SONY F900R and a 35mm adaptor

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chadi

Member
hi
I was wondering, how many people of you have tried F900R with a 35mm adaptor, and would like to ask these questions:
1-How good is the idea of such marrying such a camera with an adaptor.
2-What lenses you have tried.
3-What lenses you would suggest.
4-What 35mm is best for this rig.
5-Other ideas or comments about the experience.
Thanks
 
I've used the F900R with Pro35 for an MTV show (a spoof music video). We rented the setup from Clairmont Camera in LA with a set of Zeiss Superspeeds (PL mount).
You lose quite a bit of light with the Pro35 but it looks good. You also lose some resolution and contrast as with all 35mm adapters.
I recently watched "It's All Gone Pete Tong" and "Wolf Creek" both of which were shot on the F900 without 35mm adapters - you can't get that kind of crispness and contrast once you start shooting through a ground glass, and if it's for transfer to 35mm Film, it's usually suggested that you do not go the 35mm adapter route.

Instead of the Pro35 adapter, you might want to go the Letus 2/3" Relay Lens route, with their Ultimate 35mm adapter - both types of adapters are expensive but you will lose less light with the Letus combination.


chadi said:
hi
I was wondering, how many people of you have tried F900R with a 35mm adaptor, and would like to ask these questions:
1-How good is the idea of such marrying such a camera with an adaptor.
2-What lenses you have tried.
3-What lenses you would suggest.
4-What 35mm is best for this rig.
5-Other ideas or comments about the experience.
Thanks
Click to expand...
 
Hi
Thank you for the good info, I was hesitating between Pro35 and M2 Redrock bundle, the price difference is quite huge, will see which one we will take.
The filmed material will be for TV only, and no transfer is planned for 35mm film.
We want that DOF style and to play with lenses to accomplish the story telling of the series.
Any way to see that MTV music video, just to have a look.
Thanks
 
I would go for the M2e Redrock bundle personally cuz its cheaper but what lens would you use as a relay? Putting a 35mm adapter in front of an ENG lens wouldn't work, so you would need a relay lens of some sort which is built into the Pro35.
The music video was for one of Nick Cannon's MTV showcases, it was the "Long John Silver" music video spoof. I've never watched MTV for the last seven years, I completely missed short circuits episodes so I don't know if it even aired I think the show got cancelled pretty quick.
We also used a 6mm true fisheye lens for that queen latifah music vid look, which was another reason to use the 35mm adapter. Its hard to get an equivalent lens for 2/3" (I think).
I don't like using 35mm adapters for cinema work on the F900, would rather rent out the Zeiss DigiPrimes and shoot close to wide open, but for TV I'm sure it will work out great for you.
 
I don't know of any way to mate a Redrock to a 2/3" camera lens. The only cheaper alternative to the P+S at the moment is to get a Letus adapter and relay lens. they have a few different choices available.
F900 with Pro35 works very well but is expensive.
 
I own an F900R and on several recent projects, I've used the Letus Ultimate with the smaller relay lens. It worked very well, however you've got to check the relay lens to ground glass focus whenever you move the camera position. It's not hard to do, but if you don't check it, you can get images that are a tiny bit soft.

I rent the Letus adapter, relay lens and support rods, but I bought my own Nikon & Canon EF front adapters ($99 each) that are easily changed in the field. I "preset" all my Canon lenses to F2 then use the iris on the relay lens to control exposure. It works pretty well and looks great.

No matter what you read in promotions, figure that you'll loose 1-stop of light. Also, make sure you don't open the relay lens iris all the way. You'll notice "blooming" on specular highlights and loss of focus and contrast that goes away as soon as you close the relay lens' iris about a 1/2 f-stop. You need to check the maximum relay lens "acceptable" iris on a good monitor before you start shooting.

Hope this helps... Here's a link to a recent national commercial I directed and photographed with the F900R, Letus Ultimate, and Nikon prime lenses...

http://www.przyborski.com/HD_movies/AZO-ByYourSide-960x540.mov
 
Thank you guys for the great info.
@Glenn, awesome info, especially the ones with the iris, what type of relay lens you have used?
Is it compatible with all FF and crop lenses? Nice video by the way, absolutely nice and 35 look.
@Lenilenapi I think I will go for Letus, P+S is HELL over priced, I talked with Brian from Redrock about marrying a redrock and a F900R, it worked, but due to Macro problems the set up is special and not suitable for production -I think there are a space between the camera lens and the adaptor.
@Daddyboy, no problem for the music video, thank you for the info.

So a F900R "without its Fujinon lens" + Letus relay lens "don't know which one yet" + Letus ultimate + Canon Mount + Canon EF lenses is a good solution, isn't it.
Best day
 
I have the Letus B4 Pro and a couple Ultimates for my rental inventory. The Pro is a bit sharper, faster, has more contrast when wide open, but is more expensive, larger and heavier. The B4 Compact is 90% as good for much less money.

The combination looks very nice with my HPX2700. It was $10,500 USD, but now the Letus products are on sale.
 
Tetro was filmed on the Sony F900. Not sure if they were using an adapter, but it looked incredible.
 
No adapter on Teatro. I went to a screening where Coppola talked about the shoot and no doubt he would have mentioned it. Absolutely gorgeous film.... or should I say video.
 
chadi said:
@Dino, is HPX2700 pipeline is only P2 based?
Click to expand...

That's correct, 5)P2 memory cards with DVCPRO HD, AVC-Intra 50 and 100.
Records over 6.5 hours of 720/24PN in DVCPRO HD or Intra 100 w/5)32Gb cards,
double that for Intra 50 or 64Gb cards. Native frame rate modes are available in 1080/24P and 30P with Intra.
 
Lenilenapi said:
No adapter on Teatro. I went to a screening where Coppola talked about the shoot and no doubt he would have mentioned it. Absolutely gorgeous film.... or should I say video.
Click to expand...

Yeah, and I have seen production stills and it didn't seem to have anything of that effect. But then again, I'm sure they used some great lenses, and a lot of shots were wide and with a gorgeous deep focus. Oh, that lighting!
 
jwing said:
Yeah, and I have seen production stills and it didn't seem to have anything of that effect. But then again, I'm sure they used some great lenses, and a lot of shots were wide and with a gorgeous deep focus. Oh, that lighting!
Click to expand...

Hey guys, I worked on Tetro. Was shot with 2 F900 with an SR and Digiprimes.
 
It means an SR VTR thats HDcam-SR...

Copolla is a smart guy... he didn't use the 1440 x 1080 3:1:1 6:1 8 bit compression that plain old HD-CAM has instead he used 1920 x 1080 4:2:2 2:1 10 bit compression of the SR VTR..

I would suggest a Panasonic P2 mobile for F900R users to get similar results but with much less cost... 1920 x 1080 4:2:2 10bit H264 compression...

What I get with Viper and P2 is unbelievable 10 bit performance...
 
At the price you must be renting the 900, why worry about adaptors? Go with the Genesis. You'll have the real thing.
 
Glenn Przyborski said:
I own an F900R and on several recent projects, I've used the Letus Ultimate with the smaller relay lens. It worked very well, however you've got to check the relay lens to ground glass focus whenever you move the camera position. It's not hard to do, but if you don't check it, you can get images that are a tiny bit soft.

I rent the Letus adapter, relay lens and support rods, but I bought my own Nikon & Canon EF front adapters ($99 each) that are easily changed in the field. I "preset" all my Canon lenses to F2 then use the iris on the relay lens to control exposure. It works pretty well and looks great.

No matter what you read in promotions, figure that you'll loose 1-stop of light. Also, make sure you don't open the relay lens iris all the way. You'll notice "blooming" on specular highlights and loss of focus and contrast that goes away as soon as you close the relay lens' iris about a 1/2 f-stop. You need to check the maximum relay lens "acceptable" iris on a good monitor before you start shooting.

Hope this helps... Here's a link to a recent national commercial I directed and photographed with the F900R, Letus Ultimate, and Nikon prime lenses...

http://www.przyborski.com/HD_movies/AZO-ByYourSide-960x540.mov
Click to expand...

Downloaded the video, and it looks really great, this is exactly what we want to go for on a shoot coming up with using the Letus and the 2/3'' short relay... Did you have trouble getting wider shots with your nikon primes? If we went Nikon we noticed that Academy size is much smaller so a 50mm 1.4 nikon kinda turns into a 90mm 1.4 because of the Academy size on the relay.

What were your lenses you used on that shoot? they looked very nice and clean and if you told me you shot that on 35mm I would have believed you.

Thanks a bunch... oh and how long did it take for your letus b4 relay to arrive??
 
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