mini35 Cost

[Sebastian Jacome]

Hi everybody.

I am trying to do some research on the ACTUAL cost of the mini35 adapter. I know the list price and I have called zgc, but I am trying to get an estimate of how much would it cost to buy a used 300 series.

I have searched ebay, completed items, but there's nothing to look right now. Anyone has bought one recently? Can you give me an idea how much I will have to spend? The forum has divided opinions, some people say twice as much as the XL2, others say the same...

Thanks!

[Zack Birlew]

Hmmmmm, well, I would figure it wouldn't be too much less than a new 400 series as far as used/outdated vs. new items ratio goes. If the current 400 series is $10k, I would expect a used 300 series to be in the ballpark of $6.5-8k depending on its condition. Having never owned one, though I really would love to have one, I would think that you'd be spending A TON already, especially since most of those good lenses cost as much, if not more 0.0 (!!), than the adapter itself. Plus the fact that the adapters don't go on eBay very often, I would suggest you bite the bullet and go with the new 400 series if you're looking to buy, otherwise you could just rent the thing (but I don't understand why you would rent it because most shoots last long enough that you spend enough to buy it anyway). Well, hope that helps to answer your question, good luck.

[Charles Papert]

A common cry heard here (and other places as well) goes "don't rent the Mini35, buy it, use it on your project and then sell it used". As you pointed out, they don't seem to show up used all that often (haven't yet seen a 400 series sold used at all), so this strategy doesn't seem to be catching on...!

Having used both, I would have to say that I found the limitations of the 300 series (primarily the "spinning vortex" issue) to be a dealkiller in operation since the 400 came out.

[Sebastian Jacome]

Charles,

Any suggestions on using the 300 model? how to avoid this (and other problems)? I have seen a couple of threads about this issue, but I would like to hear from your experience.

I am going to be be shooting a short in a couple of weeks and all I have access to is a 300 model. I want to prepare as much as I can, and having never used this adapter, any suggestions will be appreciated.

Thanks

[Charles Papert]

You can achieve good results with the 300 series (that's what we used for the Seinfeld American Express web movies) as long as you keep the cine lens stop under an f2.8. More stopped down than that will increase your chances of revealing the Vortex.

The order of business when setting exposure is: set the cine lens, then dial the relay iris in for proper exposure for the camera. If you are in extremely bright light, beware of having the relay iris stopped down significantly (close to the 5 setting, if I remember correctly). You should use an ND filter in front of the lens in this circumstance to bring the relay to a more comfortable median place. The main reason for this is if you need to stop down any more, you have no-where to go.

Make sure to adjust the backfocus with the relay set all the way open (1), this is the most critical position for it. Stop the cine lens down to f11 or so and open up the relay with the spinner off, then adjust backfocus until the visible grain is as sharp as possible.

[Sebastian Jacome]

Thanks so much. This will be very useful. The comercial for amex was one of the things that sold me the idea of using the mini35. This is great insight. If you have further recommendations don't hesitate to post, I hope I don't have to come back to this thread once I am down there shooting!

[Dennis Hingsberg]

Sebastian, I've used the mini35 series 300 with Canon XL1 for 2 short films this year, one of which screened at a film festival on a huge screen digitally projected from DVD. I also edit and preview my work using LCD technology - a 17" for editing and a 42" plasma for preview. Generally, video noise or grain is far more apparent on LCD technology compared to CRT and so far I have not seen spinning vortex on my footage.

When I shoot I never go over f5.6 or even f4 with my lenses and mostly I use the relay iris to control exposure. I always leave the camera on -3dB or 0dB gain. I've shot a few things using the +dB settings and regretted after because the noise of the CCD was really bad.

Any other video noise in the image I've dealt with in post using noise reduction software, there are loads of them out there and really you have to try several to figure out which one will do the best job for you. It's a long process if you really want to clean your images, but as for the vortex you should be fine if you keep your lens iris more on the open side.

[Charles Papert]

<<When I shoot I never go over f5.6 or even f4>>

Dennis, just want to clarify this...do you mean you don't stop down more than f4 (which include 5.6)? i.e. you shoot anywhere from wide open to an f4. I think we snuck in a couple of shots at f4 with the series 300 on the Seinfeld films but it was dodgy--significant movement in the frame kept the vortex from being obvious but it was visible if the camera was at rest, pointing at a neutral background.

[Dennis Hingsberg]

I mainly shoot anywhere from open to f4, but sometimes have shot f5.6 and not seen the vortex. At that time however I was not using ND's on the lens at all - just the relay iris to control my exposure once the lens f-stop was set.

Perhaps using ND's on the lens in combination of f5.6 or f4 makes the vortex more apparent, but I don't know and would have to test it out.

Also I was using Nikon, not Cooke which is lower quality glass - could that help "hide" the vortex somehow?

[Duncan Wilson]

Birns & Sawyer are advertising a used mini35 for $4,500 on their website.

[Charles Papert]

Dennis:

I can't think of any reason why glass ND would make a difference over the rear relay. The critical factor is the aperture on the front lens--if the glass ND allows for a 2.8, that should look the same as if one used the relay to adjust exposure with a 2.8 up front.

And I don't think the lenses themselves had anything to do with it, although I wonder about the relative size of the exit pupil between the Cookes and your Nikons.

I always found the 300 series to involve a certain amount of voodoo; we could stop down further in certain situations than others and the vortex would either jump out like a demon or slumber in its cave.

Either way, glad to hear you are not being restricted by this issue, but bummed to hear about your mechanical problems fitting the XL2 to the 300. That's not atypical for a lot of manufacturers that I've deal with; support for older models is an afterthought at best. They forget that just because they don't make something any more that there are plenty of them in use out there (or more insidiously, force one into upgrading by attrition).