I got to use one a bit today, and though I only had a minute or two with it, here are my general impressions:
Light loss isn't as bad as people would have you believe, but it's enough to be annoying.
The design is impressive and the parts are of the highest quality. The design is very different from the home built adapters, and--in my opinion--much better and the optics are really top notch. Everything is complex but incredibly sturdy and the rig feels great in your hands. The shroud locking the focus ring is a nice touch and brilliantly integrated. It's heavy but not ridiculous, and I felt like I was running around with an ultra-lightweight 35mm film camera. We were using Zeiss lenses among others (mostly around T1.3) and the images were quite beautiful and seeing the live output on a monitor was very impressive. It was like watching a DVD of a 35mm telecine in real time. Cinema lenses just plain rock. They open up very wide and have the smoothest gears (we used a follow focus for one shot) on both f-stops and focus. Even at t1.3 we needed two big kinoflos, a 2k and 1k to get even acceptable exposure settings, but the room was huge.
Basically, it's worth it. And it's incredibly, incredibly cool. Is it necessary? Not really. The flexibility was impressive, and using a real 18mm lens was pretty sweet. But, how different is that really from using 4.5mm on the dvx, and how much more trouble? Basically, it adds a lot to your production, but it makes it tougher to work with the camera, too. We managed to mount it on a 501 head but the tripod itself was very expensive and you'd need a mighty big steadicam to use it.
I'm looking forward to cheaper alternatives, to be honest, for my own projects. What I'll lose in having a flipped image and using cheap lenses I can make up for in the flexibility of a lighter rig. The size is really restrictive and it's designed for productions with high quality equipment all around. Definitely worth the money, though, if you need it.
Considering how much cinema lenses cost, it makes sense that it would cost a lot, too, anyhow.
Light loss isn't as bad as people would have you believe, but it's enough to be annoying.
The design is impressive and the parts are of the highest quality. The design is very different from the home built adapters, and--in my opinion--much better and the optics are really top notch. Everything is complex but incredibly sturdy and the rig feels great in your hands. The shroud locking the focus ring is a nice touch and brilliantly integrated. It's heavy but not ridiculous, and I felt like I was running around with an ultra-lightweight 35mm film camera. We were using Zeiss lenses among others (mostly around T1.3) and the images were quite beautiful and seeing the live output on a monitor was very impressive. It was like watching a DVD of a 35mm telecine in real time. Cinema lenses just plain rock. They open up very wide and have the smoothest gears (we used a follow focus for one shot) on both f-stops and focus. Even at t1.3 we needed two big kinoflos, a 2k and 1k to get even acceptable exposure settings, but the room was huge.
Basically, it's worth it. And it's incredibly, incredibly cool. Is it necessary? Not really. The flexibility was impressive, and using a real 18mm lens was pretty sweet. But, how different is that really from using 4.5mm on the dvx, and how much more trouble? Basically, it adds a lot to your production, but it makes it tougher to work with the camera, too. We managed to mount it on a 501 head but the tripod itself was very expensive and you'd need a mighty big steadicam to use it.
I'm looking forward to cheaper alternatives, to be honest, for my own projects. What I'll lose in having a flipped image and using cheap lenses I can make up for in the flexibility of a lighter rig. The size is really restrictive and it's designed for productions with high quality equipment all around. Definitely worth the money, though, if you need it.
Considering how much cinema lenses cost, it makes sense that it would cost a lot, too, anyhow.