Adamo P Cultraro

apocrypha don't count as gospels. Their authenticity is in doubt, which is why they never made it into canon.

I can't believe it. I almost poop myself. Phil, I finally agree with you on something. Took the words right outta my mouth.

I don't shoot resolution charts, I shoot movies. And the difference between the adapter or not is sooooooo negligible to my eye. I do not doubt however, that the cam will be sharper sans adapter just because of the physics of all that glass you are adding. This is splitting hairs, though. All I'm saying is that it isn't obvious.

Well then I think if you've committed to a film workflow, and I know I have in the past, then shoot on 35. To me there are only two choices - 35 or some form of HD. I think 16mm, while cute, gritty, and artsy, has fallen by the wayside a bit. Besides, it will need a blow up to 35 for theatrical release so if that's your goal, do it that way first.

If you guys think you can shoot super 16 cheaper than something like HD on an HVX or EX1 you are dreaming. Absolutely dreaming. I think it's time to ask what the budget is for this production - I've heard the F23 bantered about in this thread - that's a helluva rental charge - you must have some dough to spend.

For what it is it's a great unit. To me, it's about 95% what a P+S Technik is onabout 10% of the price. There's a huge following for the Letus on DVXUser in the 35mm adapter subforum that is very helpful. Besides, you can just pick up the phone and call Hien and Quyen (makers of Letus). I've done it several times. Where are you going to get that!?

Here is wisdom: A truly great director armed with a great script can produce a great film on any medium from IMAX all the way down to Nokia cell phone. Ok, bit of an exageration, but you get my point. HD is a perfectly valid method of making narrative films. Some directors have chosen this medium even when they have had the budget for film (Collateral, Miami Vice). In my case, I am making a film with a 300K budget shot on HD. We cannot afford film.....and I own all my equipment including lights, camera and grip - which are not fatctored into the budget. So there you go, I guess.

Awesome post / test!

Well obviously it starts with finding people that can actually perform those moves. It's going to require tons of rehearsal and choreography just to nail the basic movements. In the first video, the actor was actually able to do all those moves. The action was sped up a little, but I don't doubt that in real life he would look very impressive. As far as the shooting of it, they've also employed a camera that can shoot at a very high frame rate to produce those radical slow motion shots. This is something more than a 60fps camera - looks like at least 120fps to me and some software slowdown like Twixtor or something similar. Advice: Making a fight scene like that is not for beginners.

I personally cannot discern the difference in sharpness between the stock lens and the adapter, if that's what you're asking.

To be honest, the largest I have ever seen the Letus Extreme projected on is a 50" plasma, where is has proved to be aceptably sharp. Some have reported edge sharpness issues, but there hasn't been anything I've seen that is scary. I have no plans to theatrically release my movie at this point so I haven't really given it much thought. Personally, we're talking about a movie shot on a 6K camera - what can you get for that money that will be any sharper?

Then sure, as long as the bracket on the extreme is oriented the right way, that will be your film plane. There are instructions that come with the LEX and also posted on their site which will tell you how to set it up correctly.

Need to know what model Letus we are speaking of here.

Timothy, I've already touched on this in earlier post to you but let me expand: The Letus, more specifically the Letus Extreme is a 35mm DOF adapter that utilizes a vibrating ground glass. Not all adapters use this. The M2 and SGPro, for example, use a spinning ground glass(GG). Anyways, the ground glass is actually where the image is projected upon inside the adapter. If you wee to open up the adapter, you would see the GG - it looks like a microscope slide except translucent, not transparent, kinda frosted white. The batteries you put into the Letus power a little motor that makes the GG vibrate. The problem inherent to all vibrating adapters is that they are susceptible to the pattern of the ground glass showing up as grain on the image when the iris on the taking lens is stopped down too far. I don't know the exact explanation of why they do this - someone smarter than I can chime in here. Suffice to say that if you had your taking lens - and by that I mean the lens you have clipped to the front of the adapter - if you have this lens set to F5.6, and then go to the next stop - F8....etc. etc. you will see progressively more grain on your image until the image will be unacceptable to you. So keep the taking lens set to F1.2; 1.8, 2; whatever the lowest stop you can get away with while preserving image sharpness and not going below F5.6 (When I say below I mean closing the iris further). It's a tradeoff, but totally workable. The Letus shoots glorious images, and the Letus Extreme is as good as any other adapter out there; I venture to say it produces images almost as nice as the $10k P+S Technik. I am using two HVXs and Two Letus Extremes to shoot my feature in April that has Tom Sizemore in it. It will work just fine. Remember that in film, you have many other devices available to you to control light. Shooting the Extreme, you can manipulate the camera's iris as well as add filters, polarizers, and ND as needed to control the light while keeping the taking lens more open than F5.6

1. Yes 2. No - there is only one Letus adapter. Actually, there are a few models: economy, FE, Extreme...they fit just about every camera out there. You will need a step up ring to fit the threads on whatever camera you are using. 3. Of course not. 4. 1/2 stop with the Letus Extreme.

Yes and no. I don't see how you can achieve the same f stop throughout the whole movie. You might have day exteriors mixed with night interiors - how can they all be shot at the same stop? Sure, there will be a range that you will achieve. What will you have to use in a night exterior to keep the stop the same as a day exterior????a Brute Arc? Not practical. The Letus kinda makes that easy for you! There isn't alot of range between a f2.8 lens and the maximum of f5.6 the letus can shoot at!!!!! It's like two stops! Not very much range at all. With lenses as slow as you are using (barring the 50mm), they will be fairly soft wide open, and probably be sharpest just below f5.6 As far as focus, I'm not sure what you mean. Go do camera tests and see what you like.

What do you mean what aperture? This is determined by your exposure, and will vary from scene to scene based on light. Just don't shoot below f5.6 on the taking lens and you are good. What camera will you be using? Oh, and for every"artist" that used two lenses to shoot an entire feature, there are fifty that used a proper set of primes. Shooting a movie with one or two lenses is like taking a rowboat to england. It can be done,but it is a stunt, and you have to be reaaaaaaaaaalllllllly great to pull it off. The rest of us must use primes. Or at least a couple primes and a zoom.

You don't want to shoot below F5.6 on the taking lens or you will introduce static grain from the adapter into your shots. ND and camera iris are your friends; use as much as needed.

Awesome!

It is my personal experience that the focal lengths of SLR lenses really have no bearing on film lenses. On my extreme, I have a 105 and a 135mm for close ups and is still seems "not close enough". As for the vignetting, try zooming into the ground glass more. Is his Letus setup to display 35mm film size? What I mena by that is by varying the zoom on the camera, you can simulate various film sizes all the way from vista vision down to 35mm academy and below. A rule of thumb is this: take an 8 1/2 x 11" sheet of paper, tape it up on a wall landscape orientation. Locate the camera so that the film plane (ground glass of the letus) is exactly 24" from the wall. Fit a 50mm lens (yes, it has to be a 50) on the cam, and then zoom in until the edges of the paper are just starting to be cropped. Bang - you now have a 35mm cinema size frame. Now tape down your zoom so it doesn't move. Try that and then put on your 28mm and see if it vignettes. I bet it doesn't. Also, Letus FEs need backfocus adjustment - it is critical. Put on the same 50mm lens, focus out to infinity shooting at an object that is "infinity" away like a distant house or tree. The object should be razor sharp. If not, adjust the backfocus by either sliding the mount in or out, or adjusting the GG on some models. The Extreme comes backfocused fromthe factory.

Again, what letus? The Extreme starts showing static grain from the ground glass when the taking lens is set to F4 to f5.6 depending on the light. You are cutting it close with those others even wide open. Just make sure you have plenty of light, I suppose.

You need to remember that whereas Cine D provides by far the most latitude, and therefore the most flexibility in post, it can also produce the most noise. If I was shooting outdoors or in well lit situations, I'd always use Cine D and master ped perhaps -4. In low light situations, I would use Bpress as the gamma curve. There is a whole cadre of people who always only use Bpress since it is te least noisy of all the gamma curves, and I may soon be part of that group. Another thing that is cool and new is a product called neat video (loopk it up, no affiliation). It has really cleaned up noise amazingly well from shots where I was a little lazy. The product is really impressive and gets rid of the "mosquito noise" the HVX likes to generate in low light without removing detail. Also I would only shoot a feature in 1080 to preserve the maximum amount of detail the camera can deliver. Hope that helps!

You need to ask yourself what the point is of using just one fixed focal length for the whole movie. Are you doing it for artistic considerations or because you only have one lens????? Also, which letus are you using. The extreme loses only a half stop compared to the 1 1/2 stops of the Flip enhanced. The extreme can handle slower lenses to a degree. I have had both the extreme and the FE. What are the f stops of the other lenses?

The HVX 200 was used in a great portion of the film - the F23 was used for all the SFX, greenscreen work etc.

Still, A RED on ebay so soon, while inevitable, is still a bad sign.