HZ-CA13U PL Mount Test Footage

[Michael Maier]

Originally Posted by Matthew Wauhkonen

What advantages over a $1000 adapter?
much more sharpness,

Not at all. Now seeing the full rez frame grabs, I have got sharper images with the Mini35 and M2. On edge to edge this looks very good though. Better than the M2 for sure. But not better than the SGpro which is very sharp.
I also se Ca all over the place on those grabs.
DOF is not nearly as shallow as I like. For 4,000 I think I'm better off with a SGpro. Nothing to do with being a "nay-sayer". It's just not worth $4,000 for what it is IMO. May be for other people, but not for me.

[Tim Dashwood]

Originally Posted by Brian Drysdale

I'm rather hoping that a version comes out for the B4 mount 2/3" CCD cameras, so that you can use the 35mm film lenses on those without that ground glass.

I imagine the P+S Pro35 fills that gap in the market. I know there are quite a few TV series that employ the Pro35 on the F900 or Varicam. It does have a ground glass, but I think the performance is much better than the mini35. Retails for $27000 USD.

[Michael Maier]

Originally Posted by Tim Dashwood

As for the frame size of the adapter, I think it is around 16mm, which is still great for selective focus. Just think of all the productions shot on 16/Super16mm that use selective focus all the time:
Scrubs, The O.C., South Beach, Babel, Sex and the City, Saw, March of the Penguins, Veronic Mars, Hustle & Flow, The Last King of Scotland, 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,' etc.

The majority of Babel was 35mm. What 16mm shots had selective focus and looked great?

[Brian Drysdale]

Originally Posted by Tim Dashwood

I imagine the P+S Pro35 fills that gap in the market. I know there are quite a few TV series that employ the Pro35 on the F900 or Varicam. It does have a ground glass, but I think the performance is much better than the mini35. Retails for $27000 USD.

I know the Pro35, just I don't want to have something that automatically has a promist effect. I'd prefer clean, then let me decide on the filtration.

[Bill Ravens]

I'm way confused 'cuz now you're noting the same things I was...LOL.
Looking at these frame grabs, the DOF is hardly noticeable....with the exception of the closeup, and I would expect very shallow DOF in that scenario with any lens.

I agree, I hate hate hate the batteries and vibrating screens, which is why I was so attracted to this unit. But the DOF is really not a selling point. Guess I'm not very impressed with this adapter, especially given the cost.

[Tim Dashwood]

Originally Posted by Michael Maier

The majority of Babel was 35mm. What 16mm shots had selective focus and looked great?

Morocco. http://www.ascmag.com/magazine_dynam...abel/page1.php

[Michael Maier]

Originally Posted by Tim Dashwood

Morocco. http://www.ascmag.com/magazine_dynam...abel/page1.php

I know 16mm was used for the Morocco scenes but so was 35mm. Do you know what shots were what? With very, very long fast lenses is possible to achieve decently shallow DOF in 16mm, but in short, it’s the same thing as trying with 2/3" cameras as the frames are very similar in size. Anyone who has ever tried getting shallow 35mm like DOF with a 2/3" camera knows it's not easy task. Much better than 1/3" of course, but not an easy task at all.

[Tim Holtermann]

Watch "The Devils Rejects" - Entire thing is Super 16mm, Looks good to me.

Also about loss of light. I have a feeling that with this adaptor and a super fast lens you would actually gain light over the stock lens.

[Brian Drysdale]

Originally Posted by Bill Ravens

I'm way confused 'cuz now you're noting the same things I was...LOL.
Looking at these frame grabs, the DOF is hardly noticeable....with the exception of the closeup, and I would expect very shallow DOF in that scenario with any lens.

The 16mm lens was being used at more or less f2.8, which on 16mm, gives a reasonable DOF (@ 5ft: 4ft 3" to 6ft 8"), shooting it at f1.4 will reduce the DOF (@5ft.: 4ft 51/2" to 5ft 9").

f2.8 @ 10ft: 6ft 8" to 20ft while f1.4 @10ft: 8ft to 13ft 5"

This is similar to how people use the Digiprimes on 2/3" CCD cameras.

However, if stylistically you want an even shallower DOF, you'll have use a 35mm format.

I expect there were a number of reasons why JVC decided to go with using 16mm, one of which I expect is that 35mm adapter market is pretty well covered.

[Matthew Wauhkonen]

Originally Posted by Michael Maier

Not at all. Now seeing the full rez frame grabs, I have got sharper images with the Mini35 and M2. On edge to edge this looks very good though. Better than the M2 for sure. But not better than the SGpro which is very sharp.
I also se Ca all over the place on those grabs.
DOF is not nearly as shallow as I like. For 4,000 I think I'm better off with a SGpro. Nothing to do with being a "nay-sayer". It's just not worth $4,000 for what it is IMO. May be for other people, but not for me.

Fair enough in regards to chromatic abberation and depth of focus (though 16mm is fine for 90% of shoots, certainly some styles (soft focus glamour) require something different. I wouldn't discount sharpness just yet, though; all this stuff was focused on the fly and we don't know the in camera settings. I also wonder just why you need such a shallow depth of focus; if set design and lighting are good, it's possible to make do with a stock 1/3'' lens and still get a great look.

The best argument you make is the price, though, and you do have a more than fair point--particularly since a hd250 plus adapter costs $14,000--near the price of a true 2/3'' camera. And whil you may need 4 times the light to use a ground glass adapter, you can use cheaper lenses (nikon rather than angenieux, zeiss, etc.). And $4,000 buys a lot of light.

[Tim Dashwood]

I don't want anyone to write the device off yet based solely on my footage. I shot this just to see for myself how well this "too good to be true" technology actually worked, and decided to share my excitement and the footage on my own accord. Proper tests will need to be conducted with various prime and zoom lenses to make any sort of definitive conclusions.

Until that time, keep in mind that I was using a fairly wide lens - 16mm focal length, with the subjects at close to the MOD. Also, this was an IMPROMPTU TEST conducted 'spur of the moment' on a very busy street, below freezing temperatures, during one of the biggest film festivals in America! All things considered, I think the HZ-CA13U performed exceptionally well, especially since I popped it off the tripod it had been publicly displayed on all weekend, took it outside to shoot, and I didn't even check the back focus.

Personally, as someone who has shot a fair share of 35mm, S-16, 16mm and video, using this device for a few minutes was a revolutionary moment for me. I'll probably never forget it.
Sony gave the world of cinema HD video at 24fps in the late 90's, Panasonic gave us affordable 24P on miniDV in 2002, P+S released the mini35 around the same time (not so affordable,) and now JVC has created a PL mount reimager for 1/3" HDV without a ground glass for under $5000!
I have a couple of major label music videos coming up that I really want to push to use this device on. This will allow me to shift the budget normally allocated for film stock/processing/transfer into other areas.
This is a big deal!

At $4400 list price, rental house rates will probably be around $100/day or less.

I've included some links to a few very short ts files trimmed from the original 720P60 m2t files for those of you who still doubt the sharpness. These will play fine in VLC.
http://www.timdashwood.com/.Public/dog.ts
http://www.timdashwood.com/.Public/craig1.ts
http://www.timdashwood.com/.Public/craig2.ts

[Michael Maier]

Originally Posted by Matthew Wauhkonen

The best argument you make is the price, though, and you do have a more than fair point--particularly since a hd250 plus adapter costs $14,000--near the price of a true 2/3'' camera.

Also when you think RED will be just $3,500 more than that and is not just a true 2/3" camera but a full Super35 one, it makes even less sense to dump 14k on a HD200+this 16mm tube.

[Tim Dashwood]

Originally Posted by Michael Maier

Also when you think RED will be just $3,500 more than that and is not just a true 2/3" camera but a full Super35 one, it makes even less sense to dump 14k on a HD200+this 16mm tube.

True, if you are referring to a HD250/HZ-CA13U combo, but the HZ-CA13U will work with any of JVC's ProHD cameras except for the HD100/101.
There is no denying that RED will shake up the 4K and 1080P market when it is finally released (I'm looking forward to it,) but it will still be in a slightly different teir than the market we are talking with the JVC/Canon products. There is already a huge installed base of ProHD users on the planet. I'm sure rental houses stocking the HZ-CA13U will have no problems renting it on a daily basis.
Also, the $17,500 price tag of RED just gets you started (I think the LCD monitor is included) but I'm pretty sure you still need to accessorize with drive or flash, rails, cage, batteries, etc.

[Michael Maier]

Originally Posted by Tim Dashwood

I've included some links to a few very short ts files trimmed from the original 720P60 m2t files for those of you who still doubt the sharpness. These will play fine in VLC.
http://www.timdashwood.com/.Public/dog.ts
http://www.timdashwood.com/.Public/craig1.ts
http://www.timdashwood.com/.Public/craig2.ts

Ok, this looks MUCH better and sharper. Thanks for posting.
I'm somewhat convinced about the sharpness. I say somewhat because the footage has an artificial feeling to it, specially over the skin. Did you have skin tone on or something. Sometimes it looks plastic.
But there's still CA and basically the same amount as 35mm GG adapters. Besides that there's the DOF matter which I like to have the flexibility to choose a very shallow DOF at times. I know you used a 16mm lens, but this is not as wide for the 16mm format. That's about a 33mm lens in 35mm actually. Not that wide. But the worst point is the price. At $2,000 that would be interesting. But at almost $4,500 when you add a HD200 you are almost in RED's territory. Yes, I know, it's not out yet. But still.

[Brian Drysdale]

Originally Posted by Michael Maier

Also when you think RED will be just $3,500 more than that and is not just a true 2/3" camera but a full Super35 one, it makes even less sense to dump 14k on a HD200+this 16mm tube.

A RED shooting rig will be more than the basic price of the camera body. However, you do make a valid point with sub $20k HD single sensor cameras now coming into the market. The high end prosumer HD cameras will start to lose the large price advantage they had over the traditional high end 2/3" CCD cameras. The SI-2k and a basic RED rig do start appearing on the horizon when you're looking at this budget range (for $6000 plus extra).