Another DIY adapter footage

[Ettore Giraldi]

Hello guys
First of all, thank you for the great community
mine is a simple homemade Agus35 design, did some changes on GG, an
achromat and PCX lens, two AA batteries ecc,ecc.
There's a lot of dirty on the lens
the clip is here:

http://www.artsmell.com/motion/Test_0034.mov

thanks
:)

[Wayne Kinney]

Nice clean footage.

Please tell use more, what camcorder? specs of your lenses? plastic CD ground glass?

[Ettore Giraldi]

Hi Wayne

Camera: XM2 (european Pal version of the GL2)
-Frame mode, Shutter Speed 1/25p
-ND Filter

ADAPTER

GG: Acrylic blank CD, blasted (?) with a 320 grit sandpaper, so I washed it very well, then I put (forgive my english) on the CD a microwax paste, the cd became almost transparent, I think the micro crystals help light to difuse, so I got a good contrast on sharpen areas and a uniform background blur for my porpuses.

Yashica f/1.4, 55mm (very cheap) € 50,00

An old acromat ( two peaces cemented ) from an ancient slide projector and a PCX
CAMERA > ACHROMATIC > PCX > GG > SLR


Editing: Vegas 6, a little bit of color curves, gama, gain, sharpen, but not too much... the digital information is there, editing did not change it a lot (IMHO)

here's a full frame without any editing, just flipped 180°
http://www.artsmell.com/motion/image0.jpg

[Carl Jakobsson]

I really like the footage, nothing to complain about and the quality is excellent!

Do you have any pictures of the acromat and pcx? Did you get both of them from the slide projector?

[Jamie Roberts]

Hi. I just looked at the frame but it looked great

what kind of shops do you get microwax paste from?

Thanks

Jamie

[Graham Bernard]

Originally Posted by Ettore Giraldi

Hi Wayne

Camera: XM2 (european Pal version of the GL2)
-Frame mode, Shutter Speed 1/25p
-ND Filter

EXCELLENT TEST FOOTAGE! More please . . .

I have XM2 questions - XM2 user here:

I understand the FRAME mode, but what is 1/25p? It is the "p" that has confused me? So you've chosen 1/25 - down from 1/50 - why? I've never done exernals with 1/25 . . I'm gonna try now though! But why 1/25 and not 1/50? PLease explain?

You chose EXACTLY the still I would have chosen to show your video off. The one where the lady is planting in full Sun AND behind the yellow flowers - excellent choice!

Great work! Wax over a G/Acrylic! Brilliant idea. . .

Grazie

[Bob Hart]

You should rightly be well pleased with your results. Welcome to the obsession. - (I hope those words translate in the happy way I intended them).

[Ettore Giraldi]

Thankyou all, guys

Carl, both lens are from the old slide projector but I think it doesnt changes much, I've been used the single PCX on this GG and the clarity and contrast was almost the same, except for the blue chroma aberration on the edges of the subjets on focus, my lens are very poor, bad bad quality, scratched, old. Basically is a achromat double cemented lens like this: http://www.promis-electro-optics.com...mat_lenses.gif and a planoconvex:http://www.acphotonics.com/products/...ano_convex.gif So I believe is the
GG very transparent with the micro crystals to difuse light to make the difference (on this case).

Jamie, its a top secret revolutionary alchemy substance: Nivea Cream :) its structure is microwax, when you paste on cd all its
smell goes away, just the wax stay there. but its important to use a 320 grit sandpaper on the CD, finer than this the blur becames less uniforme, (months of tests to achieve the "right" grit)
http://www.expresschemist.co.uk/pics...niveacream.jpg

Graham, just set the shutter speed in frame mode 1/25 , not less , the moving image is the same, more than 1/50 may cause flickering (or maybe not, cause the cd is very transparent), less than 1/25 comes the strobe effect. I alternate this setting just to control the light exposition. On day light even with 1/50, 1/60, 1/100 is almost impossible shot good images without the ND filter turned on. So you can use on XM2 whatever you want over the 1/25. thanks, I will show something larger soon.

Bob, thankiu, I've been reading you for so long, and learned...free great informations here ...I undersntand english well, reading, but is so hard to write
LOL!

[Bob Hart]

Well I'll be.

Back in the antiquity when people were looking at substances to put between two pieces of glass. Nivea was one of many tried and failed. Just putting it on one sheet of glass already scratched to cause an evenly controlled thickness of wax. - A very elegant, simple and effective solution.

I had contemplated trying a single clear disk and a built up coating of orchard fruit wax (microcrystalline wax in water emulsion - the water is driven off by hot air and polishing of the fruit but i never got around to it.

It would be interesting to see if the coarse grind/Nivea (or other microwax) combination delivers closer to HD resolution than the methods so far evolved here.

[Carl Jakobsson]

Nivea Cream, lol. Have to steal some from my wife and try...

[Ettore Giraldi]

Hi
One more test, still have flickering issues when Nd filter is on, maybe with one more battery, three AA could solve this problem...o maybe four
camera optical image stabilizer cannot work well on these machines, so I used a tripod but even the wind...each minimun touch seems to shake it... strange fenomenom :D
and I have to change these macro lenses imediatelly
http://www.artsmell.com/motion/Test_0035.mov

[Jamie Roberts]

Hey there

I am a bit limited downloads wise so am unable to download the .mov files

Ettore, you are a very clever man to come up with the nivea treatment idea!!

I have given it a go and am really impressed. I brushed the creme on the sanded and washed cd, wiped off the excess (hope that was right?,) stuck it in the agus35 and bugger me if it didnt work a treat.

I have posted a link to a very small sample i have uploaded (about 2 1/2 mb). excuse the little bit of vignetting in the corner. my mistake as i didnt notice at time of shooting, and also the wmv file which as we know is fairly poor quality

http://www.filefactory.com/get/f.php...4d759af11d1caf

I am hoping that this is the final trick I needed in getting a great quality dof adapter for a small price .

thanks again Ettore
Jamie

[Dennis Wood]

Cool idea! Your challenge (as you've already noted) is to get the application/substrate dead even to remove your flickering at 1/50s. I love the idea of wax, but one of the big issue is that it is organic, and not stable in air over time. If you can seal it, you're gold.

Also, do you have footage of your GG with and without the Nivea? A good spinning 320 would probably work pretty well by itself. Just curious on what effect the creme has.

Have you tried the adapter on/off test to check on light loss with the 35mm lens attached?

[Jef Bryant]

I've been reading here about dof adapters for a couple of years, and these are possibly the best results I've seen. (Not that all the others are bad, just that these results look most like what I might want)

I toyed with making one early on (Nikon D screen) and was disappointed with the results. This makes me want to give it another go.

[Forrest Schultz]

Thats some really good footage! so i am guessing the Nivea cream is for getting less light loss. is it the same as putting on vaseline then rubbing off the excess, because when i do that to a plastic cd, or even glass, it basically makes it very transparent, which is good for light loss, but not good for hotspot, and especially hotspot for wide angle lenses, it renders the vaseline trick useless. does this offer the same results with better diffusion? thanks