being right-side-up that made it the best on the market. And that was an opinion, based on Pappas asking for my opinion.

If not I would recommend being very careful saying unequivocally that the Extreme , or any one of these is clearly the best of these adapters on the market.

You are wise to point it out, and perhaps I should have clarified, so the clarification is this: based on my experience with all the adapters I've used, and on my complete lack of tolerance for upside-down imagery on a professional shoot (that I've ranted about before), the Extreme is in my opinion the best adapter on the market. It offers the best combination of light efficiency, edge-to-edge sharpness, full-frame viewing, overall clarity, fixes the fixed-grain issue, has superb lens mount flexibility, and provides right-side-up imagery. But more than anything my insistence is on right-side-up imagery. If someone's priorities vary, and they really don't mind upside-down imagery, then they may rank the adapters differently.

When the flip module is on the market I'd become much more interested in testing the Brevis against the Extreme. Until then I'm just not interested because it's upside-down, and I find the upside-down-ness of upside-down adapters to be such a hindrance to professional work that it seriously lowers my desire to work with those products. They would have to be extraordinarily superior to a right-side-up adapter in order to overcome that upside-down characteristic, and no upside-down adapter has shown me any significant superiority at all over the Extreme, so I rank the Extreme above them. Plus its build quality is solid and its price is competitive.

Your mileage may vary. I was giving an opinion based on my own priorities, and as I've made it very clear in other postings, I value right-side-upness very highly whereas others may not value it as much. In fact, it was the upside-downness that kept me from buying any adapter, and I only bought my first adapter (the L35FE) specifically because it was right-side-up and it was half the cost of the others, so I felt it made a good combination. The Extreme is vastly superior to the L35FE.

I will post my results when I'm finished but preliminary findings are no clear winner. All have pros and cons.

They all should have, and it is up to each user to rank those pros and cons based on their own priorities. My priorities place the flip, even illumination, and overall sharpness at the top.

The Letus is a very nice unit and I LOVE the flip more than I expected, but in my testing (HVX only) it is significantly slower than a Brevis by at least a stop.

Hard to understand how; the Extreme loses 1/2 stop of light, how could it be one full stop slower than a competitor? Have you checked edge-to-edge illumination? Make sure you're getting an even field; if there's a concentrated hotspot that will unduly make one look "brighter" than the other. Very curious.

With Brevis and SGPro ready to release flip units very soon, I'd say its an open horse race and they all make fine units.

I'm very much looking forward to that horse race, and don't forget that Redrock is also promising a flip module. When they're all right-side-up, they all move much higher up on my radar screen.

All of these guys have done us a big favor . They work their butts off trying to improve these units and and we owe them all a big thank you.

Absolutely -- and they all have major fans, which is a testament to their customer service as well.

Maybe they'll have a relay system for 2/3" available soon as well.

Can't wait for that.

 

[Dennis Wood]

Reem, the XH-A1 with our flip module definitely performs better than the XH-A1 with the non-flip Brevis. In fact, the CA from the bare XH-A1 in our tests is actually reduced considerably by using the flip system. I could only guess why, but I believe the stock lens is seeing a narrower angle of view with the flip module and related optics.

Our move to a flipped adapter has been over a year in the making and based on the many user requests we've had, Barry is not alone in his desire for a corrected image Many of these technical challenges result in improvements along the way, with the flip module and our latest CF1e imaging element ranking high in that category. Making them modular is keeping our old customers very happy too.

 

[reem12]

thanks for clarifying that dennis,and thanks for thinking of the end users as well as the letus brothers for being the only 2 adapter companies less then $2000 offering the flip option to indie filmakers.as a matter of fact,i think it's a little disheartning for other companies to be charging as much as they are and will not update there adapters to answer the call of what the indi consumer needs,and thats more light and an upright image.thanks again dennis and letus,i'm sure other companies will listne to us when their sales begin to drop.

 

[Lenilenapi]

Barry, Thanks for clarifying your earlier statement.

I did some tests the other day and as soon as my partner who wrote the numbers down sends me an email with our results, I'll post them.
I find it confusing as well when different people seem to get different results when evaluating these adapters and can only chalk it up to the many variables involved. I definitely lost more than 1/2 stop with the Extreme, though it was off center on my HVX and I had to zoom in a bit more to fill the frame. However that didn't seem to account for the difference. I think we were very careful about being accurate.

For myself an upright image has never been the most important issue. I have a Marshall mounted right on my camera so its been easy for me to accomodate the flipped monitor. Likewise my clients have not been very upset about the flipped image though they definitely would prefer to be done with it. I have much more trouble convincing a client to go with the P2 system in the first place. The flip is nothing after that.

More important for me in practical work has been speed and the quality of the image - i.e how low is the DOF and is the Bokeh pleasing? There were shoots I could not do with a Redrock for example because it required too much light and the lighting budget simply wasn't there. In some cases the DOF was actually too low. Some clients and situations warrent extremely low DOF for others it can be too much.

With a flip clearly on the horizon for both the Brevis and the SGPro I wanted to look at how they compare in other areas. Of course put the flip on those and they will start to look different as well.

Frankly I think I might like to end up with 2 (both flipped though). One with more DOF and faster and one with a denser screen thus lower DOF and perhaps prettier Bokeh.

- Lenny Levy