letus35 flip enhanced
 

Had an indy film shoot this weekend. It was a total disaster. Director was a combination of inept and outspoken.

Anyways, i did the shoot using my fx1 and a letus35 flip enhanced. I dont think i did either one justice, but i was really thrilled with the look of the outcome. Here are some grabs i did, just random frames i was showing a friend via ichat by copying from quicktime and pasting into ichat. No idea what kinda compression that yields, but it is what it is.

So, i'm thrilled with the look of the footage. Very non-video. I think with some image processing and/or color it could look quite cool. But you guys spend way more time looking at DOF adapters. Aside from my questionable focus, anything worthy of note?

captured as DV footage:
http://www.regina.com/grabs/grab0.jpeg
http://www.regina.com/grabs/grab1.jpeg
http://www.regina.com/grabs/grab2.jpeg
http://www.regina.com/grabs/grab3.jpeg

captured as HDV footage:
http://www.regina.com/grabs/grab4.jpeg
http://www.regina.com/grabs/grab5.jpeg
http://www.regina.com/grabs/grab6.jpeg

cheers!

Oh, the other thing i forgot to mention: The fx1 doesnt show you the complete overscan. The black bar on the sides was not visible on the lcd screen or viewfinder. I think the z1u gives you an "underscan" (overscan?) option for the screen.

Images seem nice. It's very hard to say anything hurtful. Only on HD images there is visible little bit darker left edge: http://www.regina.com/grabs/grab5.jpeg . Is it edge falloff there or something occasional.

Very nice. What lenses did you use with the FX1 and the Letus? I've got the SG35 Pro on order, and I can't wait to test it with my FX1.

I love the 'look' of the footage, country setting with the car and costumes to boot! The letus footage looks a little soft though, but maybe it is the screen caps.

really nice looking.. what CC did you do as well?

Really nice! I was really interested in what look the fx1 + flip would produce. Great stuff.

How did you turn off the Image Stabilization? and the zoom function so you can only zoom from the ring

answers
 

The screen on the fx1 doesnt let you see the full overscan. As a result, almost all my shots have some of the edges of the mirror in frame. the mirror is vibrating, so it makes it a dark edge. I should have zoomed in further, so thats my fault, not the adapter.

Those shots are all taken with an old canon FD 50mm 1.4. (paid about $30US for it... i think it was a bargain.)

The adapter might be a tiny bit soft, but i really think that i'm at fault for most of it. The wide HDV shot is clearly focused too far in front of the fence. The shot from the front of the car is focused in front of the car, and the shot looking in the car window the focus is just behind the face. Its really really hard to see through the viewfinder or lcd... I wonder if any HDV lcd monitors exist yet. That and in addition to focusing the canon lens, i bumped the manual focus a few times and blurred the macro (relay) lens. That one is harder to notice and fix, since you really need to turn off the vibrator and focus on the glass grain.

Not sure what you are asking. If you are asking about color correction, there is none. Those are frames i copied in quicktime player straight from the raw capture source. If you are asking about credit card? i used visa. hehe.

Thanks! I was really happy. It certainly complicates shooting. The camera is really heavy and challenging to focus, but i think the look is worth it. I bought a set of cavision 15mm rails and that really made the whole setup feel more stable (and look cooler)

For the fx1 users, i went ahead and used cineframe 25 (i have the pal version). I know it kills some of the resolution, but i think it actually does a pretty decent job of the deinterlacing... or whatever it does.

I turned off image stabilization in the camera menu. and i switched the button between rocker and ring so i could zoom from the ring. in retrospect i should have left it on rocker, because i bumped the zoom ring several times (as seen) and screwed up the framing in the letus. Its very rare i accidently hit the rocker arm, but since you can move the ring while the camera is off and still change the zoom, i gotta watch out for that.

I think i'm going to print out a page of crossed lines of varying thicknesses and i'll have the actors hold it up for me to focus to. I'm not sure if that will help, but i found it really hard to find focus otherwise.

Thanks everybody for looking. I really like discussing this stuff. I'm more interested in learning how to shoot well than compare adapters, but at its best i think the letus35 flip enhanced looks really really good. I dunno if it holds up to the g35, but it looks to me like a good bbc film... and being able to shoot that on dv tapes really makes me smile.

cheers! and ask anything you can think of!

-Andrew

more stuff
 

Hey, i grabbed some more frames, and captured a couple dv files and one hdv file if anybody wants to see. The movie clips are really short, just there to get a sense of how the footage looks in motion. Again, there is no color correct or image modification at all. I just trimmed the in/out points of the raw source in quicktime player and saved.

The DV size clips/stills are captured as regular dv using the fx1's built in "play back as dv" function.

Many of these are the old frame grabs, (sorry) but some are new:

Dv stills:
http://5501.com/adapter/dv1.jpeg
http://5501.com/adapter/dv2.jpeg
http://5501.com/adapter/dv3.jpeg
http://5501.com/adapter/dv4.jpeg
http://5501.com/adapter/dv5.jpeg
http://5501.com/adapter/dv6.jpeg
http://5501.com/adapter/dv7.jpeg

Dv Movies:
http://5501.com/adapter/TRbehindtree.mov
http://5501.com/adapter/peterincarclip.mov

HDV Stills:
http://5501.com/adapter/hdv1.jpeg
http://5501.com/adapter/hdv2.jpeg
http://5501.com/adapter/hdv3.jpeg
http://5501.com/adapter/hdv4.jpeg
http://5501.com/adapter/hdv5.jpeg
http://5501.com/adapter/hdv6.jpeg
http://5501.com/adapter/hdv7.jpeg

HDV Movie:
http://5501.com/adapter/cardriveup.mov

Once again, you can see how i didnt zoom in far enough and left black frames on the sides of the screen. doh!

cheers!

-Andrew

Looks very cool. Good job. We're using the same setup for an indoor shoot. Hope is goes well. I like the Maori tatoos on your actor. Is the film set in New Zealand?

Let me know how it goes indoors. I'm still trying to work out the best way to light for the adapter.

Yeah, its set in New Zealand. Part of the piece is supposed to take place in the 20s at a rabbiters hut that turns out to be about a mile from our house. Convenient for shooting! The Maori actor doesnt have a moku, so an adviser was supposed to show up and paint a traditional one. When he didnt show, the actor just whipped out a magic marker and drew on a moku of his own design. I thought it looked really nice considering.

Looking back i realize i went nuts with DOF. It looked cool in the viewfinder, but its silly having SUCH narrow DOF for setups like this. I'll try again at f4 or something.

cheers!

Look closely at the hdv1.jpg. You will notice the grain. Although the sharpness of the LETUS35 is quite OK with the film transfer even when projected to a big screen this grain reproduce a somewhat dirty look. Any observations ?

Thanks for the new snaps. They look really great. There's a lot of negative stuff said about cf25 mode on the fx1, but these stills look pretty good considering that you didn't have to do cc in post.

Right now my setup is a pd-170 with letus35a, so your setup is sort of the next bump up from what I have. I just shot a music video with the letus35a and the results were great, but I'm excited about the possibilities of the fx1+letus flip enhanced.

In hdv1 and hdv2, there are some black spots off the the left... was that debris inside the letus flip? Do you find that the flip is difficult to keep clean? I find that the letus35a should be hit with compressed air pretty often.

Thanks again for the great snaps. Cheers!

Gabriel

how many stops of light did it cut?

Stupid question but can you zoom all the way through on this thing? Or do you have to be on wide? Love the imagery this thing produces and would love to add it to my arsenal.

Chris Watson
Watson Videography
www.dynamovideo.com

stop loss
 

You know, i wondered the same thing before i got it, but once the adapter came i never properly tested it.

I'm not entirely sure how much light loss to credit to the adapter and how much to the lens. If i had to guess: 1.5 to 2 stops... That really is just a blind guess though. I was still able to shoot indoors with moderate light with the adapter on. I dont care for the fx1's low light handling so cutting any light out of an indoor scene, much less 2 stops and I dont think its a viable shooting option. That said, with some moderate lighting, i didnt feel encumbered by the adapter indoors.

If i can figure out a good way to test the light loss, i'll post the results.

zooma zooma zoom
 

I'm not totally sure what you are asking.

The adapter displays the image on a piece of vibrating ground glass that your camcorder then focuses on and records. You can zoom, but you'd be zooming into a flat piece of glass.

Basically, when using a depth of field adapter, the camera's zoom and focus controls become useless. You are focusing on a flat piece of glass and zooming until you dont see the black borders that are all over my footage. Once those two variables are set, you no longer use the zoom or focus controls on your camcorder. If you want to zoom you either put a zoom lens on the adapter or move your camera physically.

Losing all autofocus controls is a bummer. Takes a lot of practice to hand focus the 35mm lens when you are spoiled by modern camcorders with reliable autofocus.
On the other hand, the camera's white balance and exposure controls all seem to work perfectly. You can control the aperture on the 35mm lens solely to control depth of field, letting the camcorder set the exposure.

Imagine if you had one of those tiny casio tvs and were videotaping the image off it. Thats roughly what is happening, only instead of a little lcd screen, you are recording off a piece of glass. If you really want to control the image on the little tv... you'd adjust the camera feeding the tv, not your camcorder.

That help?

-A

I think that clears things up. I'm a wedding videographer and zooming is part of the equation in my job. I was just thinking an adapter like this would really be cool for prep and detail shots where the subject is pretty much in one place. Thanks for the help.

Chris Watson
Watson Videography

Good explanation, but:

1) If you let the camcorder control exposure it means that it may be changing the aperature. But, too open or too closed -- and the lens will lose quality. You really want to keep it at f/4 or f/5.6. Which means you need to control exposure using the 35mm lens -- which means in bright light you may have to close the lens thereby defeating the decreased DOF.

2) which means you'll need ND filters on your 35mm lens. :(

3) Without being able to zoom-in to get focus, it will be almost impossible to get focus.

1. i think you might be overemphasizing the change in quality in the built in lens as you change aperture. I doubt once you go through a $30 lens and a wiggling ground glass that any softening of the built in lens would make a tangible difference.

2. at least for my fx1 there are 2 neutral density filters built in.

3. yeah, thats a problem. Although... its not like you can zoom in to focus using film cameras. With some setup and a follow focus, you could probably focus "hollywood style". The z1u can do a focus zoom while shooting. The fx1 can do it, but only while you arent recording (a pretty stupid feature if you ask me).

I dont mean to contradict your points, i mean, i concur that there are some complications possible when letting the camera auto expose, and focus will be a pain in the butt... but thats pretty much the cost of using dof adapters.

They arent ideal. i'd WAY rather have a full sized ccd, but its hardly a show stopper to work around if you want that look. Its good practice for when we all move up to shooting film in the future. (haha)

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, Steve, actually most lenses (whether on still or motion cameras) don't permit you to zoom in to get focus, then zoom back out to frame your shot: focus is lost when you zoom in or out.

There's a term for this but it escapes me at the moment.

A good example of this is the Angenieux 28-70mm F2.6 constant in the old G35 Vespa test footage. Neat lens, but if you are focused and change the focal length in or out very much, you need to refocus. Most lenses are this way, just some are worse than others.

Hi Bill. Not sure if this is the term you meant, but what allows the lens to hold focus through the zoom is the back focus adjustment.

Richard

Yes, that is a real term for sure. There is also an adjective that describes lenses that can hold focus throughout their zoom range. I'll find it again someday in my web travels, LOL

FX1 Picture profiles
 

Hi Andrew
came accross your Letus FX1 footage tonight (May 12) looks fab! I wondered if you were using the picture profiles to get your Cineframe 25 and if so was it the PP4? I ask as I use CF25 all the time and Love it but I recently uploaded a custom profile I got online that I tweaked and I think it's David Lynch in a bottle!!!

Either way good luck with your future ventures
Regards
Marc

Are you saying that you can't zoom and focus at the same time with the FX1?
Strange - I'm sure that I do it all the time...

Robin

PS, nice looking pics by the way - almost selling me on that "film look" - as much as I hate to say it :-)

profiles
 

Heya Marc.

I'm using a picture profile, but it doesnt have much to do with the default profile. cf25 is on, film gamma is off and the colors a punched a bit. (not sure why, but using a DOF adapters makes the colors look less saturated to me)

If anybody is curious, i'd be happy to upload the settings... although frankly i dont think i cooked up anything special. The letus is the magic to me.

cheers!
-A

Heh. i guess it sounded like i was saying that.

Next to the record button on the right is an "enhanced focus" button that zooms your image up full screen to allow detailed focusing. It doesnt affect the zoom of your lens. Its basically a "digital zoom" but zooming up to 100%, and only for the purpose of focusing.

On the fx1 it only works when you arent recording. On the z1, you can poke it while recording and get a few seconds of detailed focus time but the image it records remains unchanged (except for any focus adjustments you do of course)

So, you can zoom and focus at the same time using the built in lens, but you cannot do a "enhanced focus digital zoom" while you are recording. And, since i'm using a 50mm prime lens with my letus... i cant zoom at ALL! heheh.

hope that clears it up.

-a

Ok Andrew, thanks for that!
I didn't realise that the Expanded Focus worked like that on the Z1 - just assumed it was the same as the FX1.
I'll have a look at that today...

Robin

The term Bill was looking for is parfocal.

Picture profiles
 

Hi Andrew,
thanx for the reply, film gamma off??? wow never saw that coming hah hah! I'm welded to mine , must make a note in diary, be open to new ideas, start tommorrow!, joking aside would be interested in the settings if you can be bothered sometime. also do you have a URL for the Letus guy/s tried to follow a few threads a while back but drew a blank.
keep up the good work.
Marc