New SG35 DVX Grabs
 

Hello all. Here are some grabs fresh from the digitising suite in university.

I chose to pimp my DVX with Wayne's SG35 instead of a DVCPRO 615.

http://www.mediafree.co.uk/major/fall.jpg
http://www.mediafree.co.uk/major/behindbooks.jpg
http://www.mediafree.co.uk/major/car-first-day.jpg
http://www.mediafree.co.uk/major/cylcing1.jpg
http://www.mediafree.co.uk/major/jeff.jpg
http://www.mediafree.co.uk/major/paintfg.jpg
http://www.mediafree.co.uk/major/planewindow.jpg
http://www.mediafree.co.uk/major/superfg.jpg
http://www.mediafree.co.uk/major/underpass1.jpg

Dan.

Nice Dan .....
 

Question though - The focal length seemed tight on those close-ups with the hands. What was your distance from the subject?

Is there a site for the SG35?

Thanks for posting the grabs, Dan. Look forward to some footage.

Link is in my sig, Aaron.

Thanks Wayne. Man I want someone to do a shootout of all these devices!

I thought this was the home page for the G35 and is what the actual device looks like? http://www.cinemek.com

Daniel - can you post full resolution pictures ie. 720x480? I want to see the full rez. Great shots!

What lens used, f-stop on the lens, how did you find following focus on moving subjects?

Cheers!

Dennis, that's the G35, not SG35.

Daniel, how have you found the SG35 overall? i.e.

Light loss?
Can you avoid vignetting (The samples from the page don't show any I can see)
How do you find the sharpness from edge to edge? Good?


Cheers
Aaron

I'll post a more in depth review soon, along with some full resolution colour corrected footage.

The tight shots were filmed using a 70-205 macro f3.5 Vivitar lens (£15 off ebay) it was an absolute stunner. Most of the other footage was shot using a 50mm f1.4 and a 28mm f2.8. I bought a canon 135 f2.5 which ended up being overshadowed by the vivitar.

I think you need the change the name. Call it the K35.

Nice one Yas, Kinney35.

SG originally came from the words 'Spinning Glass'. I guess now the adapter ships with a better material for its GG, its time to change the name, eh?

That's the zoom lens I own! I love it. Don't use it much, but when I do...very happy with it.

Absolutely sweet. I definitely for sure will like to see a raw footage and the color corrected footge.

Great shots Daniel, what was your light setup for the indoor shots?

That's absolutely filmic.

Aaron - Light loss really wasnt an issue throughout the whole shoot. The 50mm f1.4 was bright enough and the variable speed of the rotating GG handled the low light brilliantly. The lighting setup was generally standard 3 point using a redhead and 2 meisers. The SG35 responded nicely to harsh key lights so we messed about with that a bit.

The main issues were practicalities - It took longer to setup each shot with the gg needing to be re-focused after most moves. You have to be very careful to frame up the image on the GG correctly. Wayne has offered to update my SG with a better base plate which is definetly needed to align the DVX up correctly with the GG. It annoyed me a little because the SG and the DVX felt like two rather delicate devices rather than one solid unit. A decent mount - like the sliding plate I chose not to buy (skint!) will definetly help here. I think that most mistakes will come from neglegence on the part of the crew not the equipment. There are a few shots which piss me off because we didnt spin the glass fast enougth and you can see the grain etc.

I think the image quality of the SG35 is absolutely brilliant, I fell in love every time I checked the monitor. It's just the mount that needs refining. Although the use of the adapter slowed up the production - it also made it far more interesting and fun for me and the DOP. We learnt a decent amount about lenses etc.

Thanks for your very informative review, Daniel.

I agree with you on the support though, Dan. Although the sliding plate really does help, which is now standard on the unit anyway. A few changes made since your unit, and also from suggestions from Nick Bartleet, who will be posting FX-1 footage shortly, is the use of shims to adjust camera height instead of the 4 bolts, and also a solid connection bewteen the camcorders thread and the rear of the SG. Hopefully we can meet up again like you said to make the changes to your unit and make it the best it can be!

Hey Wayne, I also have an FX1 and am pretty interested on your adapter, how would you say it compares to the Letus35a?

Sent you an email earlier today!

Also from your site I can't seem to be able to see the FX1 footage, both my MAC and PC's browsers freeze while trying. Can you post a direct link to it here?

Thanks Daniel. Are you saying that the camera and the unit aren't threaded together, they just sit against each other? Just curious.

Once you've got the things calibrated OK, would you think that steady cam shots, or handheld stuff would be an issue, or once it's lined up can you give it a reasonable amount of movement safely?

I'll probably throw more questions your way as I discover things I need to ask.

Thanks
Aaron

Aaron,
Yes the reason for this design was so that the user could fine adjust the centre of the 35mm frame to the centre of the LCD. However in practise, as Dan has found out, this can be a little unpractical. I have changed this and shipped of 2 units with a firm connection between the camcorder and the SG.

Also, the use of shims will be used very soon to adjust the camcorders height.

Ok here's some full res grabs. Just pulled them off my timeline with 85% jpeg quality.

http://www.mediafree.co.uk/major/fullres1.jpg
http://www.mediafree.co.uk/major/fullres2.jpg
http://www.mediafree.co.uk/major/fullres3.jpg
http://www.mediafree.co.uk/major/fullres4.jpg

As you can see the side of the adapter is in shot in almost all of these.. We were monitoring the footage in overscan which was a bit of a blunder. Wayne's new sliding plate mechanism will help you setup the cam properly and hopefully keep it in position. Enlarging the clips by 5% gets rid of the edge. No CC has been done on any of the grabs you've seen. I'll be doing that last after I've dabbled with shake to replace most of the overcast skies.

The images look sharper on my tv for some reason. Maybe its something to do with resolution. My unit doesnt like 'run and gunning' but with updates to the mount I cant wait to be a bit rougher with this baby. I used a fair amount of tracking which was never a problem.

Video coming soon...

Wayne, why don't you just make the camera mount on your rods height adjustable? No shims that way, and no hassles from other camera makes. The trick then is to make sure your frame is precisely centered in the adapter....but I'm guessing you're quite aware of that.

Dan, I responded to your thread over at dvxuser. Nice grabs..but you need to do some glass cleaning.

Dennis, what part do you mean to be adjustable? Dans unit has 4 bolts under the cam plate, to allow the cam to be raised or lowered. Please let me know more about your method.

EDIT: Im guessing your going from the old picture on my webpage, with the vertical rods to adjust the adapter height. This is an old system and now the camera mount adjusts in height. Is this what you meant, Dennis?

Yes, I was going by the web pics. Having the camera height adjustable is a good thing. Are the shims just to allow some vertical adjustment of the 35mm frame...by changing the cam/adapter angular relationship?

I assumed everybody was mounting using .75mm filter threads, but it sounds like you've moved to that method now too.

Dennis,
The shims replace the 4 bolts, and do the same job as the bolts (adjust the cams height) but its a little more solid and looks better. I have been told its the system the M2 uses.

SG35 video posted here.. http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=46013&page=5

Very nice work! What camera settings did you use to end up with this look?

Nice work Daniel. Apart from the footage, that's quite a filmic looking kid you've got there.

I'm sorry, im having a littel bit of trouble comprehending this sentence. Do you mean that you have to readjust the GG with every camera move or do you have to refocus the relay lens to the GG with every move. could you please elaborate?

this might be a dumb question, but why are dust and stratches showing up in the frames. doesnt the SG35 spin. just wondering why those grabs show some dirt. THat is some good lookin footage by the way. very film-like.

Hello,
Basically, Dans unit did not have a sliding plate, so the dvx would shift slightly from time to time. The sliding plate is a standard item on all new units.

As for the dirt, the ground glass is spinning, however the condenser lens is not, and some dirt has crept in onto that lens. The lens can be removed easily and cleaned.

ah. i see it now. thanks Wayne, and good work Daniel.

Gonna bump this thread again if you don't mind. Does anyone have any full res footage at high quality (Even only a few seconds) that I could download (I can give you an ftp location if you need it) I'd like to see what the adapter produces but on some non web compressed footage.

Cheers
Aaron

There were some HQ clips posted in this thread.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...highlight=SG35

I have been thinking about SG35 but there isn't enough information available about it. How big is the light loss? How much do I need to zoom in? There haven't been any in detail comparisons made (to Letus35 for example) I would love to see some of those.

The dvxuser adapter shootout will will be online in a week or so. SG35 and letusflip were tested amoung others.

We are no longer taking orders on the current version of SG35. We are working on the next version, SG35pro, which will be released in 1 - 2 months.


New features in the SG35pro will include:

Metal interchangable lens mount

Fully CNC machined aluminium 15mm rods support system

new higher quality optics, no distortion, no chroma abberation, no vignetting.

New smaller Die cast aluminium box for the main unit.

Fully sealed and dust proof

Smaller, ligher more compact.

improved internal ground glass mechanism.

runs on 2 AA batteries instead of 8AA's

Aimed price of £300 - £400

Wonderful! Im trying to gather the money to buy one of these things and they just keep getting more expensive! Ill be going berserk soon. All tough those improvements sound pretty cool! Sounds like something worth the money.

Thanks,
Im currently getting together with Les Bosher ( http://lesbosher.co.uk/ ) to do the machining of the support and lens mounts. Once i get a final quote I can completely the prototype and will be ready to take orders. Turnaround on the SGpro will be much quicker then with the first version.

Will the SG35Pro have the image rightsideup? Any chance you'll have an adapter with that feature by June? Thanks.

Hi,
No the SGpro will have an image upsidedown.

We have no solid plans on a flip version, but will continue research.

Wayne, you once mentioned that the SG35 would work with a Sony HC1. Would this still be the case with the SG35 Pro?

Hi,
Yes, it certainly will, via step rings from 72mm.