cannon xh a1 or hv30 and letus
 

i need a second camera. One to set up on the church at the back while im at the front, ( mainly for cut aways if i get in troube) for some steadicam shots on my merlin and if the light is too low to film the dancing and evening stuff ( not totally necessary as my sony v1 isnt too bad)

which would my money be more best spent

or would it be wiser to save the letus for my sony and or cannon.

i like the idea that the Hv30 and letus is light and easy

Just lookng for some opinions if people have time to answer??


many thanks

luke

I know 2 people with a Letus and HV30 setup, and both are generally disappointed...it's seems to be too small and fiddly a setup to get anything decent all of the time. And plugging in an external viewing monitor seems a bit overkill?

I'd say you either need to go the whole hog and get a Letus (or Brevis, or SGBlade) for the XH-A1, or just get the 5dmk2 (but only good for short burst shots, not whole ceremonies!)

Every setup out of the ones above has clear pros and cons.

re
 

cheers rich , ill wait and get the sg blade, looks dam nice
ill save my pennies and get that.

thanks again

yeah and spot the fool who bought a letus extreme, just before the sgblade came out, :O

got some 'ok' test shots with the letus on saturday though:
Letus Extreme Test Shots on Vimeo

I've used the HV30+Letus Mini combo.. It worked just fine for preparation segments. And that is the ONLY part of the day I've used that combo with. For the rest of the day, if you have another shooter to get b-Rolls, I'm sure the HV+Letus will capture some wonderful shots that you won't get with the A1. However, if you are a sole shooter like me, then the Letus has little use for the rest of the day other than perhaps shooting the free dance, provided there's enough lighting.

re
 

can u not send it back rich and say ur not happy???

i almost did the same as u and by off chance heard about it , still the letus looks great form all the stuff i have seen

may sound a bit dont judge a book but the black and red really draws me in

luke

re
 

just saw your footage , looks great, i cant wait to achieve that DOF

oh don't get me wrong, i don't regret it at all, it's was just a wee bit gutting the SGblade is something produced 'locally' and i could have tried it before buying it.

i'll re-assess after a few more go's of it :)

You can get very nice images from the HV30 and a Letus, but its not a good set up if you need to move quickly at any point. Plus, the Letus does not help with the low light sensitivity. For filmmaking, it might be another story, but for event videography, I gotta think the XH-A1 would be a better choice.

THis is what I was thinking. I don't own either XHa1 or HV30, but the LEtus has been reported to cut a full stop or two off your light. And or weddings you just cannot afford that.

One thing that always bugged me about the adapter industry is the fact that NO manufacture ever mentions or reminds a potential customer the additional loss of light one would suffer due to the fact that you have to zoom-in to fill the GG in the frame. All prosumer camcorders have variable aperture zoom lens so once you have zoomed-in to fill the FOV with the GG, you typically loose another 1 to 2 stops... The HV30 for example has maximum aperture of f1.8 at full wide, but only f2.4 or f2.8 once I have zoomed in sufficiently to fill the GG of the Letus Mini in my frame.

I never thought about that. But MAN you need a lot of light when using these things!

BTW do pricier camcorders have variable aperture zoom lenses? Do they need "adapters" to create a shallow DOF?

JS



EDIT: Sorry Luke, I agree with the others, XH A1 is the way I would go.