GH2 Is this madness? No... this... is... BREVIS!!!!!

M

mcbob

Veteran
"I'll have you know this is one of the strangest things I've ever done!" - Tangled


Not really... but probably qualifies as odd, pointless, etc.


Picked up an old, unwanted, broken 35mm adapter recently and repaired it (except for the huge honking scratch in the ground glass). Never owned one back when they were all the rage and ~$1000 apiece, figured what the heck.


Now, I know it works with my old HVX and HV30. Question is... could it "solve" the GH2's 2x crop "problem" and still be useable in available light? If nothing else, I satisfy curiosity and my joy in futzing with the obsolete.


Found a good, cheap intermediate lens in the Micro-Nikkor 55/3.5 (which I already had). There's still some crop from full frame, so ideally I'd use something in the ~45mm range (45/2.8 macro, for instance). Threw on my trusty old cheap Vivitar 50/1.7, went out to play with the kids in fading afternoon light, and shot this stuff. Not thoroughly disappointed for a ~$50 expense.





https://vimeo.com/48400388
 
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"Problem" is in quotations because it isn't really a problem.

What you're seeing is (close to) a full-frame image from a 50mm lens on a GH2... not a 50mm lens cropped to yield a ~100mm FOV. On the GH2, the Brevis essentially serves as a huge electrical light-sucking 0.5x wide angle converter so you can get the vaunted "full frame aesthetic" without paying thousands of dollars for CaNikon paraphernalia (aside from, well, the Nikon macro lens), with the associated characteristic 35mm adapter grain, softness, and inverted image.
 
Maybe I'm missing something. What's different with the "aesthetic" between using a 25mm native m4/3 lens versus a 50mm lens via your adapter? Other than the differences in glass, what are you referring to?
 
Mostly shallower focus and less distortion in wider lenses... and maybe other things that might motivate people to spend upwards of $3000 on a soft-image-shooting video DSLR.

Let this be your last warning that this entire thread is a specious lark with tongue firmly entrenched within cheek, as the title and message body might possibly indicate. From hereon I will pretend to be completely serious and advocate this as the newest, greatest innovation in GH2 shooting since the Pinwide.
 
I feel like you can see some chromatic aberration or something like that in the footage, but it definitely looks more organic then the raw stuff... almost like super16
 
i might try this just for the hell of it because i still have my brevis from my dvx, but what lens did you use between the gh2 and the brevis?
 
The "CA" is probably from the ground glass grain. Definitely softens everything, as does shooting at 1.7 on a cheap 50mm.

The intermediate will vary if you're using the flip or non-flip... Here with the non-flip, I used a macro... 45-55mm range should work with the Brevis diopter. Oddly a standard 50 (OM 1.4) with close up diopters, a Voigt 17.5 in etc mode, and every zoom at about 50 yielded severe vignetting when framing the ground glass.
 
mcbob said:
"I'll have you know this is one of the strangest things I've ever done!" - Tangled


Not really... but probably qualifies as odd, pointless, etc.


Picked up an old, unwanted, broken 35mm adapter recently and repaired it (except for the huge honking scratch in the ground glass). Never owned one back when they were all the rage and ~$1000 apiece, figured what the heck.


Now, I know it works with my old HVX and HV30. Question is... could it "solve" the GH2's 2x crop "problem" and still be useable in available light? If nothing else, I satisfy curiosity and my joy in futzing with the obsolete.


Found a good, cheap intermediate lens in the Micro-Nikkor 55/3.5 (which I already had). There's still some crop from full frame, so ideally I'd use something in the ~45mm range (45/2.8 macro, for instance). Threw on my trusty old cheap Vivitar 50/1.7, went out to play with the kids in fading afternoon light, and shot this stuff. Not thoroughly disappointed for a ~$50 expense.





https://vimeo.com/48400388
Click to expand...

Looks really cool, minus what appears to be a scratched up lens. I would really really like to look more into this. Any pictures and how it's setup? Thanks!
 
Mounted with a 52-72 step ring on the end of the Nikon macro. easy peasy. I suppose I'd drag out rails and a support if I wanted to get safe n' fancy, but for messing about it dangled fine. (its not the flip model, jus the tube)

Loss-wise, I was at ISO 800 and the intermediate macro lens was set to f4 (usually a little sharper there than at f3.5)... the subjects were metering at ~f4.5, objective lens was at f1.7, so that's... oh... ~2 2/3 stops? Never certain on my stop math. Surely much of that's in the macro intermediate's lower aperture.

Really wished the ETC'd Voigtlander would have worked as an intermediate for (theoretically) no light loss at ~f1, but oh well. That would be even dumber anyway since a wide-open 0.95 looks pretty much the same (DOF-wise) as a full-frame f1.7 (IIRC)
 
Hey McBob, come to think of it, I think I may have a replacement ground glass for a Brevis somewhere in my stuff. If you want it, I could give it to you as long as you're willing to pay for the shipping.
 
I guess either way it's coming from Canada...

Let me do some research and fiddling... I'm curious if I can make something from a swatch of diffusion gel or laboratory supplies
 
I like the way that i looks. little color correction and you might have good looking way to shoot horror films. Gives me that feel. Problem is a night test. How does it look during a inside low light shot.
 
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