How practical is to shoot handheld with a Letus DOF lens attached?
 

I am sorry if this is a ridiculous question because I am not even sure if it is even usable when not on a tripod and extra support. Is it possible to go out in the world with a Letus attached and shoot without a tripod?

As you can see, I am no where near ready to venture into DOF lenses so I decided to start somewhere and ask this question.

Monopod
 

I use a monopod with rails attached to support the lens. It is then much easier to move around. Hope this helps. The Letus extreme itself is freaking Heavy to say the least. I would not dare using the adapter without the rails support and forget hand held. Just too heavy. A monopod will do the trick if you want to freely move around, and obviously best on a tripod.

Do wedding videographers use it on a monopod? Thats is something I'm interested in doing.

depends on what works best for you. shoulder mount is also an option.

JS


woohoo!! 200 posts : )

No Letus use for weddings
 

Sorry to say, buy shooting weddings with a 35mm Adapter is a royal pain in the butt.
Can't imagine fooling with an adapter when you are constantly on the run at weddings. You have to constantly fool with the focus and needs tons of light. Now, unless you shoot pre-ceremony with the adapter then might be okay, but forget about the reception. I shoot with 2 XHA1's with a 2 man crew and I can honestly say, I dont have time to fool with it. Too cumbersome. But there are guys out there that do so maybe they can shed some light.

I use the RNG35 with Brevis Flip so about the same weight as the Letus and have rails with shoulder mount and handle, I shoot non wedding stuff with A1/DOF and weddings with HV30/DOF. the A1 is pretty heavy but worth the effort, I personally don't like mono pods as I got more to carry around, and if I want a tripod shot, then I use a tripod which I have in standby, in saying that if I could afford 2 A1's then I would have one on the DOF always.

But definitely Yes you can do hand-held no worries. here is Stillmotion in action ||StillMotion||BehindTheScenes|| on Vimeo and you'll see them using the Brevis unit with the shoulder mount setup.

What rail system is Michael using in this?

I think its the Cinevate rails but the shoulder mount would be from another company as it doesn't look like the one Cinevate are selling but I could be wrong. I have the Cavision rail/shouler with single handgrip.

If Im not mistaken, Casey (the person who shot that video) uses a DOF lens on a steadicam.

http://images.vimeo.com/72/62/88/726...628862_300.jpg

You may want to ask him that because doing pull focuses couldn't really be done on a Steadicam Pilot whilst moving around with it.

Still Motion
 

StillMotion.ca

Handheld brevis work, steadicam brevis work. It can be done.

Specifically with steadicam, there's no need to pull focus if you keep the same distance between the lens and the subject as you move (e.g. travel in an arc), or if you open up the aperture a bit to deepen the focus.

I've tried using my EX1 with Letus and Zacuto rails handheld a couple of times. Works okay for shorter periods of time. With my Chinese el cheapo shoulder mount it is almost accaptable. A bit front heavy though. I shot this without the shoulder mount.

Black gold By Ola Christoffersson On ExposureRoom

for planned, repeatable well-lit shots - fine

for elaborate multi-camera shoots - fine

but for solo run and gun - you must be looking for a challenge, a chance to show that you can pull off something most operators wouldn't even attempt. Like running the Boston marathon in a business suit.

One thing you're forgetting about trying to shoot run-and-gun with a Letus, is the lenses. In my experience, trying to capture random stuff means you're going to want to zoom in and out quite a bit. This means changing lenses when using the Letus (Nikon doesn't make a 17-200 f/2.8) so you'll be constantly changing between wide, standard and telephoto. This may or may not be a problem.

When ever I have to document an event, where I have no control of what I have to shoot (I just try and capture it live) I take the Letus off. But when I have control, I will always choose to shoot with the Letus (hand held, tripod, what ever)

The real challenge recently was filming a bunch of babies for a hospital shoot. We set up a large cloth backdrop and let the babies crawl around and interact with each other. I wanted shallow DOF for that soft look, but they were moving around so much it was tricky to keep them in sharp focus. In hindsight, I should have shot at a higher f-stop than f/2.8. (maybe f/4.0 or something)

I'm still learning. :)

mitchell - most professional camera ops cut their teeth on prime lenses. It's not the issue you think it is. It requires planning and practice.

Going handheld makes using prime lenses easier - think about it
.

I wasn't talking about capturing a Hollywood motion picture. If I had that kind of control, I'd have no trouble shooting with an adaptor and prime lenses.

I'm talking about being stuck in the back of a room, all alone, having to capture an event happening in the same room. Clients ask us to do this all the time. It may be a quarterly meeting, they may have a guest speaker, etc.... But I need to be able to quickly zoom in to get a head shot and then zoom all the way back out to get a wide shot of the whole room if necessary, all without stopping.

So yes, you're correct, but I'm also correct when it comes to certain types of event videography. :)

Mitchell - if you are stuck in the situation you describe, why are you using a letus? keeping the rig on a tripod won't help with zooming. If it was handheld you could move forward. But there are problems associated with shooting a letus handheld -

which brings us neatly back to the original question: "Is it practical to shoot handheld with a Letus adaptor?"

Carry on

Sorry for the thread hijack Arif.

Pete: I'm not "stuck in that situation", that's just an example of a situation that I have work in a few times a year. The rest of the time (when I have more control of the environment I'm shooting in) I use the Letus. I LOVE how you can get shallow DOF in small rooms. Very useful. I love it. In fact I can't wait for them to release their relay lens for the EX3. Phil Bloom says you'll gain almost 2 stops. That makes it VERY useful for me. :)

Hey Arif,
I've been struggling for about 3 months trying to develop a working setup for HH with the EX1 and the Letus - and I just figured out how to do it.

My setup is predicated on two things: you have the RR shoulder mount and all it's little attachment gizmos, you have the Letus rails kit and you have a lcd finder unit (like the hood pro etc. I made my own.) where you can place your eye close to the LCD to view the image.

Wait...that's three things. Oh, well.

If you're interested I can send you some pics of my setup. What others have said here is true: it's no other way than heavy but with a counter balance it's very workable. (I'm shooting a 90% hand held movie in May with it so I guess it better be). And shooting in less than controlled, non repeatable conditions like somebody's wedding, well that would scare me.
Anyway, if you're interested...
Best,
David.