Does "low cost adapter" mean anything anymore?
 

I find it interesting that we have gone from the P+S $11,000+ adapter, to the redrock guides ($45.00 to start then up to $50.00 or the finished product of the micro 35 for $500 -at the time), to the original Letus ($300.00 1/2 if you beta - that $150.00!) to the Guerilla35 (sub $1000) and now the Redrock M2 ($999.00) with rails.
Now all of the adapters being sold are sub $1000.00 or more and nothing really under $500.00. Does low cost mean anything anymore? I do realise it is a relative term, but since the prices of camcorders have gone down, the cost of the adapter has gone up!
I am not taking the piss out of anyone here pushing their products because I know 1st hand it takes alot of time and effort to test and manufacture these things (even with the small progress I have made with my follow-focus unit is taking forever). But I wonder if the days of the true low cost adapter are numbered...

dirt cheap solution
 

Pls drop some wax on a dirty filter and get a cheap magnifier in front of ur Dv/HDV camera, mount a 35lens, glue everything together or use duct tape.
almost free
u can make a unique look
JY

Don't be surprised, we already are on the way with homedepot bags (great idea) and the nivea cream!

Not to be the unwelcomed salesman, but I am in fact selling a $209 adapter in a couple of weeks. If you do the research yourself on the cost of a good custom made achromat, you'll see that combined with a custom machined tube and lens mount, I'm not going to be carrying away bags of cash from the endeavor. It's going to be a solid, decent product -- better than many of the DIY projects I've seen around and certainly makes some of my earlier efforts seem laughable by comparison. At $550-600, the Go35Pro isn't cheap, but when compared against products of similar optical quality (e.g. the Guerilla35), it's hardly expensive.

It's really all about the quality of the achromat and diffuser that makes any of these products expensive. For instance: Dennis Wood's Brevis uses an optical acrylic micro-machined diffuser -- the machines which control this kind of process cost upward of $30k, so you have to rent, and setup fees for anyone looking to have a piece machined to spec are pretty expensive. Then there's the cost per piece, where if you're looking to save you have to buy in bulk numbers. Bill Maxwell's screens are great, but at $75-100 a piece, with the price break point at 26 units or more, you can see how quickly stuff like this adds up... so while initial adapters were made of cheap, off-the-shelf disparate parts, as we've all learned to perfect our products, component and consequently final sales costs, have risen accordingly.

Also... you've got to look at the costs of ensuring consistency -- these Home Depot bags and Nivea cream adapters are good for one-offs and personal projects, but if you aim to sell to a number of people with a short turnaround time, I think the results are questionable.

A spinner is still in my opionion a "cheap" adapter. On the other hand isn't $300 much money compared to what a lot of camcorder accessories cost, or the camcorder itself. Especially if you compare it to the dramatic difference an adapter makes...

I agree with you Jim, there is alot of cost and effort involved. I think a $209 adapter is a great place to start and brings it back down to reasonable cost. I just think that with all of these adapters filling up the marketplace, there should still be a smaller market for those that want to get it for alot less price.

I cant hold back my admiration. Jim did something Gue-s dreamed about for years. And without any prefacing marketing noise.
Just waiting for new footage. Jim, don't forget about fisheye and small iris samples.

when i purchased my first "commercial dvinfo" adapter (a used letus35a) i thought i was spending alot of money. With the letus35xl arriving today costing more than twice as much as what i paid for the first one i am still under the impression that i am getting a steal. Ive gone down the road of trying to make my own out of cheap DIY adapters out of readily available materials. But at this point if i want to achieve the image im going for and a proffesional looking and sturdy unit then i cant expect to pay a couple hundred dollars for it. Quality does come with a price. PRice for good parts, price for a good machined unit. And that price is now much less than $12,000. I consider my adapter to be one of the most important part of my kit, so i dont mind payng for what im getting back 100 times over in return.

also it seems that everyone who does offer these commercially originally come out with an extremely low cost first model at first. then as they discover how to improve upon their idea they relaise that with the improvements comes added cost on their end, which reflects in the higher cost on our end. Congrats to those still trying to develop something under the $300 range. Its those EXTREMELY low cost options that turned me on to these in the first place. cant wait to see what you've come up with jim.

I believe you can still buy the original Letus35 for $300...so just because he has made advances, doesn't mean he isn't still offering a cheaper version.
http://www.letus35.com/letus35.html

I also tried to make my own adapter...and I spent about $200 on it, and weeks of tinkering and it still isn't near as good as the Letus. So, is the extra $100 worth it? To me...yes. And the extra few hundred to have a flip version that mounts onto my XL H1 without needing the stock lens is also worth it to me.

This forum DID start with tons of ideas on making your own adapters for cheap...but at that time, there were not many other options. You had P+S for $12,000 or you could make your own.

Now that there are some really nice adapters that you can buy and avoid all the trouble and reseach involved in making your own...people are doing more buying than making. Is that bad? I don't think so. Are these adapters getting better in quality and hence price? Yes...is that bad? I don't think so. There are still plenty LOW COST adapters out there. Or you can always take the time to build your own. :)

Jason and Andrew...my thoughts exactly. I think the low cost adapters like Jim's are great..they expose a lot more shooters to the "joys" of adapters. I can only speak from own experiences getting the Brevis to manufacture, and at its price point, I believe it's quite a bargain. To do a "one off" of it would easily run 2 to 3 times it's selling price, and that's assuming your own time is free.

DIY is really not about saving money IMO. It's more like a hobby. Geez, I spent over $1000 building my own dolly...mostly buying parts I later found out didn't work so well. Factor in my time at minimum wage, and that's one expensive dolly. Was I happy and satisfied with the accomplishment? Sure. Was it cheap? Nope.

Did some testing with the DVX today. I don't have any fisheyes around, but as for small iris, let's just say at f/5.6 on the Nikon 50mm 1.4, you're going to be impressed with what you see eventually. I've also got an f/2.8 35-70mm zoom that I will be shooting with soon. Unfortunately the meeting was rushed and marred by other issues so the footage won't appear for a bit, but I'll post some stills in the Go35 footage thread while I set up more shoots.

What's a Nivea spinner?
 

Sorry if this has been answered. Thanks

I like how people compare against optical quality of a product that hasn't even been released.

Some beta G35's were released, but their design - the one you're comparing against - was completely abandoned since G35's goal was to create a higher quality image than that. So by your own admission you'll be selling a product of similar optical quality as something G35 deemed unacceptable. :o/

No, some. :-)

And FWIW, from what I've gotten out of G35, what they dreamed about was creating an adapter on par with the standards they defined. Jim hasn't done that. Neither has G35 yet. I admire their principles and tenacity.

Actually, the G35 betas proved exciting enough that over 200 people signed up for the pre-orders. You wrote a rather glowing review of the quality of the adapter about a year ago:

Either 200+ people were duped and your expressed amazement was dishonest (or not to be trusted at any rate), or the G35 betas indeed set a standard worth shooting for.

Or, perhaps your standards have changed in the time that has passed -- congratulations, I, too am a firm believer that we all should strive to improve ourselves with each day.

As for the quality of their forthcoming adapter, I wish them well.

Speaking for my own standards, the bar has been raised (see: http://cinevate.com), and I intend to release a product that stands shoulders with adapters of this quality as well.

- jim

Jim Lafferty, you certainly like to twist words around. Just because I or anyone were impressed with the G35 at that time, doesn't mean Jonathan and crew reached their goal.

I pointed out that they abandoned the design yet you say "Actually it proved exciting enough that..." I never said it wasn't exciting. I said they abandoned it. Which is true.

You continue, "Perhaps your standards have changed." Again, twisting my words. I said G35 abandoned it since it didn't meet their goal. I didn't even mention my standards. End of story.

Three cheers for lowing the bar in the "classy" department, by even implying my words on the subject were dishonest or not to be trusted. So far in this discussion you are the only one attempting to twist words or put words into another's mouth. And, you are the one trying to sell a product. Hmm.

On that point, I recall a post from you saying something about how wrong it was that G35 allegedly took the sweat of the collective brow of this forum and was going to try to make a profit by it. Funny how you've changed camps.

Personally I think your adapter sounds great. Some of the footage had massive distortion and abberation at hte edges, but other footage looked good so far (though it never said how far stopped down the lens was at any one point, in the Caterpillar test footage). But your negative slant toward G35 bugs. And until you sell some product, don't forget your adapters are still vapor too.

You should check the footage again -- the lens settings are noted with the large lettering at the bottom of the clip, and within the post the clip is linked from. It's the same 50mm 1:1.4 lens in other clips, at between f/2.8 and f/11 throughout. Frankly, much of it was shot at f/5.6 and f/8, but I didn't want to bother with taking note with each shot and have to change the titling accordingly -- seems like a lot of unnecessary work.

I've publicly, and repeatedly, made note of the edge distortion and major chroma aberrations, and they've since been fixed, which is evident in the most recent clip posted (and the whole reason for putting that clip together in the first place.)

You seem to be a little confused elsewhere, too, when you write: "I said G35 abandoned it since it didn't meet their goal. I didn't even mention my standards. End of story." I know you didn't mention your standards -- I was anticipating the mention of them in a forthcoming response, since we already seem to have mine and the G35 team's sufficiently covered by the discussion. I was allowing you an opportunity to say that your excitement a year ago has since proven unfounded, especially given that it was a response to a product that is, in light of recent events and implied by you here, now deemed "unacceptable." Just so we're clear: you've now stated that I'm releasing a product that is simultaneously beneath someone else's standards, but evidently great enough that it got your ringing endorsement.

I think it's plain to anyone looking in where your allegiances lie, Bill, and things you've written toward me here, whether outright or implied, are clearly negative. From "by your own admission you'll be selling a product of similar optical quality as something G35 deemed unacceptable. :o/" to "until you sell some product, don't forget your adapters are still vapor too" -- backpedalling behind semantics won't hide the fact that comments like these aren't exactly encouraging.

I'd regret having responded in the first place if it weren't for the fact that I feel letting attacks stand unanswered isn't the appropriate solution, either. But I find the content and character of the rest of your post, and any possible response, to be taking an innevitable turn downward. I'm not about to waste my time like that -- I've got a product to pull out of the aether :)

- jim

Hardly unnecessary considering A) the viewer has no way to know when you were at F11 or for how long, B) multiple potential customers have asked for it, and C) your competition did it without even being asked.

Anticipating my standards is nothing more than putting words in my mouth. And to correct you, my excitement wasn't unfounded, nor is the original G35 "an unacceptable product." It simply didn't meet the manufacturer's own goals. It did meet the standards of lots of other people who are still begging for one, even a static one.


Absolutely! What kind of car do you drive? You and thousands of other people with the same car may love it every bit as much as I love that G35 footage. But if it's a Japanese, Korean, American, French, Italian, or British car, does it meet the standards of Mercedes Benz (except for the C-class)? Nope.

My allegiances lie with anybody who doesn't flame other potential vendors. Jon of G35 and Quyen Le are two people who impress me to no end in that vein. But to imply I'm biased against you is false. If you can come up with an adapter that suits me, and release it at an appropriate cost, I may even buy one!

You on the other hand...
It's clear with whom you have a bone to pick, as evidenced by your earlier posts.

Before you falsely assert that I'm backpedalling, don't you try to twist my words yet again. I haven't backpedalled one bit: Where did I state that the G35 is currently available?

Eagerly awaiting your retraction and apology,
Your potential first customer in line,
BP


And now back to regular programming on this thread about low cost adapter...

Show me that clip, please.

It was on G35's site. I have it saved locally. Email me if it's no longer on their site, and I'll email it to you.

Though whether the competition did it or not is hardly the best reason to do something that your potential customers are asking for.

Has anybody compiled a wiki or anything of all the different methods, dead ends and how they perform against each other? That way newcomers could get straight to it.

There is a wiki entry that gives you a good overview of the principles of the process: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field_adapter

When the time comes, I think I can put together a pretty massive "adapter shootout" article and have plans in place to do so. The idea would be to do a series of DVXs, one without an adapter, one with the SD, one with the Pro, and one with a leading moving adapter. It will take some doing, so don't expect it up right away...

Thanks, had a look at that wiki entry, nice summary of the basics, but it does not summarise other information. I was hoping for something that summarised all the essential information, descriptions of different techniques, and parts links into one readable database. So new comers can learn everything quickly without repeating questions. It would probably be ten to a hundred times bigger, with detailed construction information about HD and different methods, like the newer plastic bag methods. I point people to these projects but there is a lot of information and threads to go through.

I previously suggested a online database that everybody could submit information into and changes, moderated and cleaned by local moderators, maybe a wiki.

Sounds good. I'd be willing to help, if you'd like. I've done a hell of a lot of experimenting in recent months, and I now have a good grasp of some of the more thorny particulars and would be willing to share them.

When go-35.com goes live, I'm thinking of having a "DIY Corner" on the forum and had planned on doing this sort of thing anyway...

- jim

It really doesn't matter what manufacturer says! Public doesn't even know what adapter were used taking those demo clips. Was it letus or g35 in guerilla case. What does matter is what another customer says. So we know about number adapters that they exist at least :) . Jim, You have to get Your adapter out ASAP to save yourself from such debates.

What i like personally by Your adapter is it's static. Static still have many advantages.

I think you're stretching things a bit -- I supplied pics of the adapter and went on shoots with another person who can tell you that the adapter does indeed exist and works as shown in the clips.

But your overall point is spot on -- too many naysayers willing to nitpick, which is why I've pretty much stepped away from doing updates until the thing is dressed up and ready to go out :)

- jim

I'm very sorry if i leave such impression. It would be silliest thing to say right now after You just anounced Your adapter gave out already some footage. Building such adapter and giving some chewable public output(web, news, pics footage) in the same time - it's truly nightmare. I know.
And once again it's static - i very much hope - this thing gonna rock, same time still static :) .