The Letus Extreme "smear"
 

Hi Guys

First off...I love the new extreme, it is by far the most professional 35mm adaptor I have used. Feels indestructible. A tank! Build quality a world away from the previous Letus FE and so easy to use. Great picture quality, very little light loss. It really is a winner!

One thing I have seen mention of is a kind of smear with bright lights. I did a few tests today and certainly came across it. The shot without me in it you can clearly see it, the shot with me in it the bright reflected light off the car in the background looks quite odd. It feels like the diffuser gives an oily type smear to bright out of focus highlights...

Have a look.

Phil what cam are you using the Extreme with? (not that it had anything to do with the smear your talking about). I'm trying to put some positive pressure on Quyen to get a move on with a HD100 "Extreme" version. I have the current version of the Letus HD100 and am getting great results but would love a thinner GG and less blooming that comes with the new condenser.

I have it hooked up to my z1 at the moment as it is so heavy it doesn't work well with my JVC 201.

I too would love an extreme version for that, would be a beautiful combination.

I wondered if it was the glass I was using...the shot of me is with a nikon f2 105mm and the other shot is Zeiss 85mm f1.4

What did u mean by oily? It's looks to me like the problem he was having with the other apters, the blooming that was associated with the condenser. It seems like it's that more so than the glass. Where was ur f stop on the 85mm?

Oily is just a way for me to describe it, you know...oily!

Wide open at f1.4

Also curious, have seen photos of Ryan Walters Extreme with the Logo on the front which is white, mine is just etched.

What are other people getting?

LOL! I think i know what u mean. I notice you have been working with the Brevis. I dont know how that GG is it seems to have no grain at all. My point is I think that what my perception of what you mean by oily is the combo of the grain of the GG and the lense's bokeh, thats my opinion. That's the wasy the Letus HD and all the Letus adapters were are before the new GG again if that's what u mean.

Our is also etched, which I like better.

Phil, that is weird. I have tested the Extreme extensively and haven't seen this kind of smear. It doesn't seem to be lens-related because what you are using shouldn't be causing that problem...

I'm a little perplexed because I have shot a lot of stuff in all different circumstances and haven't seen anything like that.

EDIT: Actually what would be interesting would be for you to shoot the same scene with the Brevis or whatever other adapters you have and see if you can replicate it.

I won't be able to replicate it as yesterday was the last sunny day we will see this year in London!

I have used the Brevis extensively over the past year and never had that effect. I had seen frame grabs from other Letus X users with this and I didn't even try and replicate it and straight away it was there.

If half of us are getting smear and the other half is not getting smear what do you think is the problem.

I mean If the lens that you are using with your M2 and Brevis doesn't have this problem. And it does with the Extreme, do you think it due to your lens? Or maybe the Letus Extreme will only work with certain kind of lenses that won't give out smear , glow or ghosting.

Look at Tim Tyler's still shots, he is also having some problems around bright lights.

http://timtyler.net/LetusExtremeStills.zip

The customers wanted more light. Quyen has given them more light.

The customers wanted better resolution, given them that too.

The customers wanted the fixed pattern artifact to go away. It pretty much has.

The means of the achieving those solutions is likely to have been a new groundglass with a finer texture and greater transmissiveness.

The piper to be paid is that beyond a certain point, the finer the grade of the groundglass texture, the more pass-through of aerial image occurs.

It manifests at its worst when the soft background contains bright sharply defined highlights such as white barked tree branches in late afternoon or pinshines off motorcars etc..

Choice of groundglass texture is all a balancing act.

From what I see in Phil Bloom's grabs, sharp highlights are coming through the groundglass.

The downer is choices will have to be made to avoid bright pinpoint highlights in background.

The upside is that footage from this groundglass will intercut much better with direct-to-camera footage.

Lens choices may not make much difference.

I really don`t know if it applies to Letus too but my assumption is that if the SLR lens would be closed down to f4 all that smear should go away and form that nice looking bokeh instead. It loses almost as much light as it would lose with a ruffer GG that will give the same image properties. At least that was concluded after our Cinedof research two years ago. So it really is a balancing act.

T

I really have no problem with it. It really only happens with "extremes", both the flares are from the same object, reflection from the sun on a car and yes both lenses were wide open. I wasn't actually setting out to get this effect, I only noticed it when I got back to final cut pro. If I see it in the future whilst shooting I will stop down a little and lose it! It's a very small price to pay for a quite superb 35mm adaptor. Congratulations to the Le brothers, they have taken criticism for their previous ones and really pulled one out of the bag with this.

It's not quite as bright as the Brevis but then again it's flipped, the difference is tiny.