This "which is the best 35mm adapter" is far from educating anyone.
This is long, but I had 20 minutes to kill and maybe it will help some of you.
I own the Redrock M2, Brevis, SGPro and Letus. I listed them in the order of purchase. The Letus just arrived 5 days ago and I've been testing it every day since, with every LOMO, Nikon and Zeiss lens I own in every light situation, indoors and outdoors. I must say the ONLY reason I purchased the Letus was because they seem to be in the lead for a 2/3 relay. (to use for 2/3 chip cameras, e.g. HPX500).
Let me just say you can't go wrong with any of these adapters. BUT, depending on what you want to use it for, you could possibly be asking the adapter to do something it can't do well at all.
Brevis and Letus;
The Brevis and Letus use the vibrating cinescreen. If you plan on bright sunny outdoor shooting you WILL see the grain on the cinescreen more as you stop down and notice even more so when you move the camera, pan, tilts. I was on the beach yesterday in FL with the Letus for 5 hours on a very very bright day. With all my filters in hand, maintaining blowouts was difficult if not impossible while still staying in the safe zone for not seeing the vibrating cinescreen. Again, this was on a bright, blue skies, white sand beach. I noticed this with the Brevis as well, whether its using their CF1, 2, etc. The CF1 or CF2 on the Brevis and cinescreen on the Letus appears "to me" to be in the same ballpark fas as grade, density and surface.
I will say that I notice that the Letus and Brevis seem a bit sharper than the SGPro and Redrock M2.
Why?? (drum roll) Because of what I say above on the cinescreen that they use. Its not as dense, thick or diffused, "roughed up" or whatever you want to call it, as it is with the cinescreen in the SG and M2. The Letus and Brevis offer a more fine cinescreen so YES, it will be slighlty sharper and faster than the SG and M2. (sorry if I'm sounding redundant here).
But because it is a more fine cinescreen the light will pass through them quicker, thus, making them faster as well. But the drawback is handling blowouts and being prepared on how much you can stop down. 5.6 seems to be the threshold for me, and even so, I still can see the vibrating cinescreen when I move the camera or when I actually look for it. Open up the aperture and it won't be as noticable or you will not even see it, the cinescreen, but as you open, on a bright day the zebras will rumble across the plains.
Vibrating cinescreens can not move as fast as the rotating cinescreens. Where vibrating just stays in place and shakes the rotating ones is like trying to find the white raised lettering on a tire as it moves down the highway.
The rotating adapters, SGPro and M2.
The Redrock M2;
The M2 was my first adapter and it did require a lot of tweaking on my part for acheiving edge to edge sharpness and its still not perfect. It uses a beefier motor to spin the cinescreen than that of the SGPro as well, not saying this is a plus or minus, just that it seems to spin faster. As far as the beauty of the image it captures, the M2 is the winner in my book against all the others. I mean it just looks gorgeous, hence, maybe, with less edge sharpness. You can shoot f16 no problem with seeing the cinescreen, it handles blowouts better than the others (because it does it will be the slowest, light wise of the bunch). It is using a thicker, more dense, maybe even some color, cinescreen than the others, the light won't pass thru as fast, see the trade off?? With my Redrock, I had to keep doing quirky cumbersome cinescreen adjustments, I buy adapters to shoot something, not to take it apart and adjust.
The SGPro
When I put the SGPro on for the first time, I immediately notice it was sharp edge to edge. It screwed on my camera, focused on the cinescreen, done. With my HVX200, I did not have to adjust anything to center the cinescreen, left, right, up, down, tilt, toe in, out, etc. It was perfect. Not saying this is something that did or did not happen to other owners of all adapters and cameras. It was the simplest of all the others to just slap on and go. The cinescreen to me seems to be dead smack of where I would want it. Its not as fine as the Brevis or Letus and not as thick or dense as the Redrock M2. When dealing with cinescreens you have several factors, I'm no expert but I'd say the thickness and surface structure, (rough, fine, more craters, etc,) quality of course have a lot to do with image sharpness and light passing through. Again, for me, the SGPro nailed it. I don't think the image it captures is as appealing as the Redrock, but its darn close, maybe just % points away. And, its not as fast or as sharp as the Brevis or Letus. But its darn close, again a few % points if 100% was the grade. (SGPro flip attachment, as I understand it makes it a tad sharper than without, I ordered one, I will test it)
I have all 4 and shot tons of footage (only 5 days worth with the Letus), I have rez charts, samples, BUT I will not post any of it because it means nothing, zero. It's not "real life" info someone can use.
Though they all have some drawbacks, adjustments for some, vignette, trying to use wider lens, 22mm, 16mm, etc, and keep the true 35mm academy format for the lens used. e.g. my LOMO 28mm T1.4, stays in the case, because for any of the 4 adapters, I have to zoom in to get pass the cinescreen edges and where it stops vignetting, that it basically becomes a 35-40mm lens.
I wouldn't trade or get rid of any of them because I like them all for what they can do.
"My" conclusion and only mine;
If I had to shoot indoors/outdoors, lowlight, I'd grab the Letus without any thought to the others.
If I had to shot some late evening war coverage (or let someone borrow it who was), hand held run and gun, indoors/outdoors, I'd grab the Brevis without a thought to the others. (because its the lightest weight of all the others).
If I had to shoot rain forest, snow cap mountains, top of a hill topograpghy. I'd grab the M2 and bring the SGPro for a backup.
If I had no clue what I was shooting and had to bring one adapter only its the SGPro, without a doubt. To "me" its the most versatile of the 4.
I'm not endorsing any of these adapters. This is my own personal opinion.
This is long, but I had 20 minutes to kill and maybe it will help some of you.
I own the Redrock M2, Brevis, SGPro and Letus. I listed them in the order of purchase. The Letus just arrived 5 days ago and I've been testing it every day since, with every LOMO, Nikon and Zeiss lens I own in every light situation, indoors and outdoors. I must say the ONLY reason I purchased the Letus was because they seem to be in the lead for a 2/3 relay. (to use for 2/3 chip cameras, e.g. HPX500).
Let me just say you can't go wrong with any of these adapters. BUT, depending on what you want to use it for, you could possibly be asking the adapter to do something it can't do well at all.
Brevis and Letus;
The Brevis and Letus use the vibrating cinescreen. If you plan on bright sunny outdoor shooting you WILL see the grain on the cinescreen more as you stop down and notice even more so when you move the camera, pan, tilts. I was on the beach yesterday in FL with the Letus for 5 hours on a very very bright day. With all my filters in hand, maintaining blowouts was difficult if not impossible while still staying in the safe zone for not seeing the vibrating cinescreen. Again, this was on a bright, blue skies, white sand beach. I noticed this with the Brevis as well, whether its using their CF1, 2, etc. The CF1 or CF2 on the Brevis and cinescreen on the Letus appears "to me" to be in the same ballpark fas as grade, density and surface.
I will say that I notice that the Letus and Brevis seem a bit sharper than the SGPro and Redrock M2.
Why?? (drum roll) Because of what I say above on the cinescreen that they use. Its not as dense, thick or diffused, "roughed up" or whatever you want to call it, as it is with the cinescreen in the SG and M2. The Letus and Brevis offer a more fine cinescreen so YES, it will be slighlty sharper and faster than the SG and M2. (sorry if I'm sounding redundant here).
But because it is a more fine cinescreen the light will pass through them quicker, thus, making them faster as well. But the drawback is handling blowouts and being prepared on how much you can stop down. 5.6 seems to be the threshold for me, and even so, I still can see the vibrating cinescreen when I move the camera or when I actually look for it. Open up the aperture and it won't be as noticable or you will not even see it, the cinescreen, but as you open, on a bright day the zebras will rumble across the plains.
Vibrating cinescreens can not move as fast as the rotating cinescreens. Where vibrating just stays in place and shakes the rotating ones is like trying to find the white raised lettering on a tire as it moves down the highway.
The rotating adapters, SGPro and M2.
The Redrock M2;
The M2 was my first adapter and it did require a lot of tweaking on my part for acheiving edge to edge sharpness and its still not perfect. It uses a beefier motor to spin the cinescreen than that of the SGPro as well, not saying this is a plus or minus, just that it seems to spin faster. As far as the beauty of the image it captures, the M2 is the winner in my book against all the others. I mean it just looks gorgeous, hence, maybe, with less edge sharpness. You can shoot f16 no problem with seeing the cinescreen, it handles blowouts better than the others (because it does it will be the slowest, light wise of the bunch). It is using a thicker, more dense, maybe even some color, cinescreen than the others, the light won't pass thru as fast, see the trade off?? With my Redrock, I had to keep doing quirky cumbersome cinescreen adjustments, I buy adapters to shoot something, not to take it apart and adjust.
The SGPro
When I put the SGPro on for the first time, I immediately notice it was sharp edge to edge. It screwed on my camera, focused on the cinescreen, done. With my HVX200, I did not have to adjust anything to center the cinescreen, left, right, up, down, tilt, toe in, out, etc. It was perfect. Not saying this is something that did or did not happen to other owners of all adapters and cameras. It was the simplest of all the others to just slap on and go. The cinescreen to me seems to be dead smack of where I would want it. Its not as fine as the Brevis or Letus and not as thick or dense as the Redrock M2. When dealing with cinescreens you have several factors, I'm no expert but I'd say the thickness and surface structure, (rough, fine, more craters, etc,) quality of course have a lot to do with image sharpness and light passing through. Again, for me, the SGPro nailed it. I don't think the image it captures is as appealing as the Redrock, but its darn close, maybe just % points away. And, its not as fast or as sharp as the Brevis or Letus. But its darn close, again a few % points if 100% was the grade. (SGPro flip attachment, as I understand it makes it a tad sharper than without, I ordered one, I will test it)
I have all 4 and shot tons of footage (only 5 days worth with the Letus), I have rez charts, samples, BUT I will not post any of it because it means nothing, zero. It's not "real life" info someone can use.
Though they all have some drawbacks, adjustments for some, vignette, trying to use wider lens, 22mm, 16mm, etc, and keep the true 35mm academy format for the lens used. e.g. my LOMO 28mm T1.4, stays in the case, because for any of the 4 adapters, I have to zoom in to get pass the cinescreen edges and where it stops vignetting, that it basically becomes a 35-40mm lens.
I wouldn't trade or get rid of any of them because I like them all for what they can do.
"My" conclusion and only mine;
If I had to shoot indoors/outdoors, lowlight, I'd grab the Letus without any thought to the others.
If I had to shot some late evening war coverage (or let someone borrow it who was), hand held run and gun, indoors/outdoors, I'd grab the Brevis without a thought to the others. (because its the lightest weight of all the others).
If I had to shoot rain forest, snow cap mountains, top of a hill topograpghy. I'd grab the M2 and bring the SGPro for a backup.
If I had no clue what I was shooting and had to bring one adapter only its the SGPro, without a doubt. To "me" its the most versatile of the 4.
I'm not endorsing any of these adapters. This is my own personal opinion.
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