SGpro doubts

I only care about what's happening. When it's claimed that it's "more efficient" and light transmission is the same @ 1.4-4.0... well, dang, even Timur jumped in and said that something has to be wrong.

How about you prove that it's NOT doing anything NEGATIVE to the image? I can definitely show you an example in Phillip Bloom's shoot-out where the color and contrast is unacceptable in comparison to both the SGpro and M2.

You use what you want, that's nothing to me. But just like people were searching for answers at to why the Brevis exhibited the phenomena, now it's a question of "at what cost?".

Someone proves that it's at no cost? Sweet. Now everyone should find out how Dennis did it and replicate it. I'll be the FIRST person to give it up to Dennis and you and whoever else wants the "props".

Just like I went about, here on the forums, giving credit to edge softness on the taking lens side of things. Still haven't had a chance to test my own unit, soon as it comes back I'll shoot charts.
 
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Kholi, hopefully you can point out to me what's wrong in the following images I shot with the Brevis:

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Marco
 
Marco, You do beautiful work.
If no one minds an aesthetic question, out of curiosity, do you strive to use academy framing or just go with the full SLR size image.
Thanks for the pics

Lenny
 
Kholi, there is no magic adapter. That's why we have six different imaging elements offered for our users. If you think we're doing this as a marketing gimmick, then I'd invite you to look over our demo footage, and footage posted in our forum. The efficiency of CF1/CF1Le was demonstrated live, using a waveform monitor, with the adapter slid on and off the adapter. The footage is there, freely downloadable, and 95% of it was shot with either CF1, or CF1Le...variants of which have been shipping in every Brevis adapter for nearly two years.

This is no magic thing we just invented...the only change is that we shot a clip to illustrate a point.

Lenny, I made the same comment about Marco's work in another thread....Marco has an eye that I would dearly love to transpant in my head :-)
 
Lenilenapi said:
Tim if you read through that long thread there were a couple of good possible explanations offered. if I can find mine I'll email you , but i don't want to redo the whoile thing again.

One person who posted there observed that if you have a 35mm SLR look through the viewfinder as you close down an f1.4 lens and you may see that the first few f-stops don't seem to show the expected full stop of light change each. Gradually the difference per stop becomes more noticeable. I believe this is the same phenomena, but it may vary depending on the GG of your still camera. If you exposed film in that camera you would get an absolutely predictable full stop though.

Lenny
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That explains a parallel phenomenon but still doesn't explain how it happens. Send me the link of more complete explanations. It's baffling.
 
"Marco has an eye that I would dearly love to transpant in my head"

Why don't you start working on that. I'd pay a lot more that $1000 for it.

One last comment re the exposure business. if you transplanted the CF1 series of screens in any of the adapters you probably would see exactly the same phenomena and anyone else could put out a version of their adapter that did something similar. its not brain surgery.

I don't mean that as a criticism of anyone or an endorsement of Dennis marketing several screens. There are pros and cons to that strategy. The other manufacturers have perfectly legitimate reasons to keep one screen in there units and I totally respect that.

Just that its not any secret trick. and I for one am very very tired of having to argue about it.

lenny
 
marco0782 said:
Exactly Lenny, and also the reason why in a film camera you can't trust the ground glass to show if the image is in focus; you HAVE to use a tape measure.


Marco
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You can absolutely trust the ground glass in film - even more so than a video viewfinder. If your ground glass and tape measure don't agree you shouldn't be using that camera. The same should go for your adaptor. It's another topic altogether, but we often zoom in and focus in film when it's expedient. On docs shot on film that's all we do. The tape measure is used in film (and with adaptors) because in most cases with marks and blocking and a DP who needs to focus on other things like lighting and politics, the tape measure is faster. In fact, it's the lack of an optical viewfinder that's one of the biggest beefs of people raised on film cameras. They don't find electronic viewfinders accurate enough for focus. Arri D 20 has the right idea.

Back on topic. Send me a link that explains this light loss miracle - not a similar phenomenon but how it actually works. If we knew how it works, than we'd know what we gain or lose.
 
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marco0782 said:
Exactly Lenny, and also the reason why in a film camera you can't trust the ground glass to show if the image is in focus; you HAVE to use a tape measure.


Marco
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Actually I lost you on that Marco. I brought up the GG on a still camera because it is more similar to the optics of what is happening in an adapter than what is happening on the film plane to a strip of 35mm film - thus you can actually see some of the odd exposure phenomena with your own eyes in a 35mm SLR.

Its been ages since I worked as an assistent and frankly since I've shot much film, but as I recall don't you first check to make your lens markings are accurate and also your ground glass? Even if the back focus has been verified. Then make your own notes if they're off so that your measurements are accurate.

I think we use tape measurements because unless you have a zoom lens you just can't tell where your focus is by looking. If you have a zoom frequently in film I remember getting marks from the operator and trusting those more than the lens markings. Also these days we tend to work with very accurate film lenses and those markings tend to be very good.
Off hand I don't know if I would trust the lens markings on an old Nikon lens. they just weren't designed for focus pulling. You undoubtedly have more experience than I do on that these days though.
Do you find them reliable?

Actually now that I reread what you wrote - you weren't suggesting a tape measurer in video were you - oh well time to hit the sack.

Lenny levy
 
Tim Naylor said:
Back on topic. Send me a link that explains this light loss miracle - not a similar phenomenon but how it actually works. If we knew how it works, than we'd know what we gain or lose.
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So someone else aside from myself asked for it and with the same reasoning: let us find out what we lose from it.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=1157780&postcount=81

The link above pretty much says it.

Marco-- I'm not about to go pickin' apart your work. This has nothing to do with your work or anyone elses work. I have show examples of the smeared edges and I see them in your stills but what does it matter? You're obviously happy with what you've purchased, you don't believe there's any negative effect... why bother?

Some of us want to know exactly what's going on. Some of us don't care to know and are just happy with what it is.

I'm not the only person that wants to know, just the one that's askin' more often and speakin' about it.
 
kholi.

the trade off is that the GG is less diffused. less diffusion means you get the depth of field of 35mm but you don't get the texture of it. the more diffusion, the more texture.

basically if you look at some of the stuff shot with the brevis, it looks more like video than stuff shot with the M2 for example.. the only real difference is the amount of diffusion the GG has.

it is important to note that i'm not talking about the depth of field, i'm talking about texture.

the brevis, to me, looks more like a 2/3 inch camera or an arri D20 rather than film. where as the m2 looks like 35mm film all the way. (in terms of texture not depth of field)

**this is all personal observations and opinion.
 
This becomes a matter of taste. Dennis himself says that his denser diffusers are more filmlike. He appears to prefer their look to his CF1. I think there is something to that and to what you say here . It is a texture difference.

I'm not sure its really accurate to call it filmlike because in fact I don't think film is nearly as diffused as say a redrock for sure or maybe even an SG. 35mm is just a gentler texture and often we have approached it in video by getting soft. But actually film gets that nice texture without having to be soft. But we use those words to get at a feeling we want to express in the image. Sometimes 35 is too sharp and people diffuse it.

It really depends on what you do with it and how you shoot it. Marcos' stills don't look remotely like video to me. If you light 35mm hard it looks too sharp and harsh and you need to diffuse ala old B/W closeups. Light very soft and you don't need diffusion. Light 16mm that soft and it turns to mush. Similar issues I'm sure pertain to these adapters.

How big a monitor are you looking at it on? What happens to that soft Redrock look vs the crisper Brevis if it is blown up to big screen or film?
I don't see any good and bad here just lots of choices which is fabulous.
I would like to own 4 of them.

Kholi I've explained what I think is happening quite a few times & so have others - you just don't accept our attempts.

- Lenny
 
Lenilenapi said:
How big a monitor are you looking at it on? What happens to that soft Redrock look vs the crisper Brevis if it is blown up to big screen or film?


Kholi I've explained what I think is happening quite a few times & so have others - you just don't accept our attempts.

- Lenny
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I can tell you what happens when you project "soft" Redrock: It looks amazing. I've seen it first hand. When done properly, it's incredible.

And, no, you and whomever just keep saying "it's a cool neat feature!", you've done no actual hunting as to what goes wrong with the image.
 
It's another topic altogether, but we often zoom in and focus in film when it's expedient. On docs shot on film that's all we do.
Click to expand...

That's different, you can zoom in and focus to a person's pupil, for example, then zoom out and you know you're still in focus. But I had a rude awakening one time when I was using the viewfinder's GG to focus to a very close object and it appeared sharp in the GG but I was under the minimum focus of the lens and the footage turned out soft. This was on a high end Super 8 camera and it would probably be a non-issue on an Arri/Panavision ground glass. The point I was trying to make though is that the ground glass is only representative of the way the film is going to catch light and it can be off from the truth.


Marco
 
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And, no, you and whomever just keep saying "it's a cool neat feature!", you've done no actual hunting as to what goes wrong with the image.
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This is bordering on trolling. NOTHING goes wrong with the image and I know that because I've shot a hundred hours of material with the Brevis CF1. It doesn't sound like you are even in the market for a Brevis so there's no point in trying to convince you of anything.


Lenny:

Thanks for the nice words. I usually lean towards the full frame size because I love how it looks but it really depends on the project and what feels appropriate. I'm really not concerned with making it look and feel like a "real movie", whatever that means. I like to explore any potential to do something new and different.


Dennis:

Thanks for your kind words too and for making and standing behind a fine product.


Marco
 
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marco0782 said:
This is bordering on trolling. NOTHING goes wrong with the image and I know that because I've shot a hundred hours of material with the Brevis CF1. It doesn't sound like you are even in the market for a Brevis so there's no point in trying to convince you of anything.




Marco
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That's your problem: You're trying to convince people. I don't care to convince people, I only want to know the negative effect of a GG that's almost too transparent. You say there's nothing wrong, til' someone notices something then the big "oh well I never saw it.".

Like I said, if you're happy with what you have then keep using it. Some of us want to know if it has any negative effect on the image. Because, if it doesn't, that means Dennis is a Genius Ninja and every other adapter manufacturer should copy his CF1LE Screen, right?

And if they already know HOW to do it, then why HAVEN'T they? If it's all POSITIVE and nothing NEGATIVE?
 
It's not a matter of positive vs. negative. It's DIFFERENT, and has different advantages in different situations. The reason other adapter makers don't copy the CF1 is that they want MORE DIFFUSION because people get all horny when they see extremely shallow depth of field. :)

I am not trying to convince you to buy a Brevis, or anybody for that matter. I'm just trying to state that it's got some pretty neat quirks that don't have any drawbacks in my mind. As long as you know you're getting less diffusion with CF1 you will not be in for any surprises except "Oh my goodness, I can't believe I'm getting this much light!"

And yes, Dennis is a genius ninja. So is Wayne Kinney, the Le brothers and all of these other geniuses that put together these amazing adapters that each have unique strengths.

My issue with you is that you keep screaming "It's too good to be true! There must be something terribly wrong with the Brevis!"


Marco
 
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Letus, SG and Redrock, all chose the screen they prefer as the most pleasing image for their taste. Dennis went the route of replaceable screens and vibrating adapter. He found one that was very fast and still provides a good image. He also found ones that are denser for people who wanted a more diffuse image. A lot of people (me included) prefer the look of a denser screen - that might even include Dennis sometimes - but it depends what you're doing and what your trade offs are. Its a tool.

That's all there is to it - no magic - and no serious gotcha artifact problem that's been shown clearly - though apparently you see problems that most of us stare at and can't find.

The exposure phenomena was an after-effect. Hey look what happens when you open up! He didn't even talk about it much at first , and I thought it was a liability at first. It didn't become a big deal here until I posted tests so that people had an understanding of the complexities involved in describing which adapter was fastest. Then all hell broke loose.

There have been a number of attempts to explain why this might be happening but none of us are optical engineers. I'm sure it would be easy for a scientist to explain, its simply the odd optics of adapters.

If you don't like the less dense screen - fine - everybody has their preferences. End of story.

This started as a thread about SG. If we can lay this to rest then maybe it can stop hijacking other discussions.

Lenny Levy
 
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Uhm, Hien Le explained it. None of you have anything to say about it. I'd like to add that the Le brothers DO have engineering backgrounds.

It's not that it's too good to be true, it's just like you BOTH said: there's a trade-off.

Find the trade-off, make people aware of it, then you have your end of story.

And don't act like I'm the only one that asked the question, there are two other's that openly want to know what the trade-off is and how it works.

Just like "no one" could see the super smear on the sides of the image. But there's plenty of people seein' it now. Although really? If you can't see it, then it doesn't matter what you use.
 
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