Contrasting btwn SG Blade & Letus Elite

Danny Salazar

Danny Salazar

Active member
What is the difference between the SG Blade & the Letus Elite? Does the SG Blade have the option to adjust back focus just as the Letus Elite? Both produce great images but I want to see what everybody else thinks. It might help me with a future purchase of either or.
 
The main difference is that the Letus Elite uses a vibrating GG and the SGBlade uses a spinning GG. Along with that comes the typical limitations of the vibrating GG and the flexibility of a spinning GG. The SGBlade does have colimation (back focus) adjustment. It also has changeble GG elements so that you can choose between more light efficiency or more film like bokeh. There are other differences as well. Hope that helps.
 
As said, the biggest difference is that with the blade, you are free to stop down passed F5.6 without seeing the GG and use shutter speeds faster than 1/120th. I can't really judge now due to the new achromat that wayne is using, but i have seen some amazing improvements compared to the first gen blades.

Until i see more footage, what i know now is that nothing beats the edge to edge of the letus as well as the lack of vignetting. It also loses approximately .3 stops less light.
 
Nice. Another question tho....the problem of not having the ability to adjust your back focus, is this very common? Has the SGBlade had issues with that? Is it important to have that option?
 
What you call back focus, is what adapter makers call collimation. The blade has that adjustment and it pretty simple. I had to adjust mine once when I first got it. The Letus Elite also has the adjustment. The Letus Extreme can be adjusted, but it's not as easy.

I believe most of the major brands of adapters have that adjustment. Its pretty common to need to make that adjustment since not all lenses are created equal. So is it important? I would have to say yes.
 
Does the Letus have an XY adjustment? I have not used the Letus properly, but the Blade is a nice bit of engineering. Someone posted some photos of the inside of a Letus once, and it was held together with blobs of hotmelt. The Blade is much more solid, and the flip is better. The new achromat fixes edge to edge and CA, and is really worth the money.

In my opinion, I wouldn't even be asking this question, I would just have got the blade...

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Hi

I have both the Elite and the Blade and I can say from a construction standpoint the blade is way better built. I have replaced my elite's acromat twice because it came unglued from the retaining ring! Yes it is glued in with epoxy, the blade uses a threaded insert like other lenses. Also I have had the GGlass come off as it is only hot melted on. Paint specs have been another problem on the prism.

That said, I like the elite's back focus adjustment better as it requires no tools and is well thought out. The letus does have a slightly less light loss. The blade offers X-Y position and a wider field of view with the lenses about 30% more area as you dont have to zoom in as far. I have also had an adaptor ring made that increases the edge to edge focus to nearly that as the letus. And as mentioned the blade doesnt have the issues of the vibrating glass.

So far 5 clients of mine have used both adaptors and favor the blade.

Hope this helps

Chuck
 
Chuck , what camera are you using the Blade on and what kind of special adapter ring improved your focus.

Lenny Levy
 
Lenny

The ring mod is for the ex1/3 it is 5mm longer than the red ring provided. It improved the edge to egde focus near that of the elite.

Chuck
 
I'm still not clear what you did. Are you using this with an EX-1 or Ex-3 and if so is this a different ring that is also made by Wayne or what? Do you ahve Wayne's newest achromat.
I'm expecting my Blade any day now so I'm hoping it has whatever you're talking about.

Lenny
 
Lenny

I took a letus 72mm threaded ring and had it machined to fit the blade. Instead of using the supplied red ring I slip this on instead to either my ex1 or ex3.

When the new acromat arrives this may be a moot exercise however but for now it does offer an improvement.

Chuck
 
I have some 72mm spacer rings ( local camera store has dozens of scratched filters for a couple of bucks, so I just hammered out the glass. Would this do the same thing? How much further away does it place the Blade.

I' should get my blade any day and I will test it.
 
Lenny

As I recall you need to add 5mm-6mm to the existing ring. Since your getting the latest release you may not need to do anything.

Chuck
 
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