Letus Extreme using 120th Shutter speed.
 

Some people were asking if the Extreme could handle fast shutter speeds...

Shots from my daughter's soccer game. My computer is still messed up so I wasn't really able to see what selections I used in the edit so ignore the quality of the shooting (focus, framing, etc.).

XHA1 @ 24f with Letus Extreme and 200mm Nikon f4 (Nikon was open for all of these shots). Slight levels adjustment... 1/120th shutter speed. I did not try any other shutter speeds, sorry.

http://www.pinelakefilms.com/XHA1/Extreme120shutter.wmv

Downrezzed to 720p

Steven:

I shot a soccer match the other day in 24p (HV20), without an adapter, and it that was a challenge. Can't imagine trying to shoot and maintain solid focus with the adapter. I assume you had it closed down a bit lower that F4 to maintain depth to focus ?

Had a lot of motion blur, shooting at 1/48. Is the thought that 1/120 shutter will eliminate the blur a bit ?

No, just an experiment to see how the adapter held out with a faster shutter speed. Frankly, I find it distracting (nothing to do with the adapter, just the fast shutter speed) so I usually stick to the 1/48th...maybe just for occasional footage it would work. Sometimes it makes things feel sped up even though they are not.

Hey, that looks great Steven... It's nice to know that you at least have that option if you needed for a specific situation... (trying to film a Gladiator like scene)

I think you might need to get your kids and agent since they are so use to be on camera anyway...

:)

The reason why I tried the 1/120th speed is to see if slow motion would be viable with the adapter and the answer is yes.

Of course, I would need to be shooting 60i but I think the results would be similar.

Steven,

Great test. It's a little choppy when your daughter (Tara?) is moving really fast, but I can see that if you shot at 60i it would be just fine. In fact, I would love to see some footage of a similar test shot at 60i and 1/120th, or even faster.

I was trying to envision you shooting this particular footage -- was your eye on the viewfinder and one hand on the focus ring of the 35mm lens, while the other hand was gripping the tripod handle? It just seems as though it would be quite a challenge with a manual focus lens to capture footage of any kind of "action," while yet seeking to maintain a somewhat shallow DOF. Staged scenes are one thing. Zooming in on action seems like a whole different animal.

I wonder if manufacturers like Sony and Canon think there might be a sufficient market for such a thing, and create a 35mm adapter that will work with fully electronic 35mm lenses, with autofocus and iris control for both lenses integrated into the camcorder's firmware.

Or maybe that will be deemed a pointless product development direction, and instead we'll just have to wait until CCDs get cheap enough so that prosumer camcorders with 35mm CCDs will be affordable.

Do you know if there are currently professional HD digital cameras with 35mm or 70mm CCDs? I assume there are, since that would only be a little bigger than 1 1/3".

www.red.com

The Red Camera has a 35mm sensor. Bargain basement price of about 30K for a package with lens.

I think the Viper and Genesis have 35mm sensors. I also think we will be waiting awhile until 35mm sensors appear on the sub 10k cameras, especially considering there are no 2/3" sensors in HD in that price range.

"I was trying to envision you shooting this particular footage -- was your eye on the viewfinder and one hand on the focus ring of the 35mm lens, while the other hand was gripping the tripod handle? It just seems as though it would be quite a challenge with a manual focus lens to capture footage of any kind of "action," while yet seeking to maintain a somewhat shallow DOF. Staged scenes are one thing. Zooming in on action seems like a whole different animal."

Kinda...

I use a Bogen 562b monopod for sports stuff and nestle the camera to my chest while watching the viewfinder. My left hand is resting on the rails (to avoid fatigue on my arm) while my index finger and thumb are adjusting focus. My right hand is on the top handle of the camera turning it up and down and left and right.

The beauty of using this particular monopod is that it gives me the same flexibility as going handheld without having to worry about fatigue.

This is a prime lens so I'm not sure that's what you meant when you said zooming in. There's no actual zooming in involved. Pulling focus with long lenses is actually much easier than with short lenses such as a 28mm. With the long lenses, the contrast between what's in focus and bokeh is more apparent. Of course it all comes down to practice and you need a lot of it to get it right. That's why I grab every opportunity to shoot sports events I can, they are great for fine-tuning focussing chops.

Rails
 

Nice Steven!

"My left hand is resting on the rails (to avoid fatigue on my arm)"

I just ordered my extreme today and was wondering where I could get rails, I live in Paris so I would need some one who ships internationally any suggestions?

Try www.cavision.com

That's where I got mine.

Well I personally thought this footage looked awesome. It would seem that it's quite possible to use nattress or twixtor or whatever to slowmo footage even shot in 24F at 1/120 shutter speed.