Shoot 35 SGBlade First Review
 

It arrived today in a rather large box...it looks REALLY nice. Unfortunately it's far too dark and far too cold to go shoot anything tonight. Tomorrow I take her for a spin. In the meantime please read my blog first my initial thoughts and lots of pics!!

Philip Bloom Blog Archive Shoot 35 SGBlade First Review and my adaptor history.

Well, It's certainly a sexy looking beast and packaged beautifully.
I'm looking forward to your impressions in terms of how hard you can push the shutter speed and to what f-stop you can push it without grain.
Did the Siamese cats come as standard, or did you order them separately?

Siamese cats come as standard, just make sure you pay for fast shipping. It's cruel otherwise!

Phil ...
 

Nice cats !!! Good presentation on deboxing the unit. Can't wait to have some tests run !!

Phil:

You are the Imelda Marcos of 35mm adapters. It actually is quite nice to hear your comparisons of all these adapters.... next thing we need is a Phil Bloom model making use of the best of each !

I know, bit worried when I counted them all up!

Anyway...

...just got back from filming some test footage. I haven't looked at it yet so all I can give are my first impressions...

It was easy to set up, personally I think Wayne should bring out a 77mm version rather than use step up rings as they are horrible things that can easily get stuck on cameras. But I mounted it onto the ex1 using the ring very easily, adjusted the X/Y very simply using the grub screws on the flip module and had a perfectly aligned image.

I was zooming into about z70 to lose the edges clearly, maybe about z72 to be safe. A feature that I am glad this had that the Letus line has but the brevis doesn't with the EX1 is the ability to be able to zoom all the way in and maintain focus without really soft edges. Useful if you need a tighter shot quickly!

The rods are fine, not up to Zacuto quality but then they are a fraction of the price! They are light, sturdy and a perfect match for the Blade. The support bracket screwed on easily and I had my rig all up and ready in 20 minutes.

I can't comment on picture quality as I haven't imported the footage into my mac yet, but it looked good on the ex1 LCD. One thing I was warned to expect was edge sharpness, with wide lenses especially, you needed to have the ex1 closed down a lot to get it. Not so much on normal lenses. Buy on my 17mm I struggled to get edge to edge sharpness, but this is a very wide lens!

I stopped down to f11 and it looked fine, I also managed to put 1/500th shutter in. Bit difficult with the light in London today, also in the LCD it looked fine.

I will update later with some footage and a proper assessment. So far it all looks great!

I'd be very interested to hear if those figures can be achieved without patterning at all.

Not at same time, one or the other. Am writing blog review right now and my test short is uploading to Exposure room as we speak!

here is the review and the test short film

Philip Bloom Blog Archive Test film made with Shoot 35 SGBlade

Thanks for the review, pics, and footage. Very helpful.



Any chance you'd take half an hour with the HV20 behind it and post it...maybe to 'My Generation'...;)...? I'd really appreciate it.

Chromatic aberration in the footage
 

there is chromatic aberration in the footage. you need to see the video in HD, in full screen to see it. these crops from the footage shows the chromatic aberration, the green/blue and yellow/red fringing in the contrast objects:

Phil, great review and great footage. You are such a talent! Which Rotorazor did you use? have you tried both?

I did see some grain at around 1:16 and some flicker 1:45, did you see this too?

At this early stage would you say the image from the SGPro is better than the Letus Extreme/Elite ? It looks a tad softer and more washed out than previous stuff you've shown from the lower end Letus but I wasn't sure whether it was because the footage is ungraded or its just the Richmond weather.

Also are you planning on testing the new Redrock Micro Encore M2 as well?

Sorry for all the questions.

Thanks again

Dan

i dont have the mounting kit for it unfortunately.

Please bare in mind, this is shot with an EX1, not an HV20...

Hi dan

cheers mate,

I used the roto 1. I didn't notice the grain at all, just looked at footage, if you see grain it would be a circular pattern. But I did notice the flicker, not sure why...it was only when I overcranked to 60fps. V odd. Def more washed out than my usual stuff as I haven't graded it, couple of shots in particular with the sun coming straight at me gave nasty flair that made it look washed out. I was too lightweight to bring matte box with me.

I may get my m2 upgraded, but to be honest to find the time to do it and test it would be hard!

Best,

Phil