Letus 35mm Adapter Test

These shots are with and without the Letus35 Flip Enhanced adaptor on my Canon XH-A1 HDV camera. Subject was standing 6 feet in front of camera. Everything was shot at 1080p 24fps at 1/48 shutter.

There are notations on the bottom right corner of the pictures as to what lens was used and if the adapter was on or not. Overall I'm impressed with the results. BTW, these stills are directly from the raw footage - no color correction or color grading has been done whatsoever...




















You can really see the shallow depth-of-field (DOF) in the shots with the adapter. This give the footage a much more cinematic feel. We found that with the adapter and SLR lens on it is rated at approximately 50 ASA - very slow (2 1/2 stops of light loss). And with the adapter off it was rated around 300 ASA.

I will be posting more information and video from this test soon.

-Blake


10 comments to "Letus 35mm Adapter Test"

  • Cool results. That's a lot of light loss. If you use it outside that's not so much of a problem, but inside becomes challenging!

  • It looks like the footage with the Letus adaptor is a bit desaturated as well. The reds are down a bit.

  • Apparently depth of field tests hurt the test subject...a lot.

  • LOL. She had her sunglasses on but we had her take them off and it was bright, so... yeah, she didn't look happy. :)

  • i don;t quite understand, if there is light loss how come both the images with and wthout the adaptor looks as bright?

    thanks for the test.
    yowsiang

  • We compensated for the exposure with the Letus by turning off the ND and setting the iris more open. All the Letus shots were no ND and all the non Letus shots had ND on and a slightly different exposure reading to make them match. It was figured out with a light meter to be roughly 2 1/2 stops difference.

  • Wow... great results!!! thanks for sharing.

    What rods, matte box, etc. did you use with the XH-A1?

    thanks

  • Thanks for checking out the footage. I actually used no rods or mattebox for the main shooting. On the grad shots we did use an inexpensive Cokin mattebox system with plastic filters - really designed for DV, no HD, but they looks descent. I think it added noise in the grad area though. But again, for the main shoot with the Letus 35mm adapter we used no rails or matte box system. Just the adapter (which is pretty cool).

  • whats your opinion about the different adapters out there like Redrock,sgpro and letus?which one do you find the most prefferable out of these and why?

  • I personally like the Letus adapter the best. I've explored other options and found it to be the easiest to work with (it flips the image), the sharpest, and the most "real" looking DOF. Other adapters often seem soft (on the subject) even when in focus, also the DOF is so shallow that it can look somehow fake. The new Letus Extreme is what I'd recommend now. It only loses 1/2 stop of light and of course flips the image and has excellent glass.

Who Am I?

I'm a filmmaker who's produced & directed five feature films including the comedy SPILT MILK (available on iTunes), the new horror/thriller PHOBIA (on iTunes) and the action/thiller KILLING DOWN (which you can buy or rent at pretty much all the usual places).

I also created the Streamy and Webby award-winning web series PINK, which to date has been viewed online around 10 MILLION times at places like YouTube, Hulu, Koldcast and TheWB.com. And speaking of TheWB.com, I also produced and directed an online thriller for them called EXPOSED. It was released summer 2010. And most recently I created a new online sci-fi series called CONTINUUM, which is part of the online indie TV network JTS.tv - Just The Story and NOW available via VOD through indie platform Distrify.

Oh, and I don't shoot weddings. Thanks for asking though.

Blog Archive

Web hosting for webmasters
Site Meter