Brevis35 test, same scene different lenses, HVX

[Ken Willinger]

I only got this Brevis35 (Rev1) a few days ago and am in the process of testing it. I've done a very low lit indoor scene to test how the Brevis works in low light, along with the HVX. I shot everything wide open. The lenses are Nikon and the video is marked to which lens is recording which scene. The slowest lens was the 17mm at F 2.8. The scene was lit with a Kino Flo Diva light dimmed to about a third of it's output and lamped at 3200K. The practicals in the ceiling were 3 60W spotlights. The hanging lamp in the background is 40W.
I've found focusing very difficult, especially on the wider lenses. The 17mm was the most difficult and I think it looks soft. The focus plane for all the shots is at about where the tomato is. I don't have an HD monitor and instead was using a 7" Panasonic LCD SD monitor. There are pics attached of my setup.
You will also see if you look closely to the right edge of the frame a little bit of movement from the vibrating Ground Glass. I wasn't zoomed in enough. Even though I go past the safe area in the HVX viewfinder, you still have to go a bit further. This ruined a lot of the tests I did outdoors (that's why we call them tests!!)
http://homepage.mac.com/getken/hdtes...Theater47.html

[Alex Chong]

Nice footage. Pity you can't get a good zoom in on the image when using the 17mm. Otherwise, very film look.

[Alex Chong]

I had to add another point. I have not seen many footage taken with just the HVX without the adaptor but that is one good camcorder. Now, how am I going to save up and get one? I hope the price on these camcorder go down. I own a PV593 (MX500) good daylight shots but crappy night shots.

[Frank Hool]

This is really cool. The very first test where somebody had courage to put for downloading footage with wideangle lens. And result is amazing! You have just the same vignetting with Your wide as Your portrait(fully acceptable vignetting) . You must have very good(read: expensive) 17mm. What it is if it's not secret? I've tested Canon 17-40/4.0. Thisone was good as well, but Yours is slightly better IMO.

PS. Doorway to livingroom is a bit confusing :)

[Dennis Wood]

You were probably a bit on the low side for lighting there Ken, but the test looks great. I love the look of your 17mm. For these WA lenses, GG to flange distance is critical, so you really need to make sure it is correct. I've got a F4 17-28mm here that has way too much falloff at the edges for my taste. Yours looks very usable.

Try setting up a few of those lenses on a static scene with decent light (text might work well) and varying the f stop of both your HVX and 35mm lenses. You'll find a sweet spot for sharpness, and then work from that for DOF desired.

[Jaadgy Akanni]

Originally Posted by Frank Hool

This is really cool. The very first test where somebody had courage to put for downloading footage with wideangle lens. And result is amazing! You have just the same vignetting with Your wide as Your portrait(fully acceptable vignetting) . You must have very good(read: expensive) 17mm. What it is if it's not secret? I've tested Canon 17-40/4.0. Thisone was good as well, but Yours is slightly better IMO.

PS. Doorway to livingroom is a bit confusing :)

I have to disagree with your comment on vignetting. No vignetting is acceptable when it's unintended, especially when it's more pronounced on one side than the other as the one I see here. Now, the HVX is one hell of a camera-crisp as hell, so I was surprised to see that much difference in sharpness between the camera with the 35mm lenses and the clean shots. Take a look at the following video shot with an HVX and a RedRock M2:
http://www.redrockmicro.com/footage/...M2_edit1_7.mov

and this one on a DVX100 for MTV Brazil:
http://taubkin.dvxhost.com/Reveillon_Ecos.mov

[Frank Hool]

First of all Jaadgy, i try to explain everybody else who have no intention to dig deep to find out what adapter does what. Brevis uses fullframe( http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost....74&postcount=1 )(24x36) vs M2 Academic(16x22). As You see M2 just cuts of 8mm vert and 14mm horiz vignetting! I'm sure You can do it with Brevis - Just zoom over the vignetting! With M2 You have to do FL conversion ( http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost....11&postcount=3 , http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost....73&postcount=5 ). which takes 100% away possibility to use 17mm lens as it known in still photography. So if You want compare brevis and M2 in anyways same conditions You just have to zoom brevis in(which is in real situation stupid thing) or to use 17/1.6 = 11mm lens with M2 (which is pretty impossible - i mean to get falloff free picture). Those two cases guarantee for You comparable AOV. And what is more important than AOV if You're already choosed to shoot with wideangle?

Second, i ment under acceptable that it can be compensate in post. It means chroma doesn't suffer under odd insufficent lighting. If it does then it means Your picture edge areas will be after compentsating grey because of lack chroma information.

Third, Samples. Neither of those don't seem shot with wideangle at least in such terms - 17mm(in Redrock's case 11mm). You can find even harder vignetting from first sample(20sec) - this goes under my second chapter.

[Dennis Wood]

Jaadgy, I'm not too worried about Brevis sharpness on the HVX :-) Check out Bob and Hrafn's clips:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=72958

There are way too many variables involved to assess these qualities based on one person's posted footage. Ken's footage used a focus point in the middle of the table, which gives the impression that the footage is soft because the foreground and background are both out of focus.

Also keep in mind that the Brevis GG is tweaked for 16:9 cameras to take advantage of a larger than standard frame when using faster lenses! Who said we have to stick to 24x36? In fact, you would need to zoom in significantly past the edges of the GG to get to a 36mm frame width...and that would take care of vignetting with slower WA lenses.

Also, the Rev2 adapters have XY tuning abilities..the rev1's (like Ken's) didn't.

[Ken Willinger]

Frank, I must make a correction. Upon further inspection of the fisheye lens I have discovered that it is not a 17mm, it is in fact a 16mm:
Nikon AF Fisheye 16mm Nikkor
Here's a foto:

[Frank Hool]

Ken, if You have more footage with that one just share with us.

[Ken Willinger]

I'll try to post something else I recorded with it soon.

[Bjørn Sørensen]

Ken,

the monitor you have mounted at the camera, which one is this? Are you satisfied with it?

[Bob Hart]

Frank.

If you want wide-angle comparison, there are shots from f2.8 14mm Sigma and f4 12-24mm Nikon at this address. It is a big file and is half-frame rate to preserve some resolution.

http://www.filefactory.com/file/fcebfe/