Letus extreme at work

[Bruce S. Yarock]

I fianlly got to use my Letus rig on an indie short. I shot almost everything with the letus on my Canon a1, excpet for a few steadycam shots and afew on the canon7d. this isn't a color corrected version, and I didn't have anything to do with the editing.

YouTube - BLIND HEART

Bruce Yarock
Yarock Video and Photo

[Bob Hart]

My guessing on viewing is that the biggest chunk was shot on the 7D and direct-to-camera on the A1. Perhaps you can guide us as to which was what. If there imaging from the 7D and direct-to-camera was not the dominant material in the trailer, then there is demonstration that groundglass imaging remains relevent.

Am definitely prompted to see the short if it comes by me over here and I get to know about it. The last three pieces on the trailer, finishing with the cut back to the interviewee really work to the max don't they.

[Bruce S. Yarock]

Bob,
Actually, the director used almost nothing that I shot on the 7d ( he was too confused as to matching the looks). I think that the only 7d clip in that whole trailer was the single shot of the soldier lying on the ground. I used the A1 on indicam for the beach scene, and the guys crawling on their belly's. I don't remember if the slo mo dolly was with or without the letus, but everything else was.
I think that the letus and 7d work really well together, especially if the editor knows how to grade and match. I've also been using a more neutral setting when mixing with the letus, because the standard 7d setting is just too saturated and contrasty. It looks great on it's own , however.

I do love using the letus out doors when there's lots of light (girl in bikini by the pool, guy arriving at airport, guys at outside cafe table in South Beach, etc). I'm looking forward to a project where I can use both liberally.
later
Bruce Yarock

[Bob Hart]

Bruce.


Well there you go. There's life left in 35mm adaptors yet.

Except for some corner softness from home-wrought mixing and matching of Nikon stills lenses for relay, 2048 x 1152 images from the SI2K with a Letus Extreme can look quite good.

I have been leaving 35mm groundglass imaging alone for a while but somewhere between March and June, there are some pickups to be done for a local project which was shot on the JVC/Mini35 combination.

So far, the intention is these will be done on the EX1/Letus Extreme combination to match as close as one can to the original JVC/Mini35 footage. A short grab from the EX1/Letus was used in the original edit.

This is a little offtopic - How have you found shooting with the detail or sharpness level reduced with the 7D. We here have found that it seems better to allow some sharpening in the 7D as sensor noise seemed to be aggravated by sharpening in post.

[Bob Hart]

As a footnote to my previous post, I have had a request for Sony PMW-EX1/Letus Extreme.

When I asked why not use a Canon 7D known to be conveniently available the answer was "I am comfortable with the Letus."

Is the novelty of fullframe digital stills cameras wearing off a little maybe?

[Bob Hart]

Post deleted. I could not get the images to show. Will try again later.

Nope. Still didn't take. Cannot do on this computer - kieve.exe virus got the other one. Will try again sometime soon.

[Bob Hart]

Here is a link to the facebook related to the small indie short project "Surfaced" I mentioned above.


Hopefully the link is not password locked. I have no way of checking it as my computer automatically logs in to the site.

Welcome to Facebook


Techspec.


Camera. - Sony PMW-EX1.
35mm Adaptor. - Letus Extreme early series Production Bundle.


Modifications and Relay Setting.

X-Y centering adjustment modification.
EX1 Zoom between 38mm and 40mm or Z69 approximately.


Lenslist.

Nikon. f1.4 50mm.
Nikon. f1.4 85mm.
Nikon. f1.4 35mm.
Nikon. f1.8 105mm ( used a lot ).
Nikon. f2 200mm ( one shot on the beach scene ).
Sigma for Nikon f2.8 14mm.
Sigmatel for Nikon f1.8 135mm.


Lighting.

Ianiro? Blondies x 2.
Redheads.
Kino bank. ( I must have one of those for Christmas).


Audio.

Mike. Rode NTG2 ( I think ) or maybe NTG3.
Sound Devices MixPre to camera.


Camera Support.

Handheld.
Miller DS10 on Miller 75mm bowl Tripod.
Projib crane with Manfrotto Bowl and head.
Manfrotto Tripod and head.

[Bob Hart]

Here are a few framegrabs downloaded from the "Surfaced" facebook album, hopefully not too degraded in the process.

Numbering :-

1 2
3 4

1 - f2.8 14mm Sigma-for-Nikon.
2 - f1.4 85mm Nikon. ( I think, might have been f1.8 105mm.)
3 - f1.4 85mm Nikon. ( I think, might have been f1.8 105mm.)
4 - f1.4 35mm Nikon.

They attempted to stay as close as lighting permitted to the lenses' sweet spot and also took care to check and maintain relay focus with test charts, not eyeball rules and always after powerdowns and restarts. It is the only way to do it properly. The time there was a relay focus drift problem, the autofocus was found to have been switched on.

I picked the best of the facebook pics for here. There are one or two others which are a bit softer (autofocus drift).

[Bob Hart]

Here is a link to a short trailer they made.

YouTube - Surfaced Teaser