Review of Quyen Le's Letus35

[Ben Winter]

I originally thought those specks were on the condenser/PXCL lens in the adapter, but it turns out they were actually on my GL2 lens, lol. You have no clue how frustrated I am now that I've realized I could've simply wiped it off.

After I opened up the Letus35 and cleaned it out myself it's spotless inside. Quyen shipped me a version before he had his compressed air, but now that he has it he's mentioned all models he ships now are clean.

[Marius Luessi]

Great; thanks Ben.
Oh and by the way: nice clip!!
For what it was, it was very well executed.....except the scene with the main character inside with the microwave oven (edit: "TV", not MW oven, just watched the clip again) in the b.g.?? Wazzup wid dat??? GET SOME LIGHTS!!!!

;-)))
Just fooling around, like i mentioned, it was very cute, and well put together.

[Jonny Dee]

Hey Ben, I have the same problem with spots on the CMOS on my Canon D20 Digital still camera. It is incredibly frustrating. I can just imagine how difficult it is with video, when photoshoping the spot out is not as easy an option. For me it shows up most when photographing blue sky at higher F-stops (f16). Try opening your iris all the way and see if you notice a difference.

Good to know its not the adaptor though. Mine is in the mail :)

Jon

[Marius Luessi]

Oh, and another thing, regarding your clip, Ben:

The guy-catches-paper-scene: was that filmed backwards and reversed in post?

Looks very good!

[Craig Bellaire]

yea I noticed that to.... maybe a different GG would help. But the last clip was impressive...

[Kurt August]

"For me it shows up most when photographing blue sky at higher F-stops (f16). Try opening your iris all the way and see if you notice a difference."

Imagine filming with an f stop 11, a wide angle convertor and two filters in a mattebox and how dust relates to the burning point. I can tell you. I feel much better now, always having a can of compressed air in the bag...

It looks sort of silly on a shoot, but I guess It's worth it.

[Ben Winter]

Noooo, I meant the dust was actually on the outside of the GL2 lens, meaning if I had seen the dust while we were filming I would've just had to unscrew the adapter and wipe off the GL2 lens with a paper towel or whatnot. Having dust or dead pixels on the sensor must really suck though.

And yes, that newspaper scene was filmed backwards and reversed in post.

We tried lighting him on that TV scene but it really takes some talent (talent and equipment I don't have) to make him effectively lit so that the light isn't identified as light coming from light fixtures in the house, which would've taken away the effectiveness of cutting the power. If we had more time to do it I would've taken the steps necessary to light him properly, and I would've waited until the next day during sunlight to film him walking out onto the patio and knocking his head on the door--I get a lot of video noise because of those low-light conditions. And I should've shot it without the adapter too--I didn't need DOF there and I would've gotten a cleaner shot overall. But whatever. I feel good about the product as is.

[Bill Porter]

Originally Posted by Kurt August

It seems like we are all in the running of delivering the first serious test footage. As pretty as it all looks until now, pretty doesn't bring much when you're preparing a difficult shoot and you have to know exactly what the strong and the weak points of the adapter are.

I know it is in a different price league than the p+s adapter, but that shouldn't change our critical attitude towards it. I got the feeling this small fellow deserves better.

Maybe I'm dense but I really have no idea what your point was. On the one hand you're saying the Letus35 is still an unknown in terms of strengths and weaknesses, and that despite it being less expensive than the Mini35, reviewers shouldn't cut it any slack. (I personally think that considering the price, a reviewer should absolutely consider what they get for the money, which, with any of these adapters, is a heck of a lot)

On the other hand you say this small fellow deserves better.

???

[Marius Luessi]

Originally Posted by Ben Winter

If we had more time to do it I would've taken the steps necessary to light him properly...

Hey, no need to justify it to me at all; I probably shouldn't of posted my comment (which was just meant as fun). Sorry.

I did really like it.

Cheers.

[Kurt August]

You wrote:

"Maybe I'm dense but I really have no idea what your point was. On the one hand you're saying the Letus35 is still an unknown in terms of strengths and weaknesses, and that despite it being less expensive than the Mini35, reviewers shouldn't cut it any slack. (I personally think that considering the price, a reviewer should absolutely consider what they get for the money, which, with any of these adapters, is a heck of a lot)

On the other hand you say this small fellow deserves better.

???"

My point was: testing the adapter thoroughly, is the only way to show that it indeed is an indecrible design and you really get an awful lot for what you pay for. Especially compared to the 'high-end' adapters.

Perhaps, this IS a high end adapter in terms of results, at a really low price. You can only prove that after rigid testing. But I have the feeling it will be proved.

In that sense, the small fellow really has is better by not cutting slack.
Perhaps I should study more on my English. 'Cutting slack' was the wrong choice of words, I think. It seems too harsch. Let's rephrase it as 'positively critical'.

Yes, I look forward to testing it. We may not be named Kubrick, but we shure can be perfectionists.

[Ben Winter]

I'd just like to say that the concept of a 35mm is so simple that all it takes is a sturdy design to make people happy about it.

While Quyen's adapter is indeed impressively well done, be sure not to drop it. The PXCL is kept where it is simply by means of friction; throw enough inertial force at it and you'll completely push it out of place, and the only way you'll be able to return it to its original position is by unscrewing that side and sticking a pencil underneath it to push it back up. Or maybe you'll get lucky if you hit it from the other side to relocate it, but then you risk damaging other areas of the adapter. The screen, while very impressive functionally, is suspended using plastic sticks of the sort you'd expect to find in the center of a pizza box. Hot glue was my savior, and that's all I'll say there.

I like Quyen's adapter very much, and it's design is uncannily clever. But, like any other piece of video equipment, it's fragile, and you have to be careful with it and treat it gently.

Basically that was my "not cutting it any slack" part. In my personal opinion, any profressionally machined adapter will stand up to accidental force 10x as well as Quyen's, but excuse me if I don't plan on dropping it from 10 feet. Just be sure to screw on the adapter before you attach the camera to the tripod, otherwise you're probably setting yourself up for a tumble.

Also, I should inform Letus35 owners that it's ideal to go to Radioshack and purchase a spool of 16 gauge wire and splice the Letus' battery pack cord to make it longer. I find it improves the stability of the adapter's connection and makes generally mounting it easier to have the cord long enough so the battery pack can be taped/velcroed/ziptied to the side of my tripod rather than adding weight to my camcorder's screw threads. To Quyen: you could easily add connectors to the wires so a 6' extension cord could be plugged in-between the battery pack.

[Bill Porter]

Kurt, thanks for the explanation, I get it now. Also I actually didn't see Ben's statement about cutting some slack so I didn't "get" the context.

Hey Ben,

Once again, nice job. I just watched it again and I'm impressed, you are a sharp guy, especially for a youngster :)

What F-stop was your 35mm lens at for the shot outdoors when the protagonist is waiting for the newspaper and the house is visible in the background? I know it must have been fairly stopped down because the house was just barely out of focus, which I thought was classy and not overdone.

[Kurt August]

"shot outdoors when the protagonist is waiting for the newspaper"

very nice indeed! my favourite also.
and good comments on the hardware!

[Ben Winter]

What F-stop was your 35mm lens at

~2.1f I believe? It's a Canon FD 1.4 50mm. I still wanted people to easily relate to where he was and recognize the house in the background from the wide shot. I really only touch the aperture when there's enough light out to do it, the GL2 royally blows in low-light conditions.

Also, I'd like to note that it's nearly impossible to pull focus with Quyen's adapter without shaking the image--the adapter simply isn't rigid enough to keep even the slightest touch of the lens from bending the assembly somehow. I'm considering a rod mounting system to support it, or simply doing all my focus pulls with my Nikon D screen adapter, provided I can't sell it.

[Michael Maier]

That's an inconvenient limitation