Homemade 35mm Adapter

Nicholi Brossia · January 1st, 2004, 02:02 PM

That's actually a tough question Gabor. Since the HD10U has higher resolution, you'll probably need a more grainless ground glass. Everyone so far, as far as I know, has been using standard definition/resolution cameras. Spinning the ground glass causes the grain to "disappear" but may not work as easily with yours.
Currently on this thread http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...5&pagenumber=5 we are discussing how to make a ground glass that doesn't have to spin. Vendible has gone all the way down to 3 micron ground glass (the equivalent to 8,000 grit!) and the grain is still visible, so I'm sure that would look bad on yours... but its certainly worth experimenting. Right Vendible is experimenting with a coating that hopefully will allow grainless glass and might work great with your camera.

Peter Sciretta · January 1st, 2004, 04:28 PM

Agus -

Have you/ can you use a zoom lens with the adapter... and what kind of f stop have you tried, and has it hurt you in light levels?

Peter

Daniel Moloko · January 1st, 2004, 06:12 PM

why u people ignore my adaptor?

it worked great, without any grain, etc. no spining cd or else.

i will adapt it for my new HD10u

and it will work.

vendi is trying to make his gg by himself.

i just got a zenit GG from an old photo cam. theres no grain in it.

and i think it will work better with the jvc hdv camcorder.

ciao

Filip Kovcin · January 1st, 2004, 06:49 PM

Daniel,

i think that no one is ignoring your GG. simply. it's hard to find.
you "promised" to tell us from which model this grainless GG is taken, but - no info. a few days ago i went to huge secondhand photo market here in warsaw, but i didn't find zenit with proper GG. i tested many zenits: zenit E. zenit B. zenit 11, zenit 12, zenit 122, zenit ET, zenit TTL... but no luck.
i know that not all of them are old, but i just tested it to see is it MAYBE proper GG in it.

my suspicion is that is should be on zenit 3B, which IS really old (from 60s), but i didn't find one. (maybe because of hollydays and new year)
so if you can - please give us a clue from WHICH zenit your exellent GG is taken, so we can also test that (if we are lucky enough to find one).

filip

p.s.
you should show us more nice girls captured with your DANIELZenit35 adapter :)

Jim Lafferty · January 1st, 2004, 08:42 PM

Yeah...

Using proprietary, rare parts goes a long way to undermining the whole spirit of Agus's original design, which is to use parts that are cheap and readily available.

Also, Agus has produced the most visceral footage with his design...

Daniel Moloko · January 1st, 2004, 09:58 PM

january 5 i will go to the same store and will tell you the model of the zenit.

by the way, what u mean with viceral footage?

anyone have a place where i can upload the video i made for the first ray of sun light from 2004?

very pretty.

beach, girls, djs playing in the sand, etc...

ciao

Taylor Moore · January 1st, 2004, 10:04 PM

Daniel you can send video to me I will put on my site for you.

taylor@moorefilms.com

Devin Doyle · January 1st, 2004, 10:40 PM

Spencer Houck and I have finished our final version of the mini-50 (with a ton of help from his dad, thanks Mr. Houck!). After closely watching this thread since it was a mere 2 pages we've been able to research and test various methods to find what we think is the best. Spence built a version without ground glass, but there were some problems with distortion, so we reverted back to the frosted cd model. Here's how our version works:

GL1 > +10 macro lens > pre-frosted > fresnel > olympus 50mm lens

It's an ordeal getting it mounted to the baseplate, but once it's on it's a snap to setup and shoot. If you'd like to see some pics of the inside of the box, just ask and we can post. We used a radio shack project box to house the optics, a U shaped piece of particle board mounted inside (you can see the 4 mounting screws on the front), and a cd motor. There are some problems with vignetting, but that's an issue with our macro lens, not the light. We're really happy with our results and are looking forward to putting it to good use.

http://www.par-t-com.net/mini50_wide.JPG
http://www.par-t-com.net/mini50_button.JPG
http://www.par-t-com.net/mini50_front.JPG
http://www.par-t-com.net/mini50_base.JPG

The video was shot on my GL1 in 30i, cc'd in premiere pro, then converted to 30p before compression. It's on the following page http://www.par-t-com.net/media.html entitled "Completed Mini50 with (w/ ground glass)". Enjoy!

Taylor Moore · January 1st, 2004, 10:57 PM

Great job Devin,
Do you have any more interior construction photo's.
It would be great if you could put up a construction from A-Z on this. I want to create this for my DVX 100.
If you don't have the time but you have all the images, i would be more than willing to create the website for this...and we can define the construction copy to help liberate the Agus35/Mini35 camera.

Cheers

Taylor

Agus Casse · January 1st, 2004, 11:57 PM

Daniel,

I have chatted with you personally and i really love the footage, there is some grain in your footage, because the TRV18 produces grain, cause it has only 1 chip, and it is only 680k effective... Same as mine, cause is teh same camera.

So, when you are picking in a dv camera with 3chips, well, you will get now the real grain from the GG... rememeber that most of us are quality freaks, if we see tiny really tiny grain... it is still grain, and the process is incorrect.

So... another issue is to find more of those groudn glass... which seens imposible to most of us. and second is the most important thing.

the agus35 uses mobile parts, only from a 25-50 spindle.. that is the basic concept, now we are improving that first baby step which produces no grain at all to make a close enogh perfect adapater for 100 times less the price of the Mini35.

For everybody, we are still designing the commercial version. Now i am waiting for my pentaprism and i just ordered the allumuniun Oxide to make a 3micron GG (that will still rotate, cant believe the movietube produces zero grain...).

One another really tricky part is the les adapter mount, we are still working a particular part, that will let any adapter to be mounted or we will provide the mounts for each type.

We are resuming the work maybe in the 5th or 10th of the month, cause we have also many other projects coming along.

Thanks to all for the support.

Agus casse

Ah...

BTW...Devin Doyle

Some credit for the adapter would be really nice and welcome :)

I just want that the Agus35 name be settled to this kind of homemade adapter.

I just watch the footage and i notice that are having the same problem taht i did... the macro lens is starting to deform the image... make a test...just pan from one side to the other and shoot one subject in, you will notice that in the left and right side, the image is stretched.

You can solve this by putting the macro lens more near the dv camera, and closer to the ground glass... in that way you now need to zoom less with the dv camera.

That is a common problem with the macro lens... using a frenel lens the image comes the same, but is corrected so you dont get that effect.

Jim Lafferty · January 2nd, 2004, 12:19 AM

As promised -- a new clip for your viewing pleasure. And only one hour late, at that :)

- jim

Daniel Moloko · January 2nd, 2004, 01:15 AM

youre right.

i dont know how it will work on a 3ccd camera or hd.

i just have the trv18.

but i think it will be great too. even if i got some grain.

anyway, super35mm theres grain in it, from the film cam gg.

even photo has grain, the tinies one.

doesnt matter.

i think that the grain will improve the footage from the hd10u, cause the cam has so much definition that i isnt that nice as a raw, its to vivid, ...

anyway, im looking foward to buy yours adaptor...

thanks
ciao

Agus Casse · January 2nd, 2004, 01:27 AM

I am a TRV18 user, and the Agus35 make this camera to now beat the ass to any 2k camera, just because of the DOF... audio, and video noise are another story to tell.

Spencer Houck · January 2nd, 2004, 01:43 AM

Agus,

Devin and I are very happy with the adapter so far. Yeah, we're getting a little bit of blurry distortion around the corners, but we may switch to a +7 macro to reduce it (as long as it still allows us to fill the frame with the image).

In regards to credit, I will be glad to thank you for re-instilling my hope for a homebuilt mini35..or 50, as it may be. But I regret to inform you that I had been following prototype building of these adapters much earlier than when this post arrived, closer to March of 2003. The people over here: http://www.kopfrauschen.de/view_en.php?page=dv35m had shoved a little miniDV'er right into a medium format camera, and Cosmin Rotaru from DVinfo's boards begun with talk of using frosted CDs as GG. I feel you share in the credit with many others from this board, but to specifically request credit in our evolved adapter seems a little too bold.

This post is truly meant as a community effort, and it surely has been. My adapter was built from a picking and choosing of the whole of the group's input. We used the project box pioneered by Jim Lafferty, in combination with an adjustment system much like Tom Jensen's, and added a lot of our own ideas, again with the help of my dad.

I feel that this whole "hey, don't forget to put agus35 on it", "hey, don't put copyright on your images," type of talk is destructive to the feeling that this board is trying to perpetuate. Sure everyone wants to "make a buck", it's the way of the world, and I understand that, but you came on with high hopes of helping others and I've still, almost 50 pages later, not seen the detailed instructions promised since page number 1. Taylor Moore seems to share my opinion on the necessity of detailed plans being made available. We'll try our best in our spare time to help achieve a higher level of understanding amongst the community.

I'm not trying to burst anyone’s bubble, and I don't mean to be "flaming" anyone, it's just something that’s been on my mind as this post gets bigger and bigger, and I felt it needed to be said.

Thanks again for everyone that contributed to this post,
We'll keep you up to date on our adapter's evolution.

Sincerely,
Spencer Houck

Agus Casse · January 2nd, 2004, 01:58 AM

Well, the thread is abuot the agus35 like it was named the idea of putting a fake CD as a ground glass to eleminate the grain.

The credit... well... nowdays anyone have invented everything, right ? this is not about who invented it.

I just love teh agus35 name, and it was a great brainstorming in making and building the adapter... and it was really but really hard to make it sooo simple to build.

But let me tell you something.

Neither if i had started this thread or keep the original design for my own, the goal is to bring this kind of adapters that cost really a fortune, to the masses and for the indie filmakers, i am a pioneer on this and i am very proud... of course that many many people made the experimentation of building a camera obscura and putting the dv camera... that is not new... but the use of a fake cd and rotate it so it will cost you pennies to build it... sorry kid i made it first and it work and i share it to all of you..

But it even if it wasnt my original idea... if you have really read more about this adapters you know of who i am talking about. He just shoot an idea to the air and i just catch it.. and yes.. this is all teamwork...

and it is the largest thread in dvinfo.net ... isnt that great ?

well, i dont want to insult anyone.. i am going to sleep cause i am very tired.

i will post some pics of the comercial version as soon as i can have the best results.

January 1st, 2004, 02:02 PM	#646
Nicholi Brossia Major Player Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Oklahoma City, OK Posts: 389	That's actually a tough question Gabor. Since the HD10U has higher resolution, you'll probably need a more grainless ground glass. Everyone so far, as far as I know, has been using standard definition/resolution cameras. Spinning the ground glass causes the grain to "disappear" but may not work as easily with yours. Currently on this thread http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...5&pagenumber=5 we are discussing how to make a ground glass that doesn't have to spin. Vendible has gone all the way down to 3 micron ground glass (the equivalent to 8,000 grit!) and the grain is still visible, so I'm sure that would look bad on yours... but its certainly worth experimenting. Right Vendible is experimenting with a coating that hopefully will allow grainless glass and might work great with your camera. __________________ Nicholi Brossia

January 1st, 2004, 06:12 PM	#648
Daniel Moloko Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Brazil Posts: 124	hey why u people ignore my adaptor? it worked great, without any grain, etc. no spining cd or else. i will adapt it for my new HD10u and it will work. vendi is trying to make his gg by himself. i just got a zenit GG from an old photo cam. theres no grain in it. and i think it will work better with the jvc hdv camcorder. ciao

January 1st, 2004, 06:49 PM	#649
Filip Kovcin Major Player Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: warsaw, poland Posts: 440	(to daniel moloko) not ignoring zenit GG Daniel, i think that no one is ignoring your GG. simply. it's hard to find. you "promised" to tell us from which model this grainless GG is taken, but - no info. a few days ago i went to huge secondhand photo market here in warsaw, but i didn't find zenit with proper GG. i tested many zenits: zenit E. zenit B. zenit 11, zenit 12, zenit 122, zenit ET, zenit TTL... but no luck. i know that not all of them are old, but i just tested it to see is it MAYBE proper GG in it. my suspicion is that is should be on zenit 3B, which IS really old (from 60s), but i didn't find one. (maybe because of hollydays and new year) so if you can - please give us a clue from WHICH zenit your exellent GG is taken, so we can also test that (if we are lucky enough to find one). filip p.s. you should show us more nice girls captured with your DANIELZenit35 adapter :)

January 1st, 2004, 08:42 PM	#650
Jim Lafferty Major Player Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Brooklyn, NY Posts: 636	Yeah... Using proprietary, rare parts goes a long way to undermining the whole spirit of Agus's original design, which is to use parts that are cheap and readily available. Also, Agus has produced the most visceral footage with his design... __________________ Realism, anyway, is never exactly the same as reality, and in the cinema it is of necessity faked. -- J-L G

January 1st, 2004, 10:40 PM	#653
Devin Doyle Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 188	Video from our finished mini-50 Spencer Houck and I have finished our final version of the mini-50 (with a ton of help from his dad, thanks Mr. Houck!). After closely watching this thread since it was a mere 2 pages we've been able to research and test various methods to find what we think is the best. Spence built a version without ground glass, but there were some problems with distortion, so we reverted back to the frosted cd model. Here's how our version works: GL1 > +10 macro lens > pre-frosted > fresnel > olympus 50mm lens It's an ordeal getting it mounted to the baseplate, but once it's on it's a snap to setup and shoot. If you'd like to see some pics of the inside of the box, just ask and we can post. We used a radio shack project box to house the optics, a U shaped piece of particle board mounted inside (you can see the 4 mounting screws on the front), and a cd motor. There are some problems with vignetting, but that's an issue with our macro lens, not the light. We're really happy with our results and are looking forward to putting it to good use. http://www.par-t-com.net/mini50_wide.JPG http://www.par-t-com.net/mini50_button.JPG http://www.par-t-com.net/mini50_front.JPG http://www.par-t-com.net/mini50_base.JPG The video was shot on my GL1 in 30i, cc'd in premiere pro, then converted to 30p before compression. It's on the following page http://www.par-t-com.net/media.html entitled "Completed Mini50 with (w/ ground glass)". Enjoy! __________________ http://devin.par-t-com.net

January 1st, 2004, 04:28 PM	#647
Peter Sciretta Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 72	Agus - Have you/ can you use a zoom lens with the adapter... and what kind of f stop have you tried, and has it hurt you in light levels? Peter

January 1st, 2004, 09:58 PM	#651
Daniel Moloko Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Brazil Posts: 124	january 5 i will go to the same store and will tell you the model of the zenit. by the way, what u mean with viceral footage? anyone have a place where i can upload the video i made for the first ray of sun light from 2004? very pretty. beach, girls, djs playing in the sand, etc... ciao

January 1st, 2004, 10:04 PM	#652
Taylor Moore Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Canada Posts: 94	Daniel you can send video to me I will put on my site for you. taylor@moorefilms.com

January 1st, 2004, 10:57 PM	#654
Taylor Moore Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Canada Posts: 94	Great job Devin, Do you have any more interior construction photo's. It would be great if you could put up a construction from A-Z on this. I want to create this for my DVX 100. If you don't have the time but you have all the images, i would be more than willing to create the website for this...and we can define the construction copy to help liberate the Agus35/Mini35 camera. Cheers Taylor

January 1st, 2004, 11:57 PM	#655
Agus Casse Major Player Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Guatemala Posts: 322	Daniel, I have chatted with you personally and i really love the footage, there is some grain in your footage, because the TRV18 produces grain, cause it has only 1 chip, and it is only 680k effective... Same as mine, cause is teh same camera. So, when you are picking in a dv camera with 3chips, well, you will get now the real grain from the GG... rememeber that most of us are quality freaks, if we see tiny really tiny grain... it is still grain, and the process is incorrect. So... another issue is to find more of those groudn glass... which seens imposible to most of us. and second is the most important thing. the agus35 uses mobile parts, only from a 25-50 spindle.. that is the basic concept, now we are improving that first baby step which produces no grain at all to make a close enogh perfect adapater for 100 times less the price of the Mini35. For everybody, we are still designing the commercial version. Now i am waiting for my pentaprism and i just ordered the allumuniun Oxide to make a 3micron GG (that will still rotate, cant believe the movietube produces zero grain...). One another really tricky part is the les adapter mount, we are still working a particular part, that will let any adapter to be mounted or we will provide the mounts for each type. We are resuming the work maybe in the 5th or 10th of the month, cause we have also many other projects coming along. Thanks to all for the support. Agus casse Ah... BTW...Devin Doyle Some credit for the adapter would be really nice and welcome :) I just want that the Agus35 name be settled to this kind of homemade adapter. I just watch the footage and i notice that are having the same problem taht i did... the macro lens is starting to deform the image... make a test...just pan from one side to the other and shoot one subject in, you will notice that in the left and right side, the image is stretched. You can solve this by putting the macro lens more near the dv camera, and closer to the ground glass... in that way you now need to zoom less with the dv camera. That is a common problem with the macro lens... using a frenel lens the image comes the same, but is corrected so you dont get that effect. __________________ Agus35 - the ultimate tool for indie DV filmakers -

January 2nd, 2004, 12:19 AM	#656
Jim Lafferty Major Player Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Brooklyn, NY Posts: 636	As promised -- a new clip for your viewing pleasure. And only one hour late, at that :) - jim __________________ Realism, anyway, is never exactly the same as reality, and in the cinema it is of necessity faked. -- J-L G

January 2nd, 2004, 01:15 AM	#657
Daniel Moloko Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Brazil Posts: 124	agus... youre right. i dont know how it will work on a 3ccd camera or hd. i just have the trv18. but i think it will be great too. even if i got some grain. anyway, super35mm theres grain in it, from the film cam gg. even photo has grain, the tinies one. doesnt matter. i think that the grain will improve the footage from the hd10u, cause the cam has so much definition that i isnt that nice as a raw, its to vivid, ... anyway, im looking foward to buy yours adaptor... thanks ciao

January 2nd, 2004, 01:27 AM	#658
Agus Casse Major Player Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Guatemala Posts: 322	I am a TRV18 user, and the Agus35 make this camera to now beat the ass to any 2k camera, just because of the DOF... audio, and video noise are another story to tell. __________________ Agus35 - the ultimate tool for indie DV filmakers -

January 2nd, 2004, 01:43 AM	#659
Spencer Houck Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Akron, Ohio Posts: 65	Agus, Devin and I are very happy with the adapter so far. Yeah, we're getting a little bit of blurry distortion around the corners, but we may switch to a +7 macro to reduce it (as long as it still allows us to fill the frame with the image). In regards to credit, I will be glad to thank you for re-instilling my hope for a homebuilt mini35..or 50, as it may be. But I regret to inform you that I had been following prototype building of these adapters much earlier than when this post arrived, closer to March of 2003. The people over here: http://www.kopfrauschen.de/view_en.php?page=dv35m had shoved a little miniDV'er right into a medium format camera, and Cosmin Rotaru from DVinfo's boards begun with talk of using frosted CDs as GG. I feel you share in the credit with many others from this board, but to specifically request credit in our evolved adapter seems a little too bold. This post is truly meant as a community effort, and it surely has been. My adapter was built from a picking and choosing of the whole of the group's input. We used the project box pioneered by Jim Lafferty, in combination with an adjustment system much like Tom Jensen's, and added a lot of our own ideas, again with the help of my dad. I feel that this whole "hey, don't forget to put agus35 on it", "hey, don't put copyright on your images," type of talk is destructive to the feeling that this board is trying to perpetuate. Sure everyone wants to "make a buck", it's the way of the world, and I understand that, but you came on with high hopes of helping others and I've still, almost 50 pages later, not seen the detailed instructions promised since page number 1. Taylor Moore seems to share my opinion on the necessity of detailed plans being made available. We'll try our best in our spare time to help achieve a higher level of understanding amongst the community. I'm not trying to burst anyone’s bubble, and I don't mean to be "flaming" anyone, it's just something that’s been on my mind as this post gets bigger and bigger, and I felt it needed to be said. Thanks again for everyone that contributed to this post, We'll keep you up to date on our adapter's evolution. Sincerely, Spencer Houck __________________ www.par-t-com.net > C'mon, you know you wanna click it.

January 2nd, 2004, 01:58 AM	#660
Agus Casse Major Player Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Guatemala Posts: 322	Well, the thread is abuot the agus35 like it was named the idea of putting a fake CD as a ground glass to eleminate the grain. The credit... well... nowdays anyone have invented everything, right ? this is not about who invented it. I just love teh agus35 name, and it was a great brainstorming in making and building the adapter... and it was really but really hard to make it sooo simple to build. But let me tell you something. Neither if i had started this thread or keep the original design for my own, the goal is to bring this kind of adapters that cost really a fortune, to the masses and for the indie filmakers, i am a pioneer on this and i am very proud... of course that many many people made the experimentation of building a camera obscura and putting the dv camera... that is not new... but the use of a fake cd and rotate it so it will cost you pennies to build it... sorry kid i made it first and it work and i share it to all of you.. But it even if it wasnt my original idea... if you have really read more about this adapters you know of who i am talking about. He just shoot an idea to the air and i just catch it.. and yes.. this is all teamwork... and it is the largest thread in dvinfo.net ... isnt that great ? well, i dont want to insult anyone.. i am going to sleep cause i am very tired. i will post some pics of the comercial version as soon as i can have the best results. __________________ Agus35 - the ultimate tool for indie DV filmakers -