F3: HD35 MK2 adaptor review by SPARKY FILM

Sparky874

Sparky874

Well-known member
Dear all.

Here is a short video review we shot and edited today using the HD35 MK2 adapter on our Sony F3. I have always been very interested in this piece of kit, but there is hardly any information available about it, so I hired one for the day and took it out for a play. Hopefully this film might answer some questions you may have on it.

Best wishes, Mark
https://vimeo.com/81553815
 
Hi Sparky,

Thanks for the review. Helpful as I am interested the HDx35.

I did seem to notice softening towards the edge of the image. Not sure if that is the ENG lens or the adapter. Here is a screenshot and even though it is a jpeg with some pixel smearing I think you can see some of the softening...
 

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I've done B4 lenses on the AF101 and F3 and depending on the lens and adapter of choice it will get soft at the edges with some CA. It's a great tool thou if you can live with that.
 
Nice.

Now it could have done with a little more commentary/explainations.

This is an adapter you need a doubler engaged or not?

Also seeing the zoom range from a specific spot would be useful and also what sort of Fstop where you at.. may it fall apart wide open?

S
 
Thanks all. Sorry I only had the adaptor for a couple of hours and would have liked to cover more. You can pick them up at around £4k, but for those of use coming to this with ENG lenses sitting on the shelf, I think it is a good investment. Of course you do make some sacrifices with this lens/adaptor combination such as a loss of light, slight cropping and the picture at the very edges is a little soft, but I feel you can live with these factors in return for the flexibility and cost using this adaptor would save. Ideally you don't want to work right at the end of the zoom (like any lenes in this respect), that will soften the image, but if you work at around F8 I believe the picture is very solid. There is a tight shot of the lady's eye and it looks very sharp. I think it's a good investment. We cover a lot of sport and this would be ideal. We would use our primes etc for interviews and interior work.
 
morgan_moore said:
Nice.

Now it could have done with a little more commentary/explainations.

This is an adapter you need a doubler engaged or not?

Also seeing the zoom range from a specific spot would be useful and also what sort of Fstop where you at.. may it fall apart wide open?

S
Click to expand...

Sorry Morgan, valid points. I only had the adapter for a couple of hours and would have liked to have gone into a little more detail as you say. I think as long as you don't totally zoom in on the shot and keep it around the F8 region, you'll get a very acceptable image. Best wishes, Sparky
 
morgan_moore said:
Nice.

Now it could have done with a little more commentary/explainations.

This is an adapter you need a doubler engaged or not?

Also seeing the zoom range from a specific spot would be useful and also what sort of Fstop where you at.. may it fall apart wide open?

S
Click to expand...

Morgan, I am going to amend the edit, have found a clip of me zoom, so will add this to illustrate the range...
 
You probably get what im interested in - the ability to do a 'three point' sequence..

wide, mid, CU, with no lens swaps - this is the appeal of a solution like this.

is this the 'doubler only' version (mtf?) or the expensive 'no doubler' version (Abel?)

F8? Id like to see it wide open - a rough calc says wide open is the same as F4 on a 'full frame' or 2.8 on S35? for DOF

The image looks good


S
 
Hi very nice images, thanks for the review. Is that a Canon J21x7.8 SD lens? I was up in NYC last week looking at cameras and tried out the Abel adapter with a Canon HJ 14x4.3 lens on an F5. The adapter optically covers the full frame sensor, there is about a 2.5 stop light loss but the F5 is a 2000 ISO camera. The adapter expans the image 2.2 times so a 4.3mm wide angle lens looks like a 10mm 35 lens. I used the Abel adapter under room light in the store and the images looked fine, the lens adapter will never look like a Cabrio but it works for news and doco work. I think the new Sony LA-FZB1 B4 mount to FZ adapter is worth a look. If your only looking for an adapter that will fit your Sony FZ mount, (shorter profile without the PL adapter) want total lens control by the camera, auto iris, zoom control, lens info and chromatic aberration compensation you should take a look at this new lens.

I think (IMHO) a 2/3 HD lens would be a better choice for use with these adapters, sharper corners?

I should also add that the new Sony adapter only works electronically with the F55/F5 cameras, optically it will work with the F3.
 
I added a couple of extra bits to the review to answer some of the feedback! How about that for listening!
 
scocklin said:
Hi very nice images, thanks for the review. Is that a Canon J21x7.8 SD lens? I was up in NYC last week looking at cameras and tried out the Abel adapter with a Canon HJ 14x4.3 lens on an F5. The adapter optically covers the full frame sensor, there is about a 2.5 stop light loss but the F5 is a 2000 ISO camera. The adapter expans the image 2.2 times so a 4.3mm wide angle lens looks like a 10mm 35 lens. I used the Abel adapter under room light in the store and the images looked fine, the lens adapter will never look like a Cabrio but it works for news and doco work. I think the new Sony LA-FZB1 B4 mount to FZ adapter is worth a look. If your only looking for an adapter that will fit your Sony FZ mount, (shorter profile without the PL adapter) want total lens control by the camera, auto iris, zoom control, lens info and chromatic aberration compensation you should take a look at this new lens.

I think (IMHO) a 2/3 HD lens would be a better choice for use with these adapters, sharper corners?

I should also add that the new Sony adapter only works electronically with the F55/F5 cameras, optically it will work with the F3.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that Stephen, very interesting. It would be really interesting to try the Sony adapter, is it out yet? I have used both HD and SD eng lenses on our PDW-800 and I have to say that I haven't noticed any difference personally. I have spoken to numerous cameraman over the years who agree with me. So I am not convinced the edges would be much sharper if I used an HD lens but who knows. I think if you shoot at around F8 and not fully zoomed in the results would be fine. I have tried it in low light and it really struggles naturally, but I only see this as an option to help cover outdoor events. Sparky
 
Hi Stephen, the lens is 1.9 wide open - but I think I was having to add 12db of gain to get a usuable picture. I would have liked to had the adapter for a little longer and even tried it on F35. I think once you became familiar with its limitations, you could produce some really nice shots. I am thinking about buying one, as it would suddenly increase the options of the F3. For me its more about being able to do that, and shoot in SLOG and get those wonderful skins tones/ maintain highlights than trying to achieve a very shallow dept of field.
 
Sparky874 said:
Thanks for that Stephen, very interesting. It would be really interesting to try the Sony adapter, is it out yet? I have used both HD and SD eng lenses on our PDW-800 and I have to say that I haven't noticed any difference personally. I have spoken to numerous cameraman over the years who agree with me. So I am not convinced the edges would be much sharper if I used an HD lens but who knows. I think if you shoot at around F8 and not fully zoomed in the results would be fine. I have tried it in low light and it really struggles naturally, but I only see this as an option to help cover outdoor events. Sparky
Click to expand...

I've read through the forms on HD vs SD glass, some say good glass is good glass opinions are varied. As I said "IMHO" I believe you have sharper edges with HD glass. I have not done any test with varied HD and SD lenses. If there are actual test with resolution charts out there I'd love to see them. Yes the Sony adapter is out, list price is $6K.
 
I used to be the product guy at AbelCine for the HDx35.

It magnifies the focal length 2.7x with a 2.5 stop light loss. So a 10mm T2 lens becomes a 27mm T4-5.6 lens. Note that ENG video zooms are labelled in f-stops not T-stops, so an f1.9 is probably about a T2.2.

The HDx35 introduces little to no softening or distortion to the image. The performance of the original lens defines the optical performance of the lens+adapter.

No doubler is necessary wit the HDx35 as all of the proper magnification is built in.

The Mark II version of the HDx35 covers the Canon C100/300/500 cameras, which have a slightly larger sensor than Super-35. It will also cover RED EPIC 5K.

HD lenses are invariably better optical devices than SD lenses. On occasion there can be a very nice SD lens, but the HD lenses are almost certain to be of better resolving power, higher contrast, lower chromatic aberration, corner to corner brightness and sharpness, etc.
 
Hello Mitch, thanks for chipping in and thanks for sharing some of the exact effects the HD35 has on the lens. Would you be able to answer one question for me please? Is there a lead that I can get to use with the HD35 mk2, using my Canon B4 zoom lenses, so I can power the lenses using a p tap cable to the v-lok battery on my set up? I think this is a cable that the lens servo cable directly attaches to as it can no longer attach to the camera body. Thanks!
 
Sparky874 said:
Hello Mitch, thanks for chipping in and thanks for sharing some of the exact effects the HD35 has on the lens. Would you be able to answer one question for me please? Is there a lead that I can get to use with the HD35 mk2, using my Canon B4 zoom lenses, so I can power the lenses using a p tap cable to the v-lok battery on my set up? I think this is a cable that the lens servo cable directly attaches to as it can no longer attach to the camera body. Thanks!
Click to expand...
Yes, AbelCine makes this cable. Here's their Sales webpage for it, which has a lot of related info. The cables aren't listed, but there is a Contact Sales tab you can click on and they can help you out.
http://www.abelcine.com/store/HDx35-Mark-II-B4-PL-Optical-Adapter/

There is also another option. That cable will only provide power to run the zoom servo. But you don't get a record trigger. There's no input on the camera for that except in the lens mount. Sony has released a replacement PL mount adapter, which is built to the same quality as the mounts on the F5 & F55, better than the plastic-y one shipped with the F3. What's special about this mount is that there is a Hirose-12 port on the side, so you can plug your B4 lens directly into it. This mount adapter, along with the HDx35, allows you to use your B4 lens on the F3 and retain both the power zoom as well as record trigger. Used on the F5 & F55 it also enables the iris control and auto-iris, but I don't believe that functionality translates to the F3.
 
Nice review - agree with you that it's tricky to find any good info on this. I tested it myself on Epic and was surprised how good it was.
Wanted to say, as Mitch sort of did, that it's slightly misleading to say that it doesn't require the doubler to be engaged and therefore will give superior results - the only reason it doesn't need the doubler engaged is because it is one! So you ARE using a doubler (actually a 2.6x converter) but probably get better quality because other systems use a 1.3x converter AND the lens' 2x converters stacked.
Steve
 
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