Ninja Breaths Life Into 35mm Rigs?

C

cowofevil

Member
With the meteoric rise of large censor video camera in the prosumer price range the need for 35mm adapters has been declining. (Duh) However I like many of you on the forum dropped some big cash on my Redrock M2e Rig + HVR-V1U so it hurts just a little that my camera is used as a battery charger and the adapter is packed away in a box somewhere.

Well the Ninja from Atomos actually made me rethink adapters. I personally find the look from adapters to be unique and compelling when compared to the DSLR footage. My biggest problem with my setup is the HDV (sucks!) and no cheap way to record via the HDMI on my camera. The Ninja now solves my biggest gripe and for a thousand dollars why not try it? So I plunked the money down at B & H and I wait patiently to see if this could be a useful tool.

In the meantime it got me thinking, if the works as promised would I be willing to use it in an actual production? I'm on the fence right now, but I'm not against the idea.

So what do you folks think, will products like the Ninja give the poor 35mm adapter a second chance?
 
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lol I never stopped using my adapter with my HMC... It still produces a very nice and organic image, no reason to fix something that's not broken! The ninja looks so awesome, I would love to invest in a Ninja but the swedish customs would totally kill the over all good price of the product =/
 
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I don't think they ever needed a second chance. They're just fine for what they do. To me the only reason to use an adapter setup over my AF100 would be that I can get a wash of grain over my image BEFORE it hits the sensor and is compressed. That's a benefit in my book since I almost always add grain to my footage. Not a fan of super clean images that look plastic. However, I'm not sure after using my AF100 for a week I would go back to an adapter setup...and it has nothing to do with the 35mm Adapter and more to do with how capable this camera is and the features it gives me that an older camera with adapter couldn't give me.

There have been external recorders in the past, it's just the ninja is a cheaper option. If you're still using an adapter setup all the power to you...this could be a great option for you to bypass one of the major setbacks on some of the cameras people use...the codec and color space.
 
It sounds like a good device, but if the monitor goes out your stuck with a a hard drive, if the hard drive goes out your stuck with a monitor. Have we not learned in the past about combining products. It looks awesome and might be the next greatest concept put on the market this year, but think about it
 
gonzoish79 said:
It sounds like a good device, but if the monitor goes out your stuck with a a hard drive, if the hard drive goes out your stuck with a monitor. Have we not learned in the past about combining products. It looks awesome and might be the next greatest concept put on the market this year, but think about it
Click to expand...

You're not stuck with a hard drive. The drives are removable and cost a few tens of bucks. They're not supplied with the Ninja. The Ninja is more than just a storage-bucket: it's a real-time, hardware, ProRes Encoder. It needs a monitor anyway, regardless of whether you use it to use your footage, because it has a touch-screen. And it is because of the touch-screen that the Ninja is so upgradable.

In any case, it costs less than all its competitors that don't even have a screen.

Dave Shapton
Atomos
 
I have been recording with an SGBlade to Cineform and Nanoflash. Definitely better in all situations than a DSLR except - how light circles/bokeh are rendered at night and low light. Grading of course is much better with high quality acquisition. The compression on upload destroys the integrity of the images but these are from an SGBlade + HFS21 + nanoflash. The HFS21 has 900 lines of resolution but with aliasing so this is bang for buck. The HDMI capture gives it the performance of cameras many times its price. The canon HF G10 looks a beauty to pair with an adapter. Anyway - below - Graded hastily in speedgrade onset - just for effect - I wouldn't grade like this off course in real life but the ability to push the footage is amazing and that's for demonstration. In motion - it looks magic and with film grain added it is just so unlike DSLR stuff and more like film.



Sarah.look.jpgHO Dark Film look_8.look.jpgHO Dark Film look_2.look.jpg
Short video http://vimeo.com/21820806

The attached thumbnail below is the ungraded version.
 

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@Kyle, the ease of use of a AF100 setup is very tempting. In fact I was talking with my long time director and he was all hot and bothered by the announcement of the NEX-FS100. The ability to just point the camera and say action is very tempting to any director especially when you have control of DOF. I have shot 3 short films and 1 music video on my old V1U + M2e combo and I can tell you my crew is exhausted by the effort. Everyone on my crew has worked on other RED/DSLR projects and they look at my projects as "work" because we have to haul a whole hella lota lights.

The results of adapter footage of course speak for themselves when people are asking me what type of film stock I shoot on. That always makes me grin because I think like many of you I planned to shoot on film when I was a young film maker. I almost feel like adapters are like the medium format twin reflex cameras from yore in the sense that people covet them because of the images you get even though it is difficult to operate the camera.

As a small update I decided to give this rig a run through on a music video project that I will produce. So hopefully by the middle of summer I can show an actual production shot with the Ninja + V1U + M2e combo and give some deeper thoughts/analysis.
 
I just got a an Atomos Ninja today. My only problem is I am thinking to also use my Sony HDR-FX1 (which does not have a HDMI output port) + SGBlade adapter to couple with my Ninja. I can't seem to find any Component to HDMI cable that really works. Or do I need some kind of special converter box? I thought that is only necessary for converting Digital Output to an Analog Output... Not from Analog to Digital conversion right?

Any suggestion?
 
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