But, not sacrificing a ton of quality. Anyone have advice?

I have an A1.

Here is an example of a self made adapter:

http://www.stage6.com/user/fss328/video/1701235/a-trysting-place

You might not understand the short film but you can look at his other music videos.

The point is that you don't need alot of money to buy one if you know how to build one yourself. He build it with the Redrock DIY plans and use a SGpro Achromat. Also with an good lighting and good lens is needed.

The Redrock plans are quite similier to this one here:

http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/dof/index.htm

That my friend is the cheapest.

35mm adapters are only part of tools and will make your movies look good, you still need more then just an adapter to make good movies. If you look around , just think about how much you want to spend on lenses and follow focus, rods system, HD monitor. mattebox , filters and light . Then after that you go for the adapter that you can afford.

Thank you David, that was extremely helpful. Pretty amazing footage for a self made adapter.

Yeah, This guy builded his own adapter ,hacked his HVX VF , and the lenses he was using were just amazing (CARL ZEISS Distagon 28/2.8 ,Distagon 35/1.4 ,Planar 50/1.4 ,Planar 85/1.4 ,Sonnar 135/2.8 ,NIKON 20/2.8., NIKON AF-S ED 17-35mm/2.8D 80-200/2.8D)

Check it out here:

http://allstar-cine.myweb.hinet.net/html/ALLSTAR35%20HD.htm

Man those Korean subtitles really help me out... : )

Hee hee, they are Chinese subtitles :P not Korean..