Gear on the way! at DVinfo.net

Andrew Dean · March 29th, 2006, 06:33 AM

I'm pretty excited. I'm shooting a film for a local artist in a week or so. I Poured a few freelancing checks into hardware. En route (hopefully...) is a Letus35 flip enhanced, cavision rods, a pag orbiter and some other fiddly bits.

I finished having a "skater dolly" (the three wheel p&s kind) machined out of aluminum (looks snazzy) and bought a 10 million candle power battery lantern to use to fill in some dusk shots in the bush. Got a britek light kit, miller ds10 tripod, boom mics, wind protection, sound devices mixpre, senn g2 wireless...

should be fun. I know its sometimes hard to get a truly objective opinion on gear... if anybody has any specific questions about these that i could answer, by all means ask. Its all new enough to me that i'm happy to praise or bash it as it deserves. I'm a "post production guy" by trade so that puts me in the unique position of being fairly well versed in production, but i dont have years of preconceived opinions about brands or models.

Anyways, i cant WAIT to spin the letus35 flip enhanced onto my fx1.

cheers!
-a

Gabriel Chiefetz · March 29th, 2006, 10:21 PM

Awesome! Sounds great. I'm considering the fx1 + Letus Flip combo, so any notes on your experience with this setup would be super useful to hear. Especially your opinions on light loss- I'm concerned that the naturally less sensitive fx1 (less sensitive than pd170, that is) plus the Letus Flip attached would take you somewhere undesirable vis-a-vis low light.

Bob Hart · March 30th, 2006, 12:05 AM

Andrew.

I shot some relay footage in an FX1 - not with Letus but a home-made. It was under lots of caryard lighting. This may??? give a bit of a hint on how it will behave.

http://savefile.com/projects/338360

Andrew Dean · April 1st, 2006, 06:32 PM

Well, the Letus35 flip arrived. I can only assume its the enhanced version, since it doesnt have model markings on it.

As other reviews have said, the letus flip is a nice hunk of engineering. The assembly looks very solidly designed and built and well put together. The only weak link is the plastic battery box on the outside, but thats easily replaced as needed. The plastic tab that keeps the battery pack closed broke in shipping, but otherwise its all intact. I might "upgrade" the power lead to have a connector inline.

So... my lenses have yet to arrive, so i cant really test the unit. And, the rest of my gear from b&h is held up in customs. I didnt realize this, but if you ship international via ups instead of usps, they hire a customs broker for you and you are at the mercy of how prompt/lazy they are. doh!

I only have one lens in the house, a 24-90 canon with something other than a FD mount on it, so while i cant hook it properly i was able to hold it up to the hole in the letus and see an image on the camera. The image was really really dark, but then, the lens is really really crappy (f4.5-5.6) so its hard to say how it will look with a decent lens.

Ok, so i didnt have anything interesting to add after all, but i was excited the "L35FE" (letus 35 flip enhanced) was here so i wanted to tell *somebody* that might care.

more as it comes.

cheers! - A

March 29th, 2006, 06:33 AM	#1
Andrew Dean Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Motukarara, New Zealand Posts: 475	Gear on the way! I'm pretty excited. I'm shooting a film for a local artist in a week or so. I Poured a few freelancing checks into hardware. En route (hopefully...) is a Letus35 flip enhanced, cavision rods, a pag orbiter and some other fiddly bits. I finished having a "skater dolly" (the three wheel p&s kind) machined out of aluminum (looks snazzy) and bought a 10 million candle power battery lantern to use to fill in some dusk shots in the bush. Got a britek light kit, miller ds10 tripod, boom mics, wind protection, sound devices mixpre, senn g2 wireless... should be fun. I know its sometimes hard to get a truly objective opinion on gear... if anybody has any specific questions about these that i could answer, by all means ask. Its all new enough to me that i'm happy to praise or bash it as it deserves. I'm a "post production guy" by trade so that puts me in the unique position of being fairly well versed in production, but i dont have years of preconceived opinions about brands or models. Anyways, i cant WAIT to spin the letus35 flip enhanced onto my fx1. cheers! -a

April 1st, 2006, 06:32 PM	#4
Andrew Dean Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Motukarara, New Zealand Posts: 475	status Well, the Letus35 flip arrived. I can only assume its the enhanced version, since it doesnt have model markings on it. As other reviews have said, the letus flip is a nice hunk of engineering. The assembly looks very solidly designed and built and well put together. The only weak link is the plastic battery box on the outside, but thats easily replaced as needed. The plastic tab that keeps the battery pack closed broke in shipping, but otherwise its all intact. I might "upgrade" the power lead to have a connector inline. So... my lenses have yet to arrive, so i cant really test the unit. And, the rest of my gear from b&h is held up in customs. I didnt realize this, but if you ship international via ups instead of usps, they hire a customs broker for you and you are at the mercy of how prompt/lazy they are. doh! I only have one lens in the house, a 24-90 canon with something other than a FD mount on it, so while i cant hook it properly i was able to hold it up to the hole in the letus and see an image on the camera. The image was really really dark, but then, the lens is really really crappy (f4.5-5.6) so its hard to say how it will look with a decent lens. Ok, so i didnt have anything interesting to add after all, but i was excited the "L35FE" (letus 35 flip enhanced) was here so i wanted to tell somebody that might care. more as it comes. cheers! - A

March 29th, 2006, 10:21 PM	#2
Gabriel Chiefetz Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 73	Awesome! Sounds great. I'm considering the fx1 + Letus Flip combo, so any notes on your experience with this setup would be super useful to hear. Especially your opinions on light loss- I'm concerned that the naturally less sensitive fx1 (less sensitive than pd170, that is) plus the Letus Flip attached would take you somewhere undesirable vis-a-vis low light.

March 30th, 2006, 12:05 AM	#3
Bob Hart Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: PERTH. W.A. AUSTRALIA. Posts: 4,476	Andrew. I shot some relay footage in an FX1 - not with Letus but a home-made. It was under lots of caryard lighting. This may??? give a bit of a hint on how it will behave. http://savefile.com/projects/338360