Letus Extreme for Telephoto Use
 

I'm looking for solutions which will allow me to use the EX1 for long-range work such as wildlife videography.

Add-on telephoto adapter lenses don't seem to work very well with the EX-1's Fujinon, although I'm happy to be corrected on this.

Would a Letus Extreme and, say, a Nikon telephoto lens be a workable solution or is the Letus more suited for obtaining that "film-look" depth-of-field?

John,

As a Letus Extreme user, I would not recommend it with the hassle involved for wildlife shooting!
With telephoto zooms, and he EX1's 1/2" imagers, you will have enough DOF control even without a 35mm adapter, using a teleconverter straight on the camera (instead of putting one on the Letus) will be much easier for you (weight, size, and overall ease of use and agility).

Which teleconverters did you try, and why don't they work as expected with the EX1?

I haven't tried any teleconverters myself, I've only read the reviews posted on this forum and none of them seemed to be overly positive.

John...

I use a LEX, in part, because of the telephoto lens ability. I've achieved very nice results with a Canon 200mm FD lens. I think it's a great way to go. What I've seen of zoom thru lens attachments for the EX1 make pretty bad images.

What image quality do you get with the Letus? I assume it's pretty good but how much image degradation do you get compared to the standard lens?

I'd be REAL interested to see some frame grabs if someone could shoot some footage with:

a. the Fujinon zoomed out to its' maximum tele focal length
b. the Letus (either one) with an equivalent tele lens shooting the same scene

With the CA issues inherent in the Fuji at full tele, I'd have to imagine that a well designed and CA controlled 35mm lens "should" be better, but I'd love to see the images.

Bill:

As I understand it, the EX1 is fixed lens and from that standpoint, this does not improve telephoto capability, in my mind, except if you are looking for a specific film/DOF effects. With my FX-1, for instance, putting a 200mm on a Letus actually decreases the telephoto capability of the the camera, which is reported at 32.5 - 390 mm 35mm equivalent. While you may make up some of that loss by zooming in on the ground glass, I don't think you could make 390mm out of the 200, unless it is at the expense of a very degraded image.

My question is has any one mounted one the verly long telephotos on the Letus Extreme to get decent telephoto footage.

I have wondered the same too about telephoto lenses, but not 200mm, but more like 400mm or 600mm. I'm going to do mostly wide angle stuff, but I'd like to have the option of some high zoom capability in the 400-600mm range for wildlife.

When I complained to Sony about the CA issues with the EX1's Fujinon lens (during service trip #1), they told me that CA was just a fact of life. However, I have some nicely designed and corrected Nikkor lenses with low-dispersion ED glass inside that don't have this problem. That's why I'd love to see the side-by-side comparisons.

Dave you are never going to see as much CA on a still camera lens (or at least a half decent one). The main reasons are twofold - lens design for still cameras doesn't have to worry about stuff that is critical for video like breathing etc, so they can take a different approach and cost: really good lenses that are as FAST as the lens on the EX1 (eg open up to F1.4 or 1.8) and have the same telephoto range (10x Zoom), well they just don't exist but if they did they would cost a bomb.

I'm guessing the smaller chips (although less pixel dense) and the three chip design with a prism that splits the light also contributes to CA because even minor errors can be multiplied.

I agree for the most part, John. My real desire would be to see a good comparison of the equivalent magnification lenses (Fujinon at full tele vs. Nikkor of equivalent focal length) just to see what a well corrected lens can look like in spite of any inherent losses of going through the Letus. It's purely academic at this point as I don't have the money to buy a Letus right now but I DO have some good ED Nikkor glass I'd love to use.

If your not attached to using an EX-1 , the old Canon XL1 & 2 ( and I assume the HD equiv I forget the number maybe an XLH1) allows you to use Canon still lenses directly on the camera. Since you're only looking at the inside 1/3" of the 35mm lens, the field of view of say a 200mm Canon is equal to at least a 400mm and probably over 600mm. You can get incredible long lens stuff with those cameras. I know someone who did this with an XL1 years ago and it was spectacular. That's what i would do in your situation. Sure its HDV but so what.

Oh heck no, why would I do that? ;-) I'm having FAR too much fun shipping my EX1 back and forth to Sony for service. I used an XL1 for a couple of years but I was a Nikon shooter and never had any other Canon lenses to try with it. That's why I'm so interested in the look of the Letus vs. the normal Fujinon.

Pmw-ex3
 

Have you considered to wait 2-3 weeks for Sony PMW-EX3?

yes the EX3
 

The EX3 would be great if there was a way to attached Canon 35mm glass on it - like the old XL1. Then we'd have lots of options.