adjusting the letus35a & Canon FD lenses not stopping down

[Ali Husain]

i just recently bought a letus35a. incredible value btw. but i have two questions:

(1) what is the proper way to adjust the orientation of the GG so that it lines up with the 16x9 aspect ratio of my camera when screwed on? from what i gather, you'd mount the adapter on your camera, then unscrew the camera side attachment (both the thumbscrew and the two small machine ones), and then reorient the letus35a and mount it back on the camera BUT screwing it back in, not in the original holes (which would no longer be lined up), but directly onto the plastic, to be held on by friction. seems crazy. can't figure out any other way.

(2) the stop down lever on my canon fd 50mm/f1.4 lens i got off ebay (and that works correctly--as i had it checked out by a camera repair shop) never gets tripped when i mount it on the letus35a. so i'm forced to use it with teh aperture wide open... which is definitely not something i want to do all the time. is this the way the adapter is suppsoed to work!? teh camera repair shop suggested that i first mount the canon lens, then unscrew the attachement holding hte lens, and then manually tape the stop-down lever open (since if u do that BEFORE you put it on the adapter it won't screw in). we tried various other fd lenses they had in the store and all had the same mechanism, so they all had a wide-open aperture. can somoene help? thanks!

[Lloyd Choi]

for question nmber 2, my canon aperture doesn't work either. I'm not worried however, due to the DVX iris control. It'll definately pose problems with cameras that don't have this option.

Maybe Quyen can jump in and explain why the aperture doesn't work?

[Ali Husain]

well i'd like control over the aperture coming into the adapter because i can't usefully shoot with an f1.4 lens wide open all the time onto a 35mm target. for the most common shots, the DOF is *way* too shallow! imagine watching a whole movie like that! correct me if i'm wrong: but the mighty sony cinealta's have 2/3inch image target areas. and teh letus35a creates a target image over 1 and 1/3inches! "with great power comes great responsibility" :)

i also like the look the adapter gives to certain images, and would like to shoot with it on even for shots that don't require shallow dof. there is a nice localized light scattering effect on highlights. nonlinear. maybe not exactly film-like. but it looks artistic.

there is also a range of exposure for which the GG produces a good image. really bright images suffer because of the scattering (the whole frame lights up). so it won't do me any good controlling the exposure from the camera side if the GG is already operating out of it's good range. lloyd, maybe i misunderstood you?

this is gonna kill my servers probably, but here is an example of the look i like: the file is 16.1MB (i'm not posting in the .wmv format because i hate what it does to my 24p cadence; and this is full widescreen dvd-resolution so u can see what the letus35a is capable of; note i've done a little postprocessing)

http://www.soaudio.com/~dvinfo/dof-test_01.mpg

pretty, no? i bet you can't guess which video camera that is. (it's not a dvx100!)

[Quyen Le]

Ali Husain

1. You should not remove the screws completely, just loosen the thumbscrew a little bit and not to touch the other 2 to release the macro ring. Mount the whole thing on the camera until it's tight enough then slide the ring off the adapter then reinsert with right orientation.

2. There are 2 different type of Canon FD lenses that I know of. 1 has metal ring without any button to press, the other has release button. The one with metal ring, slide the little metal thing like the picture on this link http://www.letus35.com/type1.JPG Type 2, slide the same pin then put a shim so it won't come back.

Hope this helps, thanks.

Quyen

[Ali Husain]

both of those directions worked. thanks! (i'm using a bread twisty to keep the stop-down mechanism open)

[Ali Husain]

database error --> multiple posts.

[Ali Husain]

database error --> multiple posts.

[Ali Husain]

database error --> multiple posts.

[Ali Husain]

database error --> multiple posts.

[Ali Husain]

database error --> multiple posts.

[Ali Husain]

database error --> multiple posts.

[Leo Mandy]

Did anyone figure out how to fix the 50mm 1.4? I am having the same problem...