I am back. In my last post I mentioned that I was waiting for the arrival of the Nikon D screen. Well, I got it and all I can say is, its junk. It has by far the worst diffusion properties of any GG I saw. Once I put it into the adapter, it gave me horrible hotspot. I then put it up to my eye, and I could discern the corner of the wall that was 6 feet from me. Even with an extra condenser, the image was bad. Very dissapointed in it. Anyway, enough trash talking. I proceeded putting back my focusing screen from Zenit-E and this time placed a condenser(F=100, 50.8) between the camera and the focusing screen, with about 5mm separation. The image got bigger and was lit up from corner to corner. Very happy with it now. As for GG, I highly recommend getting an old Zenit-E camera from ebay. They are around 20 bucks a piece (Make sure to email the seller to confirm that the focusing screen has no markings). It is really hard to get the focusing screen out of the camera, but its worth it. There is one thing I can warn you about, the Zenit-E screen has moderate barrel distortion. It does not bother me personally because I hardly see it. Here is some footage...

http://rapidshare.de/files/13489902/kilo35v2.mov.html

Sorry for content. Just some examples in daylight and low light interior shots.
I deintarlaced the footage so there is a little loss in resolution. Overall, the footage is very close to original dv file(its actually the same size). The only reason I did not use native dv compression is because for some reason the video looked blurry when played back in quicktime.

Also, here is the link to the original thread where I introduced my adapter...

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=59827


One more thing...the whole thing turned out to be relatively cheap because if you get zenit-e camera you already have the lense itself and the gg.
Estimate:
Zenit-E camera: $30
Tube: $30(you wont need an extra retaining ring if you put the condenser there)
Extra retaining ring/Condenser:~10-25
Coupler and step-down ring: $10

Thats about 100 dollars for the whole setup that includes the lense (fairly decent 2.0/50)

Well, I'm trying to download your footage but the file has no information in it (0 bytes). Can you check your file? I'd like to see the footage.

Same here.

It's odd that the D screen worked that badly for you. In my tests with a 50mm 1.4 the D screen produced rather impressive results, with zero vignetting and minimal to zero distortion. I think it may be because of the aperture, but who knows...nothing seems to be a given when experimenting with these things.

I too would like to see results from this Zenit-E GG.

Sorry about the file. I am working on the solution now.

Sorry for the bad file. Here is another source...

http://www.rapidsharing.com/67ee0949a400f6e651f0cfa5732cd56f

One more source for the file because the last one had issues as well.

http://rapidshare.de/files/13489902/kilo35v2.mov.html

Here is the link to frame grabs for those who are interested. The last images has some grain but its not static. Just low light conditions.

http://people.unt.edu/dpu0002/kilo35v2/

Hy. I'm new here, but I am to experimenting with a Zenit-E focusing screen, but I want to make a vibrating adapter out of it. What do you thing would it be possible?
One side of this focusing screen is plane matte and one side is convex, but not matted. Would it be good for a vibrating GG?

Basically any focusing screen is a good candidate for vibration, however the only real limitation I have en countered is the weight of the focusing screen. Too heavy and it won't vibrate enough.

Dmitriy, how big is zenith screen anyway? 24x36?

Hy guys. Sorry to bother. The Zenit-E focusing screen has adimension of 30mmx22mm. I'm too experimenting with this kind of focusing screen, and want to build a vibrating adapter.

Ben
About the vibration. What if you put a bigger motor, or two motors?

Hy guys. Sorry to bother. The Zenit-E focusing screen has adimension of 30mmx22mm.

Very big thanks for bothering :)

About the vibration. What if you put a bigger motor, or two motors?
Bigger motor may mean bigger extcentric weight. So bigger overall vibration may interfere camcorder.
If motors rotation speed will increase then it may give good results.

Thank you for your quick reply. Yesterday I made a quick test with my camcorder(GS400) and a vibrating motor. Hopefully I will put it somewhere to be seen. My first impression is, that the vibrating motor is not vibrating the plate efficiently, and my guess is that the problem is with the motor, or with the grommets.

my answer about vibra was mostly theoretical, i havent actually try any bigger than pagers-vibra. So if You have some ideas or doubts - You can try and share!

Actually I have an idea, but did nottest it yet. I have a CD-Rom motor, and a counterwight on it. I want to try that for vibrating motor, but I thing it will vibrate too mutch, but if I construct a solid plate with tighter support rods, I think it will work. My problem with the little motor is that it is not vibrating the f-screen adequatly.