Brevis35 test same scene, different lenses on HVX

getken

getken

Well-known member
Recently acquired a Brevis35 (Rev1) and spent some time yesterday playing with it. It's a cool tool. I did some work outside and then set up this dolly shot inside to see how it would handle a low light situation. I did find that even after my intial outdoor tests (I'll maybe post some of that later) I was still not zooming in enough on the GG and if you look closely at the right hand side of the frame you'll see a little bit of fluttering. It is the GG moving. It gives it a very filmic look but I wasn't trying to do that and I actually ruined a lot of shots from the outdoors test because of it.

I used Nikon lenses and have labeled on the clip which shot is which lens. The 50mm appears to vignette although I couldn't see that effect as I was recording (720pn 24p). The 85mm strobes a little on the dolly move (move was too fast for tight shot). I awaiting an adapter for canon lenses. I have a very nice set of FDs and look forward to seeing how they perform.

For a low light situation I think the camera looks very good and the lenses worked pretty well.

http://homepage.mac.com/getken/hdtest/iMovieTheater47.html

I've also posted a couple of shots of the setup:
 

Attachments

  • dolly1.jpg
    dolly1.jpg
    156 KB · Views: 0
  • dolly2.jpg
    dolly2.jpg
    160.5 KB · Views: 0
Nice test. That 17mm lens had some serious distortion on it, huh? Seems like most of the adapter shots had some vignetting to it (except the 85mm).

You can really see the light loss comparing the shots with the adapter and without. I was under the impression the brevis had very little light loss. Or is that the improved Rev2?

About how many stops would you say you lost in your tests? And how noisy was the vibrating ground glass? Is it something you think a boom mic would pic up?

cheers-

PS: fantastic dolly setup. Is it DIY? Or did you purchase it? Would love some more info on it.
 
Last edited:
Nice shots and nice mood!
The distortion only bothered me with the 17mm...
And yeah, nice setup, what monitor and dolly do you use?
 
Great setup. What f-stop, Nikon and the HVX?

Indie Dolly, smooth with the wheels contacting from 3 angles?

I would like to swap out the wheels on my Manfrotto 3067 and make a dolly with some pipe. Time to rip my Alien Workshop skateboards apart, and wrap my head in aluminium foil. :D
 
Ken,

Nice looking set up. Were you wide open for the Brevis shots? I don't know which items you were focusing on but the 50 and 85 seemed a little soft to me. With the increase DOF keepeing all the items in focus is tough, but the HVX stock seems sharper on all items especially the polar selter bottle.

Last question bc I have been checking out flor lighting, Is that a kino you are using and if so, is it daylight balanced?

thanks for sharing
Jim
 
Last edited:
My wife just loves it when I set up the Kinos and track in the kitchen too. I always try to start bout 4 in the afternoon. Funny she always asks me about take-out about 5 whenever I do this...

Great setup.
--

Rob
 
Everything was shot wide open.
The 17mm is an F 2.8. I thought it looked soft and I couldn't seem to focus it any better. Definitely the toughest lens to get a sharp focus on of the lenses I used. It's supposed to have that serious distorted look and can be used for some cool effects.
The 28mm is an F 2. There is very minor distortion to it. The focus plane is about where the tomato is... for all the lenses.
The 50mm is an F 1.4. I don't know why this particular lens vignetted so much. I may have just needed to be zoomed in a bit more on the ground glass. That was the case with all but the 85mm.
The 85mm is an F 1.8. I think this lens looked the best of all of them.
Critical focusing is really tricky and somewhat difficult with these 35mm adapters. Currently I do not have an HD monitor...and don't expect to get one soon as they are so pricey. I am using a 7 inch Panasonic LCD SD monitor, not for focus but for orientation only.
I think the light loss with the Brevis was no more than 1 to 1.5 stops. You can really see it with the slower lens like the 17mm. But this scene was really pretty dark. I think the Brevis performed very well.
The light sources were a Kino Flo Diva, lamped to 3200K (yes, it can be lamped to 5600K). It was dimmed to about 1/3 of its output. Overhead were 3 60W spots. The hanging lamp in the background is only 40W. So overall, not a lot of light.
The dolly is an Indie Dolly, a relatively inexpensive dolly (I saw it at NAB this year) that is extremely well built and pretty versatile.
The Brevis does make a little bit of a buzz when operating but not enough to be an issue if the mic is about a foot away from the camera. The camera mic will pick it up...but if booming or using wireless you will not hear it.
You can really see a marked difference when the camera is shot clean. Even with such low light, so much of the picture is in focus. I had the onboard lens set at about 50mm for the clean shot. Look at the difference between the 50mm on the Brevis and the camera alone. Huge DOP difference. Amazing!
 
Great test footage. About focusing, how do you focus with one of those adaptors? Do you use a tape measure and use the lens barrel markings? If so, where do you measure from (hypothetical film plane)?
 
I didn't use a tape to measure focus. I was using the focus assist on the camera.
The attachment holding the monitor is an Isaeli Arm. You can get them from B&H or Film Tools. I have no idea why it is called an Isaeli Arm but it is a very nice accesory.
 
your 17 is distorting too much. i have a 100$ cheapo one that doesnt distort that much. look into an other lens that is of higher quality.
 
In regards to focus, would it be of any use to get a small MAG light with a removable cap and use that to focus? I do that with 16mm all the time. Just place the pin light next to your subject and focus until there is no star refraction on the light. A little harder with wide primes, since the light may be far away, but far away and wide is usually in focus!
 
I have read about the Nikon 50mm f1.4: "[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]f/1.4: Spherical aberration lowers contrast. A lot of coma in the corners making them quite soft. Falloff. [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Pass on this lens in favor of the less expensive and distortion-free 50mm f/1.8." [/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Perhaps just shoot the 50mm at f2 and pump more light from the kino, replace domestic lights to say 100w? [/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I would like to see a few full size individual frames, I personally found the footage a little difficult to assess (size/resolution). I am not meaning to be critical. Thanks
[/FONT]
 
I'm not seeing any line either on the top or bottom. Sorry but I don't know what that might be!
I guess the distortion is a matter of taste. I think there are definitely ways to use a fisheye look like that.
I like the idea of a small maglight for focus. Thanks for the tip.
Interesting read about the Nikon F 1.4. I'll try using it stopped down a bit and see if that makes a difference. I'm looking forward to getting the Canon adapter to try the other lenses I have! I pulled stills from the cut I made but I'm doing it through FCP (of which I am a complete novice) and don't really know what the automatic settings are for the size and resolution. They were too big for this site to upload so I put them through iphoto and emailed them to myself and was able to upload those. Hope they help in discerning anything!
 

Attachments

  • 17mm still.jpg
    17mm still.jpg
    71.3 KB · Views: 0
  • 28mm still.jpg
    28mm still.jpg
    73.5 KB · Views: 0
  • 50mm still.jpg
    50mm still.jpg
    74.3 KB · Views: 0
  • 85mm still.jpg
    85mm still.jpg
    74.8 KB · Views: 0
  • hvxclean still.jpg
    hvxclean still.jpg
    91.3 KB · Views: 0
Thanks for posting the frames. I can see more detail now, thanks. I am a few weeks away from testing all my stuff, and also new to Vegas, so I will take a while to get it figured out myself.

I am hoping DVC Rack will provide me with the monitoring detail required, especially when I fire up the Brevis. :)
 
Nice test. Thanks for showing. Still on the fence about the adapters. On the thumbnails.. they look really soft compared to the stock HVX... I know in context... they look really nice and cinematic... but wondering if it's a worthy compromise...?
 
I think you have to take into consideration the amount of light I was working with. In such low light levels things are going to look soft and add to that the really shallow DOF. The HVX clean frame shows almost everything in focus..as it should. The lighting hasn't changed and the mood is still the same. The only thing different is the DOF. In the frame grabs the 50mm is sitting on top of the HVX clean frame so it really gives a pretty good look at the difference. I'll reiterate that I wasn't happy with the look of the 50mm. It has some serious vignetting going on so that also is affecting the look. But the plane of focus is pretty obvious and that is the center of the counter. In the low light both the foreground and the background fall off. That's exactly what it's supposed to do.
 
getken,

Take a closer look on your still images. You should see the upper line more clear. It is all over the place, on your top of the image. After you answered negative I thought is something my player does but I can see it in your stills also, so its there. I have witnessed the same line in other Brevis test footage before but again wasnt sure if it was the footage or a player incopatibility. I wonder what is the cause of this. Do you see it now ? If not sure, try the last image, it goes all the way throught the top of the paper bag.

Andreas
 
I see what you are talking about now but it is definitely not the Brevis as that last shot is the camera clean without the adapter even attached. I never noticed it before and will check other footage I have for it but honestly we need an engineer to explain what that is. Any engineers out there see it?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top