Questions re Letus Ultimate.

L

Lenilenapi

Carbonite Member
A few questions I haven't seen answered re: the Letus Ultimate.

1. What is the light loss compared to the Letus Extreme?

If possible, I would want to know what the light loss with the video camera f stop wide opened, compared to the Letus Ultimate with a fast ( say f1.2 or 1.4 lens both wide open and at 2.8) Also is there any of the "Brevis effect at wide f stops?

2. Is the amount of DOF on Ultimate images different from the Extreme?

We've heard many testify to how sharp the Ultimate is. I'm wondering if that might also translate to slightly greater DOF than the Extreme or say an SGPro which I think is less than an Extreme.

If anyone has both adapters ( Kholi???) you can easily tell by putting the same lens on both adapters with the same f stop on the 35mm lens at say 6' away, then pulling the lens to infinity. Best done on a chart.

3. Does the Bokeh on the Ultimate handle bright overexposed objects differently than the Extreme?

I felt the Extreme tended to create kind of "blobby" ( sorry that's the best I can do) artifacts, compared to say the SG which to me was more natural but flared a touch more. (The Redrock flared quite a bit more.

Lenny Levy
 
1. Reportedly the light loss is the same.

2. The DOF is not determined by the adapter but rather the choice of lens and aperture setting. Thus the DOF is the same

3. The Blobby effect is the light being diffused. Anything not in focus on the LEX usually has a sort of hazed look. The new ground glass has a much more filmlike bokeh including increased lens flares.
 
waefre said:
2. The DOF is not determined by the adapter but rather the choice of lens and aperture setting. Thus the DOF is the same.
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That's incorrect. Anyone who has compared different 35mm adapters can testify to that with assurance. If you need to be convinced look at comparisons I made at

http://www.leonardlevy.net/Adapter_stills_master_Final.htm

Scroll down to DOF Tests ( No LEX in those but my guess was it landed in between.)

waefre said:
3. The Blobby effect is the light being diffused. Anything not in focus on the LEX usually has a sort of hazed look. The new ground glass has a much more filmlike bokeh including increased lens flares.
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I understand that it is of course the light being diffused. However different adapter screens can diffuse that light quite differently and it can be more or less natural and pleasing.

I'm interested in whether anyone has compared how the Ultimate does that compared to the Extreme. A good object for comparison might be a greatly overexposed lamp or even a lightbulb, or a greatly overexposed window with clear edges.


Lenny Levy
 
Hey Leni, haven't seen ya in a while. What ya been workin' on?

Lenilenapi said:
A few questions I haven't seen answered re: the Letus Ultimate.

1. What is the light loss compared to the Letus Extreme?

If possible, I would want to know what the light loss with the video camera f stop wide opened, compared to the Letus Ultimate with a fast ( say f1.2 or 1.4 lens both wide open and at 2.8) Also is there any of the "Brevis effect at wide f stops?
Click to expand...

I need to put them both on the 200A to judge accurately but when I had the Ultimate side-by-side with another Extreme they did look to lose the same amount of light. Oddly enough, I SORT-OF feel like that Ultimate loses less light, or handles light transmission a bit more efficiently.

There is no Brevis effect if the effect in question is linear light response. The Ultimate responds like one would expect it to when stopping the lens down. There's the typical hazing of fast DSLR/SLR/STILL lenses when wide open. Car3o enlightened me to this and the lenses do in fact haze on my Nikon D70 and the RED ONE as well. At least Nikon lenses do. Yuck.

2. Is the amount of DOF on Ultimate images different from the Extreme?

We've heard many testify to how sharp the Ultimate is. I'm wondering if that might also translate to slightly greater DOF than the Extreme or say an SGPro which I think is less than an Extreme.

If anyone has both adapters ( Kholi???) you can easily tell by putting the same lens on both adapters with the same f stop on the 35mm lens at say 6' away, then pulling the lens to infinity. Best done on a chart.
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Very valid question. I have some footage somewhere on my editing rig of Ultimate and Extreme side-by-side and the depth of field didn't appear to be different. I think the best way to tell between those two units is to use a chart. Eye comparisons are a bit dangerous to call, but if anything the Ultimate will produce a slightly "shallower", but not by much, field. Again, I'll try to get an Extreme to do a side-by but no telling when I'll be able to.


3. Does the Bokeh on the Ultimate handle bright overexposed objects differently than the Extreme?

I felt the Extreme tended to create kind of "blobby" ( sorry that's the best I can do) artifacts, compared to say the SG which to me was more natural but flared a touch more. (The Redrock flared quite a bit more.

Lenny Levy
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It does. Without a doubt. The Bokeh rendition is what most would consider "pleasing" around here. I say it that way because it's subjective to begin with. I've seen what others would call "bad bokeh" in HANCOCK and it made me laugh a little in the theater... it wasn't any kind of distracting to anyone at all.

One interesting test that I did with a Nikon 17-35 was the exact one you're asking for: a light bulb. And I did it with a RED ONE + NIkon mount and the Ultimate + NIkon mount. Both systems exhibited hyper-similar Bokeh. Aiming the lens directly at the bulb exhibited a brighter center with lighter edges, by changing the distance of both cameras from target the brighter center became more even, and the more out of focus it was the more solid it was. Between the RED ONE and the Ultimate with the same 17-35 and 85/1.8 Nikon lenses they both exhibited hyper-similar Bokeh. Naturally, the RED ONE had the edge due to the fact that it's feeding light directly to a sensor as opposed to another lens behind a ground glass. That is enough, for me, to say that Bokeh is more than fine.

The Ultimate handles bokeh as well as any greater diffused ground glass and It's more than likely contributed to the coating chosen by the Le brothers.

Let me know if ya have any other requests. EX-1 arrives on Tuesday. Fun times.
 
Thanks, Figured you were the guy to ask on this one.
If you get them side by side let me know.

i have not been busy at all - very slow up here. I am jealous when I read your reports. Keep up the good work.

- Lenny
 
Lenilenapi said:
Thanks, Figured you were the guy to ask on this one.
If you get them side by side let me know.

i have not been busy at all - very slow up here. I am jealous when I read your reports. Keep up the good work.

- Lenny
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Thanks duuude. As soon as I have the EX1 and another Extreme in my posession I'll get you stills. That should be early next week. Is there anything that needs to ne seen specifically from the Ex1? I still have some untouched footage from thefirst go with it but wanted to wait until I had a better understanding of thecamera before I posted anything.

Also, the comment made about diffusion in comparison to thicker ground glasses was a quick comparison with the SGpro in which three others were present. Consensus is that it'd be hard to tell them apart by bokeh. One was an M2 owner and the other two owned SGs and do amazing work with then I might add.
 
I've noticed things I don't like sometimes with objects like lamps or windows that are extremely overexposed. As an example - once had my Ex with Extreme side by side with a P+S (on an HDCAM) looking out a closed garage door that had windows very overexposed.

The Extreme turned the windows into unpleasant "blobs" with a blue ring around them (This was not coming from the bare EX-1) The P+S instead had no color affects but looked like a #1 Promist flaring the image.) The P+S was way more acceptable but I wasn't crazy about either. If course that was also a Nikon lens vs a Zeiss, but experience suggests this was the adapter screens.

I also saw similar but not as striking artifacts ( no other color issues) comparing Brevis, SGPro and Extreme with the same lenses. The SGPro was always the most satisfactory for me and I always thought P+S and Redrock for that matter flared too much. I didn't like an old Brevis CF-2 ( may not be the same one they use anymore)at all which looked "plastic" to me. These are subtle affects but they can be noticeable when you are intentionally putting blown out highlights in the background.

I was going to post these as examples but never got around to it and didn't want to bad mouth anything without having pictures and clear comparisons. I'm not the first person to notice the "blobby" issue with an Extreme, but all in all its really quite minor in a very good adapter. Also I think only nut cases like me would ever bother to notice most of the time. On the other hand I didn't point out the windows in the garage - that was a tech who owned a high end rental house and was '"aghast."

Lenny
 
can't disagree with any of that. There were times when I wanted more diffusion out of my extreme to help with exteriors, that meant losing awesome interior performance though. And it also meant probably having another adapter on hand.

One thing immediately apparent in Zeiss and Nikon lenses on a RED is the highlight handling and fringing. Nikon are quite grotesque on this area so I wouldn't doubt it being a portion of that at least. I'll get slated for saying it but Nikkor glass performance is last resort territory for me. Used to say it was good enough but to me they dong really hold a candle to Zeiss performance in the PL and SLR variety.

Probably just me though and a different topic as well.
 
Kholi said:
can't disagree with any of that. There were times when I wanted more diffusion out of my extreme to help with exteriors, that meant losing awesome interior performance though. And it also meant probably having another adapter on hand.

One thing immediately apparent in Zeiss and Nikon lenses on a RED is the highlight handling and fringing. Nikon are quite grotesque on this area so I wouldn't doubt it being a portion of that at least. I'll get slated for saying it but Nikkor glass performance is last resort territory for me. Used to say it was good enough but to me they dong really hold a candle to Zeiss performance in the PL and SLR variety.

Probably just me though and a different topic as well.
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Yeah you've got me ready to make that c/y mount jump.
 
Kholi said:
One thing immediately apparent in Zeiss and Nikon lenses on a RED is the highlight handling and fringing. Nikon are quite grotesque on this area so I wouldn't doubt it being a portion of that at least. .
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I'd like to know more about that and if you have any examples .

By the way you will see red fringing on the EX-1 when zoomed in all the way , on contrasty subjects.

- Lenny
 
thanks for the heads up on the fringing. I think its about time I did a Nikon C/y zeiss comparison for the boards. It took me getting my own face cracked on the subject to see that the c/y investment was sound.

Coming soon enough.
 
I've only seen that color fringe once BTW so it may not be that simple to reproduce. Probably just need enough overexposure and a hard contrasty edge though.
Lenny
 
Kholi said:
There is no Brevis effect if the effect in question is linear light response. The Ultimate responds like one would expect it to when stopping the lens down.
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hey kholi and lenny,

from my understanding, the cut off point for the "brevis effect" is determined by the amount of diffusion the GG has.

for example, my sgpro has a linear response all the way up to f2. and then it cuts off. the difference between f1.4 and f2 is only 1/10 of a stop, if that. (measured it myself on a waveform)

the brevis CF1 having less diffusion, it's cut off point is around f4. (taken from dennis' video)

now if the ultimate loses the same amount of light as the LEX then can we assume it has the same amount of diffusion?

and we know the LEX has less diffusion than the SGpro.... so wouldn't the cut of point for the "brevis effect" be sooner? like at around 2.8 for example?

thanks
 
It can't be assumed. There are a few things that will change these factors, one being the coating employed on the Ultimates real glass disc versus the coating on the extremes glass disc versus the coating on the Brevis' disc. It would be easy to assume although Leni has proven that assumptions arent the best for us.

From my usage of both the Extreme and Ultimate the response of light loss when employing taking lens stops is linear. You stop down one stop you lose one stop. The fastest lenses are the same. From 1.4 to 2 there is an obvious change in light transmission, albeit small.

I'm also not sure how a linear response "cuts off" at a given stop. If the adapter is responding like a film camera or even a RED than stopping down your lens will always see a difference in light transmitted. I think I may be misunderstanding you.

Thats my take on it from experience.
 
i'd really like to se some tests :)

when and if you, or someone else with an ultimate, have got the time could you please do something along the lines of;

point the camera/ultimate at at something decent and get the following stills
still one - set the camera to a clean stop like 2.8 or 4 and the taking lens to f1.4
still two - same camera setting but taking lens at f1.7
still three - same camera setting but taking lens at f2
still four - same camera setting but taking lens at f2.4
still five - same camera setting but taking lens at f2.8
still six - same camera setting but taking lens at f3.4
still seven - same camera setting but taking lens at f4
still eight - camera lens set to one clean stop lower like from 2.8-4 and taking lens at 1.4

i'd do it for you guys if i had an ultimate :)
 
it's cut off point for the "brevis effect".

i believe it should be around f2-2.8

i think it's an important thing to know. because why spend almost a grand on an 85mm f1.4 when you don't gain any significant benefits over an f2
 
The "Brevis Effect" lasts up to something like F4~5.6 I thought?

The Ultimate responds linearly to Fstops or stopping down the lens... If the adapter responds linearly to light loss then a 2 will be slower than a 1.4... which it is.

I personally see no value in that sort of test if I can plainly see with both a Zeiss 85/1.4 and 50/1.4 that stopping down to 2 there's a linear response in light transmission.
 
i was refering to the ultimate's own "brevis effect" cut off point.

if it responds linearly all the way to f1.4 then that suggest it's GG is more diffused than the sgpro's. which could be true. but that goes against you comments that the ultimate loses the same about of light, if not a little less, than the LEX.

one of those has to be wrong... unless Quyen has got some wicked awesome trickery in there. :)

i'm more inclined to think the lightloss is the wrong one. i just can't believe an adapter that loses 1/2 a stop can be more diffused than the sgpro... it just doesn't work in my head.
 
It does, I recored it just for you, mang.

And no, that doesn't go against any of those comments at all. Don't ask me how it's achieved but the Ultimate and Extreme exchanged on one HVX200A had the same light loss with a Zeiss lens attached. We were under a parking deck when we tested. For the sake of the non-believers I have a friend bringing his Extreme over again to double check. But how that equates to the Ultimate being "more diffused" than the SGpro is odd. How did you figure that?

Also, my original Extreme responded the same way. 1.4 was 1.4 and 2 was 2. I saw the difference. Some people just have a harder time seeing these things, even with larger monitors but it responds the same.

I think it's just best to understand that we are not engineers and they are. The Ultimate MIGHT lose a tiny bit more light than the Extreme, but as far as we both saw it loses the same and much less than an SGpro sitting right beside it. Do expect another adapter hitting the market soon to produce the same effect. Again, they're engineers, we are not.

Also, I've never had any other SGPro user report that their adapter didn't respond linearly to light loss. Timur Civan recently, in another thread, said that his SGpro responded linearly to light loss. Are you saying something different?
 
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