Movietube Junior

T

Tim Naylor

Veteran
Was at Abel Cinetech the other day and they had a Movietube JR for sale. Anyone here ever use the junior? It comes with two different ground glasses. The build on this is beyond any adaptor I've ever seen. Truly industrial grade machining here. Arri like quality.

Does anyone know the light loss on this. It's roughly the same price as the Ultimate.
 
Tim

I just bought a Movietube JR at IBC and I rate it way above the Letus Extreme. Maybe not above the Ultimate, which I haven't seen yet, but definetely above the Extreme. The trick is to set your look by using F-Stops between 1.4 and 4.0. Above that grain becomes visible. But then what's the point of using a 35mm adapter above F4.0 anyway. You can easily achieve the same DOF without an adapter.
It just takes seconds to remove the MovietubeJR. It's 1/3 lighter than the Extreme. I use it with my HVX200 and simply put the infinity button and within a split second it's sharp. The lightloss is the same; 1/2 F-Stop.

The build quality is way superior to the LEX. Compared to the JR, the LEX lookes like Lego. German ingeneering in da house. No achromat needed. The focus point for every camera is at infinity.
It even can be maintananced. The Extreme can't. If you open the LEX, it's toast.

The JR has a ground glass of 18 x 24mm not an 24 x 36 like the Extreme, so it's easier to pull focus.

And the motor on the JR will never fail you, because there is none. The motor of my LEX gave up in the middle of a important shooting a few weeks ago. I had to resolder it and found out, that the there were strange things involved inside the LEX to make it work for cheap.

No, I am quite happy with the JR. But thats only temporarely because in January I will be proud owner of an Ikonoskop DII.

My LEX will be on sale soon.

Peter
 
tim i thought you had the letus ultimate. have you encounteres weakness from it? if so please share before i shell out ? $4000
 
augenblick said:
Tim

I just bought a Movietube JR at IBC and I rate it way above the Letus Extreme. Maybe not above the Ultimate, which I haven't seen yet, but definetely above the Extreme. The trick is to set your look by using F-Stops between 1.4 and 4.0. Above that grain becomes visible. But then what's the point of using a 35mm adapter above F4.0 anyway. You can easily achieve the same DOF without an adapter.
It just takes seconds to remove the MovietubeJR. It's 1/3 lighter than the Extreme. I use it with my HVX200 and simply put the infinity button and within a split second it's sharp. The lightloss is the same; 1/2 F-Stop.

The build quality is way superior to the LEX. Compared to the JR, the LEX lookes like Lego. German ingeneering in da house. No achromat needed. The focus point for every camera is at infinity.
It even can be maintananced. The Extreme can't. If you open the LEX, it's toast.

The JR has a ground glass of 18 x 24mm not an 24 x 36 like the Extreme, so it's easier to pull focus.

And the motor on the JR will never fail you, because there is none. The motor of my LEX gave up in the middle of a important shooting a few weeks ago. I had to resolder it and found out, that the there were strange things involved inside the LEX to make it work for cheap.

No, I am quite happy with the JR. But thats only temporarely because in January I will be proud owner of an Ikonoskop DII.

My LEX will be on sale soon.

Peter
Click to expand...

Peter, it would be great if you could post some footage from the MovieTube Jr. I don't think I've ever seen it although I have seen footage from the regular MovieTube.
 
timbook2 said:
whoa! over 4k € for a 35 mm adaptor ??? somebody must be desperate!
Click to expand...

Desperate for great images. The difference between my Ultimate and LEX is night / day. It sounds like the mtube is in that league. If you're using these things for work, 4k is peanuts for a great image and reliability. Spend 1200 and have something fail you in the middle of a gig, you lost alot more than 4k worth of future business.

Anyway, you get the idea. At 4k they still pay themselves off quite quickly.
 
reem12 said:
tim i thought you had the letus ultimate. have you encounteres weakness from it? if so please share before i shell out ? $4000
Click to expand...

I think the Ultimate is quite excellent. Originally I had some issues with the mount (slight play) but Hien not only replaced my mount but then re-designed it to eliminate play completely. The only reason why I'm curious about Mtube Junior is I once used the early Mtube and thought it was an unforgiveable hunk of junk. Lost 2 stops and the images were like shooting through a pro-mist 1 to 2. Just bad in every respect.

Then I see this Mtube Junior and wonder why they even have the old one. It's smaller, lighter, and hopefully optically better. 1/2 stop loss is a big improvement. My big attraction to Mtube is no-motor. As anything with a motor will eventually fail. It's just a matter of when. Every adaptor I've ever used (except PS) has had some kind of electro-mechanical failure at some point.
 
augenblick said:
Tim

I just bought a Movietube JR at IBC and I rate it way above the Letus Extreme. Maybe not above the Ultimate, which I haven't seen yet, but definetely above the Extreme. The trick is to set your look by using F-Stops between 1.4 and 4.0. Above that grain becomes visible. But then what's the point of using a 35mm adapter above F4.0 anyway. You can easily achieve the same DOF without an adapter.
It just takes seconds to remove the MovietubeJR. It's 1/3 lighter than the Extreme. I use it with my HVX200 and simply put the infinity button and within a split second it's sharp. The lightloss is the same; 1/2 F-Stop.

The build quality is way superior to the LEX. Compared to the JR, the LEX lookes like Lego. German ingeneering in da house. No achromat needed. The focus point for every camera is at infinity.
It even can be maintananced. The Extreme can't. If you open the LEX, it's toast.

The JR has a ground glass of 18 x 24mm not an 24 x 36 like the Extreme, so it's easier to pull focus.

And the motor on the JR will never fail you, because there is none. The motor of my LEX gave up in the middle of a important shooting a few weeks ago. I had to resolder it and found out, that the there were strange things involved inside the LEX to make it work for cheap.

No, I am quite happy with the JR. But thats only temporarely because in January I will be proud owner of an Ikonoskop DII.

My LEX will be on sale soon.

Peter
Click to expand...

I'd rate the build of the Mtube above my Ultimate. Amazing maching. It's really like Arri stuff. I've done triage on an Extreme before - not fun. In fact, I've opened up everything at some point.

re: Ikonoskop.

Isn't that only 2/3". You'll miss the shallow DOF.

re: DOF and an F4
Also, I routinely shoot at a 5.6 on my Ultimate. To duplicate the same DOF / FOV on my HVX would require an aperture lower than a .35

That said I mostly shoot between 2.8 and 5.6 so the Mtube would work. How is it with shutter speeds and slo-mo?
 
Good morning

I'm on the other side of the atlantic ocean, so ...

Tim
I know that the Ikonoskop is only 2/3 inch. But that is not key for me. Several academy award winning features were shot on super-16 like leaving las vegas and most recently the austrian film the counterfeiters. I am just looking for the best possible picture. And from what I've seen at IBC the Ikonoskop delivers just that. It's sharper than anything I've ever seen coming from whatever camera used. HD that is. Not talking RED here.

I'm off of the adapter market anyway, because I use mainly my HPX500 with it's 2/3 inch chip. And in the near future it will be the Ikonoskop. In 95% of all occasions, this is enough. If I need something a more shallower DOF, I use the MovieTube JR on my HVX200 or on a rented Sony EX-3.

The problem with all adapters is going trough lens A through lens B through lens C to the chip. So it's never sharp from edge to edge. I've never seen it. Not even in the best possible footage shown here in this forum. But the Ikonoskop does. I saw footage from the dii at IBC and this camera is a producers dream come true.

I wasn't comparing the DOF from the JR to the 200 but to the 500.
Speaking of light loss. Kinomatik developed a new highspeed ground glass. The first adapter that came out with this so called FilmScreen HS was the JR. But the other adapters the LT and the ST can be upgraded to the FilmScreen HS. And that makes them very competitive again.
Frank Wurster, director or research and development at Kinomatik also told me, that the next product will have a x/y adjustment. But by then we all will be filming on Canon or Nikon SLR's anyway I guess :-)

I can't comment on your statement about the MovieTube looks like shooting through a promist. I haven't dived into it that much yet. But from what I've seen until now, I can't confirm.

As I said, I will post footage asap, but until then I have a lot of postpro work to do, so I will not be able to use the MovieTube in the next 10 days or so, which is too bad, because right now the autumn here in Switzerland is very beautiful. Especially around Lake Zug where I live.

Well you just can't have it all, can you.

Peter
 
... and worth every penny.

By the way the letus ultimate is just 50$ less.

But in the end it's the same as always: "It's not the tools, it's the craft." (Roland Emmerich / Independence Day)

Peter
 
augenblick said:
... and worth every penny.

By the way the letus ultimate is just 50$ less.

But in the end it's the same as always: "It's not the tools, it's the craft." (Roland Emmerich / Independence Day)

Peter
Click to expand...

You are 100% correct! I have seen amazing footage from DIY projects and crap footage from the Letus. You gotta know how to make your instrument sing!
 
augenblick said:
Good morning


I can't comment on your statement about the MovieTube looks like shooting through a promist. I haven't dived into it that much yet. But from what I've seen until now, I can't confirm.

Peter
Click to expand...

I was referring to the 1st Mtube. Love to see the pics.

Sounds like the Ikonoscop is Silicon Imaging Killer. Love the design as well. I'm on the verge of taking the RED plunge but there's those gigs where I still need an adpator.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top